Although dreaming is a private experience, dream sharing is a common experience for most people. Dreams are disclosed to romantic partners, friends, and relatives, and the sharing is often associated with enhancement of relational intimacy and stress relief (e.g., in the case of nightmares). Research has focused on factors that might affect dream sharing such as dream recall frequency, gender,...
Research has shown that external stimuli presented during sleep can affect dream content, thus reflecting information processing of the sleeping brain. Olfactory stimuli should have a stronger effect on dream emotions because their processing is linked directly to the limbic system. Because selective olfactory stimulation does not increase arousal activity, intense olfactory stimulation is...
The effects of sociodemographic variables on dream recall frequencies were investigated in a representative sample. Analysis indicated that age, sex, social class, and the size of the place of residence showed small but significant effects on the frequency of positively toned and neutral dreams. Women and inhabitants of large cities tended to report dreams more often than men and residents of...
Dream recall is naturally a prerequisite for eliciting dream content. Therefore it is of importance to study factors (e.g., personality traits) that might affect dream recall because these factors might bias the content analytic findings in the field of dream research. The present findings indicate that different aspects of dream recall (dream recall frequency, dream recall detail, long-term...
Dreaming is defined as mental activity which occurs during sleep. This review will focus on sleep disorders which have been studied in relation to dreaming: insomnia, sleep apnea syndrome, narcolepsy, and the restless legs syndrome. Dream recall is heightened in patients with insomnia and their dreams reflect current stressors. Whereas breathing-related dreams in sleep apnea patients are rare,...
Trimipramine is a sedating tricyclic antidepressant which is not only effective in the treatment of depression but also in primary insomnia. In contrast to most other antidepressants, trimipramine does not affect rapid eye movement sleep. In a large sample of depressive outpatients (N = 3926), the effect of trimipramine on dream recall and dream emotions was studied. The effect of trimipramine...
The present study investigated the nightmare frequency of patients with insomnia. Patients reported more often nightmares, especially when overall dream recall frequency was statistically controlled. Moreover, nightmare frequency was related to the severity of insomnia complaints. It would be interesting to study whether specific techniques for treating nightmares (imagery rehearsal therapy)...
Hartmann’s Boundary questionnaire was developed based on research regarding the personality of nightmare sufferers. Previous research showed that boundary thinness was not only related to openness to experience but also quite strongly to neuroticism. The aim of the present study was to develop a questionnaire measuring boundaries not related to neuroticism. The Boundary Personality...
Laboratory research indicated lower dream recall in children compared to young adults. However, the sample sizes of these studies are very small and the findings regarding home dream recall in larger studies are conflicting. The present study compared home dream recall frequency of 558 children (mean age about 10 yrs.) with a sample of young adults (mean age about 23 yrs) and found a marked...
The present study investigated the effects of socio-demographic variables on dream content in a representative sample. The analyses of 380 most recent dreams showed that almost none of the socio-demographic variables like age, gender, marital status, education, income, nor town (or city) of residence size was significantly related to general dream characteristics like dream length, bizarreness,...
Sexual dreams are quite common and many studies indicate that men report erotic dreams more often than women. A systematic exploration as to whether the frequency of erotic dreams is related to sexual behavior or fantasy in waking life – as would be predicted by the continuity hypothesis of dreaming – has not yet been carried out. Overall, 70 students completed a questionnaire about waking life...
SummaryMany studies have reported gender differences in dream recall. Data from 175 independent studies have been included in the analyses. Overall, estimated effect sizes in five age groups of healthy persons differed significantly from zero. Variables like measurement method and publication year did not affect the gender difference but age groups showed different effect sizes. The smallest...
The present study investigated the effects of sociodemographic variables on dream recall frequencies in a representative sample of 931 persons over 14 years of age. Analyses indicated that age, sex, and the size of the place of residence had small but significant effects: women and inhabitants of large cities tend to report dreams more often than men and residents of small towns. There was also...
The continuity hypothesis in its general form states that dreams reflect waking life: concerns, thoughts, and experiences (G. W. Domhoff, 1996; M. Schredl, 1999; I. Strauch & B. Meier, 1996). For example, athletes and sport students dream about sports more often than do psychology students, presumably reflecting their engagement in sport activities and sport theory (D. Erlacher & M. Schredl,...
Longer sleep duration should be related to dream recall (longer REM sleep), but previous findings regarding the relationship between habitual sleep duration and dream recall frequency have been conflicting, whereas experimental manipulation of sleep duration yielded a significant effect. The analysis of diaries kept by the 444 participants over 14 days indicated that intra-individual...
Incorporation of laboratory elements into dreams elicited in the sleep laboratory is a methodological problem, i.e., the measurement technique affects unwittingly the object of measurement (dream content). On a theoretical level, the occurrence of laboratory references, however, fits in the framework of the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. Reviewing the literature revealed that there is a...
In clinical praxis, the question as to whether it is possible – based on a dream report – to make any inferences about the characteristics of the dreamer often arises. For the present study, gender was selected for the matching task. The judges were able to match the dreamer’s gender based on a single dream report better than chance. The rate of correct decisions (57.5% to 64%), however, was...
Despite the fact that flying unaided is not possible in waking life, flying dreams have been reported fairly often. Over the centuries, a large number of scientists have speculated about the etiology of such dreams. Their occurrence in a student sample ( N = 444) was related to low neuroticism, openness to experience, boundary thinness, dream recall frequency and playing an instrument. The...
Whereas the effect of sex and age on dream recall have been studied widely, socioeconomic status has rarely been investigated. However, two studies reported that higher socioeconomic status was related to greater frequency of dream recall. In the present sample of 612 Chinese students from three different schools, one elite (high socioeconomic status), one rural (low socioeconomic status) and...
The authors studied the self-rated effect of dreams on creativity in participants who were not selected for creative abilities. Students (N = 444) and online respondents (N = 636) answered a questionnaire about dreams and creative dreams. In addition, the students completed several personality measures and creativity scales. Results indicated that dreams that stimulated waking-life creativity...
This review summarizes the available knowledge on the phenomenology of posttraumatic dreams. Posttraumatic nightmares are reported by up to 70% of individuals suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). An extensive review of polysomnographic studies suggests that neither this high incidence nor the occurrence of posttraumatic nightmares throughout the sleep cycle can be explained by...
In the 19th century, several authors held the view that nightmares are caused by oxygen shortage. The present study was designed to study nightmare frequency in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and its relationship to respiratory parameters. A brief questionnaire was administered to 323 patients with sleep apnea syndrome before their first laboratory night. The reduction in...
The present study investigated frequency of dream recall in children and their mothers. Overall, 88 mothers ( M age: 38.7 yr., SD = 5.0) and their children (45 girls, 43 boys; M age: 9.9 yr., SD = 1.3) participated. A small but significant positive Pearson correlation of .19 between the frequency of dreams reported by mothers and by their children is consistent with Cohen's 1973 hypothesis of a...
The present study investigated dream recall as well as nightmare frequency in families. Whereas a positive correlation for nightmare frequencies between children and mothers was found (but not for children and their fathers), the relationship for dream recall frequency was small and nonsignificant. Assuming that mothers are still the primary caregivers in the modern family, and, thus, might...
Based on the continuity hypothesis of dreaming, the effects of World War II on the dreams of German persons have been studied. The present study included four representative samples from 1956 to 2000 (repeated cross‐sectional surveys). Although a decline of war‐related dream themes over time was found, the heightened rate of these themes in the oldest age group (60 years and older) in the year...