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Kelly Bulkeley

11 papers in the library · 97 citations · publishing 2014-2023

Papers

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New Approaches in the Empirical Study of Dreams

Poligrafi December 20, 2023 Kelly Bulkeley

Dream research is entering a new era of accelerating insights and discoveries, thanks to the rise of powerful digital analysis tools that are enabling important advances in the empirical study of dreams. This paper illustrates the use of these tools, drawing on the resources of the Sleep and Dream Database, a free online archive of information about sleep and dreaming. These tools include...

Baseline Patterns in Dream Content

The Scribes of Sleep July 4, 2023 Kelly Bulkeley

Abstract This chapter examines the dream journals of the seven main figures using a word-search method based on the resources of the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb). The SDDb provides a template of forty categories of content, grouped into eight classes: Perception, Emotion, Characters, Movement, Social Interactions, Cognition, Culture, and Elements. The dreams of the seven dream journalists...

Anomalous Patterns in Dream Content

The Scribes of Sleep July 4, 2023 Kelly Bulkeley

Abstract This chapter examines the dream journals of the seven main figures, looking for unusual and anomalous features of dream content. Whereas the previous chapter looked at the common patterns of dreaming, this one focuses on the patterns that stand out as uncommon and distinctive to the individual dreamer. Included is a discussion of the continuity hypothesis and the idea that patterns in...

Dreams, Race, and the Black Lives Matter Movement: Results of a Survey of American Adults.

Pastoral Psychology 2022 Kelly Bulkeley, Michael Schredl

This study considers the relationship between dreaming and race in light of the public protests following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Findings are presented from an online survey about dreams and the Black Lives Movement (BLM) gathered from 4,947 demographically diverse American adults sampled between June 15 and June 19, 2020. The results show that the people most likely to...

Dreaming and the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey in a U.S. sample.

Dreaming September 1, 2020 Michael Schredl, Kelly Bulkeley 66 citations

This study analyzes the responses of 3,031 U S adults who, in early May of 2020, completed an online survey regarding their dreams and the COVID-19 outbreak The results indicate that those people most strongly affected by the pandemic also reported the strongest effects on their dream life (heightened dream recall, more negatively toned dreams, and pandemic-related dreams) Pronounced negative...

The Dream of God: How Do Religion and Science See Lucid Dreaming and Other Conscious States During Sleep?

Frontiers in Psychology 2020 Sérgio Mota-Rolim, Kelly Bulkeley, Stephany Campanelli et al. 31 citations

Lucid dreaming (LD) began to be scientifically studied in the last century, but various religions have highlighted the importance of LD in their doctrines for a much longer period. Hindus' manuscripts dating back over 2,000 years ago, for example, divide consciousness in waking, dreaming (including LD), and deep sleep. In the Buddhist tradition, Tibetan monks have been practicing the "Dream...

The Meaningful Continuities Between Dreaming and Waking: Results of a Blind Analysis of a Woman’s 30-Year Dream Journal

Dreaming (New York, N.Y.) December 1, 2018 Kelly Bulkeley

This article reports the findings of a new exercise in the “blind analysis” of a long dream series. The study focused on 940 dreams of a woman (“Beverly”) who kept a regular dream journal for 30 years. Four subsets of her dreams (from 1986, 1996, 2006, and 2016) were analyzed using a digital word search template, and then predictions were made about Beverly’s waking life based on the word usage...

Dreaming: a gateway to the unconscious?

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences October 1, 2017 Steve Paulson, Deirdre Barrett, Kelly Bulkeley et al.

Where do our dreams originate from, and what do they tell us? Is there a universal set of symbols that are common to all dreams, regardless of a person's ethnicity or culture? What does dreaming reveal about the unconscious? Why do some dreams remain etched in our memories, whereas others are almost instantly forgotten? Some scientists have adopted the position that dreams are little more than...

The future of dream science.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences October 1, 2017 Kelly Bulkeley

This article describes the future prospects of scientific dream research. Three frontiers of investigation hold special promise: neuroscientific studies of the brain-mind system's activities during sleep (such as during lucid dreaming); systematic analyses of large collections of dream reports from diverse populations of people; and psychotherapeutic explorations of the multiple dimensions of...

Ritual Healing

Oxford University Press eBooks April 21, 2016 Kelly Bulkeley

Abstract This chapter examines the cross-cultural religious phenomenon of ritual healing in and through dreaming. The widespread practice of healing-oriented rituals involving dreams has always involved a religious framework in which the process unfolds. This chapter looks at ritual healing in the context of scientific research on big dreams. The discussion includes a detailed case study...

Digital dream analysis: a revised method.

Consciousness and Cognition October 1, 2014 Kelly Bulkeley

This article demonstrates the use of a digital word search method designed to provide greater accuracy, objectivity, and speed in the study of dreams. A revised template of 40 word search categories, built into the website of the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb), is applied to four "classic" sets of dreams: The male and female "Norm" dreams of Hall and Van de Castle (1966), the "Engine Man"...