Relationship and personality factors predict longitudinal changes in dream content

Dreams are intensely social, populated by both strangers and known individuals. Over two weeks, most participant dreams included strangers alongside familiar people, and personality traits influenced the types of characters appearing. Comparing dream reports to participants' core support networks and daily diaries showed that relationship-specific factors and daily interaction predicted whether known individuals appeared in dreams. While daily contact generally increased the likelihood of dreaming about someone, the opposite held for close family members like parents or siblings, suggesting dreams may compensate for their absence by maintaining those relationships.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Researchers have established that dreams are intensely social and populated by diverse characters, including important figures from the dreamer's daily life. This study examines the types of characters that appeared in participant dreams over two weeks. We found that the majority of dreams include strangers in addition to known individuals, and that personality measures impact the likelihood of dreaming about different types of people. Appearance of known individuals from daily life in dreams was assessed by comparing dream reports to the core support networks of participants and daily diaries. We found that relationship-specific variables and daily interaction were important predictors of the likelihood of support network dream appearances. While daily interaction generally increases the likelihood of dream appearances, this effect is reversed for important family members like parents or siblings, indicating that dreams may play a compensatory role in maintaining relationships with close others when they are not present.