The Identification of Spiritual Content in Dream Reports

A new scoring system, the Casto Spirituality Scoring System, can reliably identify spiritual content in dream reports. Two independent judges achieved high inter-rater reliability when scoring 280 dream reports from dream seminars in six countries and from individuals in spiritual development programs. Fifty-nine of the 280 reports contained spiritual content as defined by the system. The results are promising but further research is needed to fully demonstrate the system's usefulness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This investigation was designed to evaluate a new dream content measure, the Casto Spirituality Scoring System. Therefore, our research question was: "Can the spiritual content of dream reports be identified and measured?" We randomly selected 20 male and 20 female dream reports obtained in dream seminars in each of six countries. We added 20 dream reports from one U.S. female and one U.S. male undergoing "spiritual development" programs. Of the 280 dream reports in our collection, 59 contained spiritual content, according to our definition of "spiritual" as one's focus on, and/or reverence, openness, and connectedness to something of significance believed to be beyond one's full understanding and/or individual existence. The research question was answered affirmatively in so far as the Casto Spirituality Scoring System yielded high reliability when the scores of two judges, working independently, were compared. These initial results are promising but further research needs to be done before the usefulness of this system can be fully demonstrated. Key words: dreams, spirituality, consciousness, survey