Baseline Patterns in Dream Content

Dream journals of seven individuals are analyzed using a word-search method from the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb), which organizes dream content into forty categories across eight classes (Perception, Emotion, Characters, Movement, Social Interactions, Cognition, Culture, Elements). Word-usage frequencies are compared to SDDb baselines from a large representative set of ordinary dreams, allowing determination of whether an individual's dream patterns are high, low, or normal relative to typical dreams.

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Abstract

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 are analyzed in terms of this template of categories and classes of content, with their word-usage patterns presented as statistical frequencies. To provide a means of comparing and evaluating these frequencies, the SDDb also includes a set of “baselines” that constitute a large and representative set of ordinary dreams. The frequencies of word usage in the baselines can be very helpful in determining whether an individual’s dream patterns are relatively high, low, or normal compared with ordinary dreams.