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Baseline Patterns in Dream Content

Kelly Bulkeley

The Scribes of Sleep July 4, 2023 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197609606.003.0010 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Qualitative content analysis Peer reviewed
Population Seven dream journalists
Topics Dreaming
Key findings The SDDb baselines enable comparison of individual dream content frequencies to ordinary dreams, identifying patterns as relatively high, low, or normal.

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.

Comparable studies

Other qualitative studies on dreaming, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
The Other as a Nightmare: The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams in Israel and the West Bank Jewish and Arab fifth to seventh graders living in various settings in Israel and the... 1989 Qualitative content analysis n = 212
Nonwaking Responses to Waking Stressors: Dreams and Nightmares1 Men from the cohort eligible for military duty during the Vietnam Conflict, varying in... 1990 Survey interview study n = 442
Communing with the Gods: The Dreaming Brain in Cross-cultural Perspective 2011 Phenomenological study
Partial memory reinstatement while (lucid) dreaming to change the dream environment. Lucid dreamers 2020 Qualitative study
Strange themes in pandemic dreams: Insomnia was associated with more negative, anxious and death‐related dreams during the COVID‐19 pandemic Global survey participants 2022 Longitudinal mixed-methods study n = 2,240

Citations in the library

Cites 4

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