Dream content: Individual and generic aspects.
Consciousness and Cognition December 1, 2007 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2007.07.010 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Normal subjects |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Key findings | Dream reports cannot be used to identify the individuals who produced them when personal identifiers are removed. |
Abstract
Dream reports were collected from normal subjects in an effort to determine the degree to which dream reports can be used to identify individual dreamers. Judges were asked to group the reports by their authors. The judges scored the reports correctly at chance levels. This finding indicated that dreams may be at least as much like each other as they are the signature of individual dreamers. Our results suggest that dream reports cannot be used to identify the individuals who produced them when identifiers like names and gender of friends and family members are removed from the dream report. In addition to using dreams to learn about an individual, we must look at dreams as telling us about important common or generic aspects of human consciousness.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Student volunteers trained to become lucid and signal lucidity with horizontal eye... | 2009 | Observational study | n = 6 |
| Nightmare Prevalence, Nightmare Distress, and Self-Reported Psychological Disturbance Young adults with a mean age of 20 years | 2002 | Prospective observational study | n = 116 |
| Long-term effects of extreme situational stress on sleep and dreaming Survivors of traumatic events who complained of sleep disturbances, compared with... | 1987 | Case-control study | n = 11 |
| The relationship of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress to well‐being Adults who reported dreams | 2004 | Observational cohort | n = 147 |
| The prevalence of nightmares and their independence from anxiety. Undergraduates | 1990 | Observational study using daily dream logs | n = 220 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 7
- The kaleidoscope of bizarreness: The analysis of first-person-reports shows the relationship between dreaming and mind wandering to be complex. Consciousness and Cognition 2026
- Neurocognitive dynamics of spontaneous offline simulations: Re-conceptualizing (dream)bizarreness Philosophical Psychology February 27, 2022
- Body Schema Self-Awareness and Related Dream Content Modifications in Amputees Due to Cancer. Brain Sciences December 9, 2021
- Are delusional contents replayed during dreams? Consciousness and Cognition September 1, 2013
- Dreaming and insight. Frontiers in Psychology 2013
and 2 more in the library