Story-like organization of dream experience in different periods of REM sleep.

Dream reports from 16 subjects across an experimental night were analyzed using story grammar criteria. Reports from the second half of the night were longer and more complex due to more effective dream production, not better recall. This increase involved better organization of individual stories rather than more stories per time period. The findings raise questions about how dream production is re-triggered during REM sleep and whether themes across stories in a dream are interrelated.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Four dream reports, collected from each of 16 subjects in an experimental night, were analysed using the criteria of Mandler and Johnson's story grammar. The experimental night was the first of the four nights where subjects had spontaneously given a dream report after each of the four awakenings planned in REM sleep. A multivariate analysis of covariance, taking the order of the nights where the experimental night occurred and the order of reports as factors, the number of stories per report as covariate and the number of statements in the setting, the number of statements in the event structure and number of episodes per story as dependent variables, showed that the greater length and complexity of reports collected in the second half of the night depends on a greater effectiveness of the dream production system rather than on a greater accuracy of recall. This increase concerns the organization of individual stories rather than the number of stories developed in a given time. These findings raise the issue of how dream production is re-triggered during REM sleep. To cast light on this issue, it seems important to establish whether and how the themes of the various stories developed in a given dream experience are interrelated.