Who Keeps a Dream Journal? Sociodemographic and Personality Factors
Imagination, Cognition and Personality March 25, 2019 DOI: 10.1177/0276236619837699 (opens in new tab) via Semantic Scholar
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractPeople who frequently record their dreams tend to recall dreams more often, have more nightmares, and hold more positive attitudes toward dreams. Unexpectedly, conscientiousness was negatively linked to dream recording, a finding that needs further investigation. The roles of education and agreeableness in dream recording also remain unclear. These individual differences suggest caution is warranted when generalizing findings from long dream series to the broader population.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Cross-sectional survey Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 2,492 |
| Population | Adults who completed an online survey about dream recording |
| Keywords | Psychology |
| Key finding | Conscientiousness was negatively related to the frequency of recording dreams, while dream recall frequency, nightmare frequency, and attitude towards dreams were positively related. |
Abstract
A fascinating area of dream research is the analysis of long dream series. However, research regarding differences between long-term journalists and normal persons is lacking. The present online survey (N = 2,492) focused on the relationship between the Big Five personality dimensions and frequency of recording dreams. As expected, dream recall frequency, nightmare frequency, and attitude towards dreams were related to the frequency of recording dreams. Unexpectedly, conscientiousness was negatively related to recording dreams—a finding that warrants further research. Similarly, the effects of education and agreeableness on recording dreams are not yet understood. Given those interindividual differences, one should be cautious in generalizing findings obtained from long dream series.