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Gender Differences in Dream Content: Related to Biological Sex or Sex Role Orientation?

Michael Schredl, Franc Paul, Olaf Lahl, Anja S. Göritz

Imagination, Cognition and Personality October 1, 2010 DOI: 10.2190/ic.30.2.e (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Online survey Peer reviewed
Population Adults who completed an online survey about their most recent dreams
Topics Dreaming
Keywords Dream Sexual orientation Femininity Content measure theory Affect linguistics Developmental psychology Masculinity Aggression Orientation vector space Psychoanalysis Communication
Citations 15
Key findings Sex role orientation (femininity/expressivity and masculinity/instrumentality) affects dream characteristics that show gender differences, including sexual dream content and physical aggression. This supports the continuity hypothesis, but biological sex effects do not exclude other waking-life variables, such as sexual fantasies, from also influencing dream content.

Abstract

Despite the large number of studies addressing gender differences in dream recall and dream content, research regarding whether these differences might be affected by sex role orientation is rather scarce. The present online-survey included a large sample of most recent dreams. The results clearly indicate that sex role orientation (femininity/expressivity and masculinity/instrumentality) affect the same dream characteristics that show marked gender differences (e.g., sexual dream content, physical aggression). Whereas the effect of sex role orientation on dream content support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming, the effect of biological sex on dream content does not exclude that other variables (such as, for example, the amount of sexual fantasies during waking) have an effect on dream content in addition to sex role orientation. Thus, future studies have to elicit more waking-life variables in order to model the varying daytime experiences of men and women in order to investigate whether these daytime differences sufficiently explain gender differences in dreaming or whether biological factors are also of importance.

Comparable studies

Other cross-sectional and survey studies on dreaming, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
Insomnia Symptoms, Nightmares, and Suicidal Ideation in a College Student Sample Undergraduate students at a large, public university in the southeastern United States 2011 Observational cross-sectional survey n = 583
Prevalence and Correlates of Frequent Nightmares: A Community-Based 2-Phase Study Middle-aged Hong Kong Chinese adults from the community, mean age 40.9 years (SD 5.5,... 2010 Cross-sectional survey with subsequent clinical evaluation (two-phase design) n = 8,558
Factors of home dream recall: a structural equation model Adults (general population sample) 2003 Cross-sectional survey with structural equation modeling n = 444
The Phenomenology of Lucid Dreaming: An Online Survey Respondents to an online survey about lucid dreams 2014 Online survey n = 684
Frequency of Lucid Dreaming in a Representative German Sample Representative sample of German adults 2011 Cross-sectional survey n = 919

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