The Dream Reports of Preadolescents and Adolescents
The MIT Press eBooks October 4, 2022 DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/14679.003.0009 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Longitudinal Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Children and adolescents, particularly ages 4-7 and 9-15, in dream studies |
| Key findings | Argues that young children do not dream frequently or complexly and have difficulty separating dreaming from waking, which explains the scarcity and limited value of early-childhood dream studies. By contrast, children aged 9 to 15, especially girls, are almost adultlike dreamers who can give lengthy dream accounts, making late childhood and adolescence more promising for dream research. |
Abstract
The results of both the laboratory dream studies and the studies of waking cognitive development explain why there are few studies of dream content in early childhood, whether inside or outside a laboratory setting.Young children do not dream frequently or with any complexity, and do not seem to understand the origins of their dreams.The first systematic attempt to collect dream reports from children ages 4-7, carried out 100 years ago, concluded that very young children have "great difficulty" in "separating the dreaming from the waking element" (Kimmins, 1920(Kimmins, /1937, p. 53), p. 53).More generally, these findings may explain why the results of the few nonlab interview studies of young children's dreams often differ in their results and have been of limited value.Studies of dream content based upon reports from late childhood and adolescence, which is also the time period in which the default network begins to become more adultlike, have shown more promise.As demonstrated in both of the longitudinal studies of older children and adolescents, participants between the ages of 9 and 15, and especially girls, are almost adultlike dreamers and are able to provide lengthy accounts of their dreams (Foulkes, 1982; Strauch, 2005; Strauch & Lederbogen, 1999).However, studies necessitating several visits to a sleep-dream laboratory are expensive and difficult to carry out.There are also problems in collecting dream reports from older children and adolescents in nonlaboratory studies, such as obtaining parental and school consent, gaining the cooperation of participants, maintaining high levels of participant motivation, and finding ways to encourage participants to voice record or write complete reports.This chapter therefore makes greater use of two underutilized nonlab methods of obtaining large and thorough samples of dream reports. The Dream Reports of Preadolescents and Adolescents