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Personality and dreaming: Boundary structure and dream content.

Ernest L. Hartmann, Rachel Rosen, William M. Rand

Dreaming March 1, 1998 DOI: 10.1023/b:drem.0000005913.21794.1f (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Observational study Peer reviewed
Sample size 80
Population Patients seen at a sleep disorders center
Measures Boundary Questionnaire
Topics Dreaming
Citations 68
Key findings Thinness of boundaries correlated significantly with dream length, vividness, detail, and emotion, and showed trends for aggressive interaction and nightmare-likeness. Controlling for dream length removed these significant relationships. Thin boundaries correlated significantly only with a dream-content factor combining length, vividness, detail, and emotion. The authors propose that the thick-to-thin boundary trait continuum resembles the state continuum from focused waking thought to dreaming, both referring to the same aspects of cortical activity.

Abstract

Prior studies indicate that a personality dimension reflecting thin versus thick boundaries is related to global ratings of dream vividness, amount of emotion, and amount of interaction. In the present study, these relationships were examined by relating scores from the Boundary Questionnaire ( Hartmann, 1991) to dream content among 80 patients seen at a sleep disorders center. Thinness of boundaries was significantly correlated with dream length, vividness, amount of detail, and amount of emotion, and showed a trend towards correlation with aggressive interaction and nightmare-likeness. When dream length was statistically controlled, the relationships between boundary structure and dream content were no longer statistically significant, although amount of emotion and amount of detail showed a trend in the original direction. A principal components analysis was used to identify three factors in the dream content data (eigenvalues > 1.0). The first factor involved dream length, vividness, detail, and emotion; the second involved love/tender interaction and sexual interaction; and the third involved aggressive interaction. Thinness of boundaries showed a significant correlation with only the first factor. We suggest that the trait continuum ranging from thick to thin boundaries is similar to the state continuum running from focused waking thought to dreaming, and that both continua refer to the same aspects of cortical activity.

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Study Year Design Participants
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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
Dreaming in NREM Sleep: A High-Density EEG Study of Slow Waves and Spindles Healthy human subjects 2018 Observational cohort n = 14

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