The Influence of Culture on the Experience and Interpretation of Disturbing Dreams

Abstract

This issue is devoted to an analysis of the relationship between trauma and dreams.With the exception of Deirdre Barrett's 1996 edited volume, this is a relatively understudied subject.Barrett (p. 2) suggests that the lack of attention has come about for two reasons.(i) Until recently many dream researchers-whether or not interested in nightmares and disturbing dreams-following Freud and his theory that dreams are disguised wish fulfillments, have been intent on tracing out the metaphoric and symbolic meanings of dreams rather than investigating what they might be expressing more literally about social and personal experience.(ii) Many trauma researchers, on the other hand, have focused on nightmares and repetitive, intrusive memories and flashbacks more as symptoms of PTSD or other psychiatric disorders, rather than as psychological phenomena worthy of study in themselves.The lack of attention may also have to do with the fact that there is still considerable ambiguity about what should be considered ''trauma.''This is reflected in Barrett's own organization of chapters: dreams following very severe and disturbing events such as war, incest, rape and firestorms are separated from those following the ''Traumas of Normal Living,'' which range from divorce to bereavement to becoming the recipient of a transplant.The latter types of experiences may surely be quite disturbing for people, but are they ''traumatic'' in the way we typically use that term?Barrett (1996, p. 3) notes that one pattern several researchers have found is that dreams immediately following a traumatic or disturbing event are often a fairly literal reenactment of the event, followed by ones that become more metaphoric or symbolic over time: