Dreams by persons with mood disorders.
Marco Zanasi, Martina Pecorella, Carlo Chiaramonte, Cinzia Niolu, Alberto Siracusano
Psychological Reports October 1, 2008 DOI: 10.2466/pr0.103.2.381-394 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational comparative study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 100 |
| Population | Depressed patients, compared with a control group |
| Topics | Depression |
| Keywords | Humans Dreams Jungian theory Psychoanalytic interpretation Semantics Adult Female |
| Key findings | Depressed patients' dream reports differed significantly from controls in parameter values and in the dreamer's role as an external observer. Their reports were shorter, with fewer words, and contained fewer lemmas referring to sight. The authors suggest these results support textual analysis as a tool for studying dream material. |
Abstract
This work evaluated the structure of dreams in depressed patients. The verbal reports of dreams of 100 depressed patients were compared with 251 dreams of a control group. In accordance with the Jungian thought, which views dreams as texts, dream reports were assessed using textual analysis processing techniques. Significant differences were found in parameter values, as well as in the role of the dreamer as an external observer. Considering the length of the dreams' texts, depressed patients used fewer words than the control group. With regard to sensory field, there were fewer lemmas referring to sight for depressed patients than for healthy participants. This work seems to confirm the value of textual analysis in the study of oneiric material
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on depression, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metacognitive awareness and prevention of relapse in depression: Empirical evidence. Residually depressed patients and nondepressed controls; recovered depressed patients | 2002 | Observational cohort with intervention components | |
| Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression: fMRI-measured brain mechanisms. Patients with treatment-resistant depression | 2017 | Observational cohort | n = 19 |
| Antidepressant effects of a single dose of ayahuasca in patients with recurrent depression: a preliminary report Patients with a depressive disorder | 2015 | Observational study | |
| Concomitant BDNF and sleep slow wave changes indicate ketamine-induced plasticity in major depressive disorder Patients with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder | 2012 | Observational cohort | n = 30 |
| Altered peripheral immune profiles in treatment-resistant depression: response to ketamine and prediction of treatment outcome Healthy controls and actively depressed patients with treatment-resistant depression... | 2017 | Observational cohort | n = 59 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
- Continuity between waking life and dreams of psychiatric patients A review and discussion of the implications for dream research University Library Heidelberg 2014
- Examining dream content and meaning of dreams with English and Italian versions of the storytelling method of dream interpretation heiDOK (Heidelberg University) 2012
- Oneiric activity in schizophrenia: textual analysis of dream reports. Consciousness and Cognition May 15, 2010