Dream Content Study in Chronic Schizophrenics and Normals by RE MP-A wakening Technique
Teruo Ōkuma, Yuzuru Sunami, Etsuo Fukuma, 博之 吉留, Mitsuo Motoiku
Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences September 1, 1970 DOI: 10.1111/j.1440-1819.1970.tb01470.x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational comparison study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 55 |
| Population | 21 schizophrenic patients and 34 normal subjects |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Citations | 12 |
| Key findings | Schizophrenic participants showed longer dream-reporting latency, shorter spontaneous reports, more needed examiner questions, lower next-morning recall, and shorter narratives with fewer clauses than normal subjects. Their dreams less often were coherent, complex, or bizarre, more often contained color, featured family members more and friends less, and included more unpleasant emotions. The authors suggest these dream features reflect the inner experiences of schizophrenics. |
Abstract
There has been a relatively few studies on the dreams of psychotic patients though the new technique of studying dreams during the rapid eye movement period of sleep (REMP) has been established in these 10 years. The present study was performed on 21 schizophrenics and 34 normal subjects to investigate the nature of content of dreams collected by using the technique of awakening the subject during REMP. In schizophrenic subjects, the latency of dream reporting was longer, the length of time of the spontaneous dream reporting was shorter and a larger number of examiner's supplementary questions was necessary than in normal subjects. The rate of dream recall in the next morning was lower in schizophrenics. Analysis of the sentence of the dream narratives revealed that, in schizophrenic subjects, the number of words as well as conceptual elements (clauses) in a spontaneously reported dream narrative was much smaller than that of normal subjects. As to the nature of the dream content in schizophrenic subjects, the incidences of coherent dream, complex dream, and dreams with bizarre elements were lower than those of normal subjects. The incidence of dream with color was higher in the schizophrenic subjects. There was no significant difference in the incidence of experimental elements in the dream content between schizophrenics and normal subjects. No significant difference was found in the number of characters per dream in schizophrenics and normals except for the lower incidence of a crowd of people in the former. As to the type of character in the dream, the incidence of family members was higher and that of friends lower in schizophrenics. The incidence of pleasant emotion in the dream was similar in normal and schizophrenics, whereas those of unpleasant feelings such as sadness, anger, fear and anxiety were higher in schizophrenics. As to the interpersonal emotional relationships in the dream, the tendency that the male dreamer was aggressive to male and friendly to female characters whereas the female dreamer was aggressive to male and aggressive as well as friendly to female characters, was observed in both normal and schizophrenic subjects. It was suggested that the features of dream reporting and dream content in the schizophrenic subjects seemed to reflect fairly accurately the characteristics of the inner experiences of schizophrenics.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Student volunteers trained to become lucid and signal lucidity with horizontal eye... | 2009 | Observational study | n = 6 |
| 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 |
| The prevalence of nightmares and their independence from anxiety. Undergraduates | 1990 | Observational study using daily dream logs | n = 220 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 9
- Continuity between waking life and dreams of psychiatric patients A review and discussion of the implications for dream research University Library Heidelberg 2014
- Quantitative-Qualitative Assessment of Dream Reports in Schizophrenia and Their Correlations with Illness Severity. Brain Sciences June 3, 2024
- The dreaming brain/mind, consciousness and psychosis. Consciousness and Cognition December 2011
- Bizarreness in dream reports and waking fantasies of psychotic schizophrenic and manic patients: empirical evidences and theoretical consequences. Psychiatry Research March 24, 2011
- NonREM sleep mentation in chronically-treated persons with schizophrenia. Consciousness and Cognition December 1, 2010
and 4 more in the library