Dream Content, Normative Dreams and Culture

What is dreaming tied with?

the spiritual world and has led to the development of dream incubation, dream interpretations, and attempts to classify and categorize dreams and their meanings

What is the dominant theory of dreams?

continuity hypothesis of dreaming

Who is the continuity hypothesis of dreaming based on?

Calvin Hall

What does the continuity hypothesis of dreaming state?

that dreams reflect waking day experience.

What does the compensatory theory of dreams state?

Dreams as outlet for emotions and thoughts that cannot be expressed during the day, or that are repressed, repressed thoughts can become preoccupations in dreams. Can serve to protect the psyche by allowing an exaggeration of intense emotions and desires

Who is the compensatory theory based on?

Jung

Support for continuity hypothesis

Questionnaires, Relationship dissatisfaction in waking day is related to dream jealousy in unhealthy relationships, daytime sexuality associated with sexual dream content and married people dream more of their partners than single people

Support for compensatory hypothesis

Women who are victims of past sexual abuse, differences in dream content depending on history of sexual abuse. Children who were exposed to violence and dangerous environments, intensive, and vivid dreams incorporating persecution and aggression and repressors and non-repressors, Repressors significantly more aggression in their dreams

What does the continuity theory ascribe?

No function to dreaming

What does the compensatory theory ascribe?

Function to dreaming

What is the threat stimulation theory

An evolutionary based theory which states that dreaming serves an adaptive function by simulating threatening events in order to prepare the dreamer to face danger in waking life- Revenues

What is the most precise and scientifically rigorous dream collection methodology?

In lab during sleep awakening technique

Disadvantage of lab studies

Not feasible for large samples and normative studies.

What is the most recent and balanced dream method?

Dream diaries

What are dream diaries?

writing down dreams remembered for prolonged periods (e.g., days, weeks, months) in a diary. Write down the last dream you remember having, regardless of whether the dream was the previous night, week, or month.

Advantages of dream diaries

More efficient than in-lab studies, but stronger than questionnaires and reliable and strong method for large dream collections with different age groups and for longitudinal studies.

Disadvantages of dream diaries

Includes only one dream of possibly other important dreams and are retroactive, recalled many days later, possible issues with memory recall

What is the most widely recognized dream analysis method?

content analysis

What is content analysis?

the foundation for a dream coding system  that would become referenced and utilized internationally, it remains the standard coding system and continues to be relevant in current dream research and systematically codes and quantifies the frequency of content of dreams by breaking down the dream into fine-grained categories

Scales for content analysis 

Characters, Interactions: Aggression, Friendliness, Sexuality, Activities, Success and Failure, Misfortune and Good fortune, Emotions, Settings, Objects, Descriptive Modifiers, Negatives, Temporal references, and Food,
and Eating.

Dreams in Childhood: 3-4 year olds

Usually only a sentence or two, often contains animal figures, activity of other characters, emotionally Neutral, no M/F sex differences in dream content, cognitive and emotional complexity of dreams reflects the child’s cognitive and emotional development

Dreams in Childhood: 5-6 year olds

Reports double in length, increase in physical and interpersonal activities, the dreamer remains passive in dealing with the other dream characters, sex differences begin to emerge: male strangers and untamed animals appear more frequently in boys' dreams, friendly interactions and happy outcomes appear in girls' dreams, girls' dreams are 'nice' ones, while those of the boys seem more preoccupied with conflict.

Dreams in Childhood: 7-8 year olds

Dreamer becomes more active participant, boys' dreams become more like those of girls and include family members and other boys of similar ages, these characters now appear more often than animal figures and male strangers, girls of the same age appear more often in girls' dreams than in boys' dreams.

Dreams of Children: 9 -12 year olds

The dreamer's involvement in the dream scenarios becomes more active, interaction with peers as family characters decline. Peer characters tend to be of the dreamer's own sex, friendly social activity, as well as dream pleasantness, increases. Sex differences appear with regard to the type of social interactions: Aggressive behavior in dreams decreases for girls, while it increases for boys 2:1, Boys focus on athletic and physical activities and girls display more concern with social relations.

Dreams of Adolescents: age 13-15

More troubled, settings become more vague, and character distortion is more noticeable. Other characters are increasingly described as angry, social behavior becomes less satisfying, and there are fewer happy interpersonal outcomes. Impulses involving aggression and sexuality appear to be stronger in males

What are typical dreams?

falling, flying, examination, teeth falling out or breaking

What are recurrent dreams?

Dreams that either repeat, follow a continuing theme or story, or variations of a theme, most are disturbing and generally are first experienced in childhood or early adolescence, likely to be more pleasant the later in life

Who mostly experience recurrent dreams?

Women

Nightmare

A dream with extremely intense negative emotions that causes the dreamer to wake up

Night terror

Occurs in SWS. Heightened autonomic arousal and poor/no recall of dream content. Dream content is not story-like.

Bad dream 

a dream which is frightening or contains negative emotions, but which does not awaken the sleeper

What is nightmare treatment?

Imagery Rehearsal Therapy

What is Imagery Rehearsal Therapy

the person is instructed to think of a nightmare and focus on the imagery and the scenes. The person is then told to think of the nightmare as a learned behaviour rather than a replay of traumatic events and emotions. The dreamer is guided to reimagine the nightmares with different, less frightening outcomes.

what does dreamer do with therapist for IRT?

They create detailed, nonfrightening endings for repeated nightmares, Write down and rehearse the nightmares with the new endings and learns how to monitor nightmares so they know how well the IRT treatment is working

Goal of IRT

"reprogram" your nightmares to be less terrifying if and when they occur again.