A Closer Examination of the Questionnaire about Dreams and its Relation to Creativity

Abstract

The relationship between attitudes towards dreams and creativity, (ideational fluency) was investigated in ninety-six subjects utilizing Domino's Questionnaire About Dreams (QAD) and a modified Wallach-Kogan battery. Although item analyses failed to replicate earlier findings regarding the discriminative utility of the QAD with regards to creativity, a subsequent factor analysis revealed two dominant factors accounting for 52 percent of the variance. These factors correspond roughly to educated versus mystical beliefs regarding dream origin. Mystical dream origin correlated negatively with one measure of ideational fluency. Results are discussed with regard to the future utility of the QAD in identifying creative individuals, and in clarifying the relationship between dreams and both creativity and psychopathology.

Replication of the Factor Structure of a Questionnaire about Dreams and its Relation to Creativity

“…While it is noteworthy that the factor structure resulting from the principal components analysis of Domino's [2] QAD is consistent with previous research [1], the large drop in percentage of total questionnaire variance accounted for must be stressed. It is plausible that random fluctuation in items not included in the two factors may be responsible for this drop.…”

“…The two dominant factors which emerged were comprised of exactly the same items which were found in Livingston and Levin's data [1]. These factors correspond roughly to educated vs. mystical beliefs about the origin of dreams (see Table 1).…”

“…Consistent with previous research, item analysis of the QAD again failed to discriminate creative from non-creative individuals. Taken together, these findings strongly suggest that the QAD may not be a valid research instrument.There are numerous references in both the anecdotal and empirical psychological literature suggesting both a direct and analogical (symbolic) relationship between dreams and creativity [1,2,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Some examples of creative productions derived directly from dreams include Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde [2], some of the famous musical compositions of *This research was completed in partial fulfillment of the first author's requirement's for the doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Yeshiva University.…”

“…Noting such methodological shortcomings of the QAD as absence of reliability, nonrepresentative sampling, questionable creativity criteria, and inadequate sample size, Livingston and Levin [1] attempted to replicate Domino's [2] findings. They administered the QAD along with a modified Wallach-Kogan [3] creativity battery to ninety-six university students.…”

“…Given the potentially promising relationship between dream attitudes and creativity, Livingston and Levin suggested that the QAD might still be a useful instrument despite the failure of individual items to discriminate creativity [1]. Further, noting the mildly paranoid flavor of many items comprising the mystical belief factor, the authors suggested that such dream beliefs may "help elucidate the mechanisms by which heightened access to and expression of primary process material becomes controlled in the service of the ego (creativity) or overwhelms the ego and emerges as blatant psychopathology" [1, p. 11].…”