A Comparison of the Emotional Content of Dreams Recalled by Young and Elderly Women

Abstract

Twenty-four college and 37 elderly women kept diaries for six weeks, at the end of which they voluntarily submitted them for analysis. The college women selected significantly more emotions for their dreams than did the elderly women. Enjoyment-joy accounted for a significantly higher proportion of emotions in dreams of elderly than in those of college women; but anger-rage and fear-terror occurred significantly less often in dreams of the elderly. The results were interpreted as providing support for the continuity hypothesis which states that dream content is a reflection of one's daily life.

Emotions in the Diary and REM Dreams of Young and Late Adulthood Women and Their Relation to Life Satisfaction.

“…The young women reported more emotions in the laboratory than the older women, who, in turn, reported significantly more emotions in their diary dreams. This finding is at odds with those of Blick and Howe (1984), whose college women selected more emotions to describe their dreams than did the older women. In comparison, the older women of the present study were younger and more socially active than those in Blick and Howe's work, a fact that could explain, in part, that difference.…”

“…We predicted that, regardless of age, home dreams would have greater emotional intensity than laboratory dreams, especially in the case of positive emotions. As for the influence of age, in line with Blick and Howe (1984), we expected that negative emotions would be more intense among the young women and positive ones more intense among the older women. The conflicting findings about the intensity of emotions in different research settings made it hazardous to propose specific predictions with respect to the emotional intensity of dreams in each condition.…”

Cognitive Differences in Dream Content between English Males and Females Attending Dream Seminars Using Quantitative Content Analysis

“…Also, the age range of participants employed in this study was quite wide, with participants ranging from their 20s to their 70s. Dream researchers have pointed out that dream content can significantly vary with age (Blick & Howe, 1984;Hall & Domhoff, 1963a, 1963b. However, the age range was well represented in both participant groups, so the effect of this limitation may have been effectively minimized, although this was not statistically determined.…”

Emotion and Cognition: Feeling and Character Identification in Dreaming

“…Previous reviews and studies were done by eliciting dream reports and analyzing cognitive differences that occur in dreams and in waking (in, for example, Blick & Howe, 1984;Bosinelli, 1995;Cartwright et al, 1998;Cicogna et al, 1991;Domhoff, 1996Domhoff, , 1999Foulkes et al, 1988;Hall & Van de Castle, 1966;Hobson, 1988Hobson, , 1997Kahn et al, 1997;Kramer, 1993;Nielsen et al, 1991;Schredl & Doll, 1998). We have recently undertaken a study of how characters that appear in dreams are recognized (Kahn et al, 2000).…”