Analyzing Modifications across Dream Reports

Abstract

Reports of 56 dreams from 5 subjects, given upon awakening during the second REMP, were analyzed and compared with a further 3 reports of each dream, obtained the following morning, 3 days, and 1 wk. later, using a system of Coding Units (CUs) and the Scoring System for Latent Structure of Foulkes. There were no significant differences between the second, third, and fourth reports, while the most important differences between the first and subsequent reports concerned: (a) a decrease in the number of CUs, words and sentences as indicated by the scoring; (b) a partial restructuring of the material, interpretable as secondary revision; (c) a decrease in the motivational component (interactive sentences) vs the cognitive component (associative sentences); (d) a decrease in the interactive sentences with Ego present in the text vs those without Ego present. Results are discussed in the light of interference and repression hypotheses.

Dreams as Problem Solving: A Method of Study — Part I: Background and Theory

“…Typically, however, a script has a title; a set of entry conditions for its evocation; a set of constraints; a scenario; a cast of characters with their roles, goals, and props; and a set of results associated with its execution [48,49]. 7. the scenario or essential actions of the main characters (it is also important to make explicit the success or failure of goals with their consequences on the continuation of the script [50]); next, 8. subjects locate the deviations from script within the dream (deviations are actions that do not fit or belong to the typical behavior fixed by the script; and, finally, 9. once the deviations have been noted, it is possible to specify the constraints they violate (constraints are rules or (social) conventions that limit behavior within a rather narrow bandwidth-generally speaking, they refer to things characters "have to do" or "just don't do" because of firmly rooted emotional and/or social conditioning; subjects often experience considerable anxiety (and sometimes considerable relief) as they explore the current functional significance of these constraints, what happens when they are lifted, and possible alternative behaviors.…”

“…Freud, of course, already noted that the dream as recalled often tends to be as coherent and intelligible as possible, a process he called "secondary revision" [5] , but awakenings based on physiological monitoring permit reports with minimal contamination by the reconstructive and deductive operations of waking memory [6]. It is now known, for example, that dream reports from laboratory awakenings are more complete than retrospective morning reports [7,8] .…”