Finding Meaning in Dreams

Abstract

10987654321All rights reservedNo part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher vii viii Preface be linked with studies of traumatic dreams and recurrent dreams to suggest there is a "repetition dimension" in dreams that tends to be overlooked because most theorists focus on one dream at a time. I also claim that studies of relaxed waking cognition, such as daydreams and passing thoughts, allow us to theorize about dreams on the basis of new ideas in cognitive psychology. At the most general level, dreams reveal our self-conceptions and our emotional preoccupations, and they tend to be more continuous with our waking thoughts and concerns than we generally realize.Both the accuracy and readability of this book were improved immeasurably thanks to an extremely careful and thoughtful reading of the first draft by one of the leading experts on dream content, Deirdre Barrett of Harvard University Medical School. I am deeply grateful for her time and effort. I also want to thank David Foulkes, the preeminent laboratory investigator of dreams for the past 30 years, for his very helpful and reassuring substantive comments on the second draft of the manuscript, and Richard L. Zweigenhaft, my longtime co-author on social psychology topics, for his frank and useful editorial suggestions on the second draft. My thanks, also, to my colleague Dane Archer in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for advice on statistical questions, and to Mark Mizruchi of the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan for his important corrections to my statistical appendix. Further thanks go to my colleague Daniel Guevara of the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for his thoughtful comments on what philosophers say about the meaning of "meaning."The help of one of my former students, Adam Schneider, was essential to me in the final stages of the manuscript. He mastered the coding system and did creative work on three final analyses that added greatly to the argument. He utilized his outstanding computer skills to improve the accuracy of the tables and to check many previous calculations. He also caught many errors in his careful proofreading of the manuscript.

The Relation of Waking Fantasy to Dreaming

“…Contrary to these models, there exists an extensive empirical literature indicating that waking and dreaming mentation are continuous [3,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Numerous studies have demonstrated that when waking conditions are altered to reduce both external sensory input and the conscious demand for cognitive process (relaxed wakefulness), the resultant free-floating thought is quite similar to, and may even surpass, dreaming mentation in its imagistic-hallucinatory quality [16,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

Rapid Eye Movements (REMs) and visual dream recall in both congenitally blind and sighted subjects

“…There are different methods to study the capacity for dream recall: the morning recall by means of brief questionnaires or dream diaries or the recall after dream interruption. Both methods, if applied to frequent dreamers, revealed consistent results 9,10 . However, this consistency does not occur in infrequent dreamers, for whom the capacity for recall is greater in provoked awakenings 10 .…”

“…Content analysis was performed on the dream reports using the Hall & Van de Castle definitions 39 to code the different activities 40 .…”

“…Personality characteristics do not significantly influence dream recall 9 , although it does increase with interest, motivation, moodiness and stress 14 . The capacity for dream recall is also slightly higher in women.…”

“…Indeed, recall frequency reaches 70 -90 % in REM awakenings, and only 5 -10 % in 2NREM awakenings 9 .…”