Dreams

Research call for participants

Are you someone who has been, or is, in a relationship with someone who has an addictive behaviour? We are conducting a study to look at dreams and how your relationships plays out in them. If you would like to take part, contact Jennifer, and she will contact you. This study will be scrutinized by The University of the West of England's Ethics committee.

Jennifer’s Research Findings so far: Nightmares

Women have more nightmares than men
Compared to Men, women’s nightmares are reported as more emotionally intense
Over 80% of men and women have had recurring dreams or nightmares
When you ask people to report the most significant dream they ever had, they will report a nightmare from late adolescence or early adulthood

One of the key contributions this research has made so far is that where we think of nightmares as just being scary, this study shows that there is more than one type of nightmare. In summary, Nightmares can be scary, extremely sad, or very confusing and strange.

A Summary of Three Types of Nightmare

		How it felt to have each nightmare:	Content of reports
	1. Traditional Nightmares – Threat to survival	Threatening atmosphere and anxiety, recalled vividly after waking, strange, deeply disturbing and psychologically unpleasant. The dreamer’s survival & security were threatened. Woken by emotion, and told to someone after waking.	Predominantly male characters present and animals. Very frequent reports of aggression that are most often physical in nature. Dreamer victim of aggression. Low bodily-misfortunes, high self-negativity and negative emotion.
	2. Nightmares of Loss of a Loved-one	Other characters were important to the dreamer and the dreamer experienced agonising distress as a result of what happened during the nightmare. They were psychologically unpleasant and deeply disturbing. The dreamer felt isolated and alone and the dream moved the dreamer deeply. They told the nightmare to someone after waking.	More familiar characters of both sexes. More family and more dead or imaginary characters. Low aggression, high friendliness. No instance of the dreamer as aggressor and no physical aggression reported. High bodily misfortunes, low self-negativity. More misfortune generally
	3. Bizarre ‘One-off’ Nightmares	These nightmares were bizarre, had a horrible ending and the dreamer felt a sense of rejection. Despite the strangeness of the nightmare, all emotions were perceived as appropriate for the situation. The dreamer couldn’t understand why they had had this nightmare it felt unrelated to waking life. However, characters were important to the dreamer and they were woken by the nightmare's intense emotion.	Characters were predominantly male or animals. High frequency of aggression was reported, but this was not physical aggression. High self negativity, bodily misfortunes and entirely negative emotion

Dream research is prolific in the US, but with the support of UWE, this is the first research study to explore UK dreams. 100 women and 93 men took part in the study and reported, in some detail, their most recent dream. Then using a very well known content analysis system especially developed for dream analysis, these reports were explored by a set of predefined categories. The categories included the sex of other dream characters, the level of aggression, friendliness, sexual activity, emotion, and activities, as well as several other categories listed in the figures below.

The system derived in the US to describe 'Normal' dreams has been used in many studies. To say there is such a thing as a 'Normal' dream is a bit misleading. But what analysing large number of dream reports together does allow is the comparison of British dreams with dreamers from other cultures. It also makes it possible to compare dreams by gender. In the tables below are the findings of UK dreams compared to US dreams by gender and then UK men vs. UK women's dream report content.

To understand what the table shows, read across each row. In the first column is the category that is being compared. In the second column how many times that category occurred in UK dreams is expressed as a percentage. The US percentage for the same category appears in the third column. Columns four, five, six and seven are related to the statistical significance of comparing the two percentage results.

For example the first row looks at the proportion of male and female characters mentioned in the reports. We can see that UK women reported 52% of male characters compared to US women who reported 48%. These findings were very similar and so we concluded that UK and US women reported male characters in their dreams with similar frequency.

Figure 1: UK Women vs. US Women

		UK Women	US Norms	H statistic	P value	N UK	N US
	Characters
	Male/female %	52	48	+.08	.260	220	1054
	Familiarity %	60	58	+.03	.575	348	1363
	Friends %	36	37	-.01	.908	348	1363
	Family %	22	19	+.06	.351	348	1363
	Dead & Imaginary %	03	01	+.15	*.009	376	1423
	Animal %	06	04	+.08	.196	376	1423
	Social Interactions
	Aggression/Friendliness %	42	51	-.18	*.019	237	530
	Befriender %	50	47	+.05	.660	121	225
	Aggressor %	47	33	+.28	*.018	103	231
	Physical Aggression %	32	34	-.05	.662	117	337
	Social Interactions Ratios
	A/C Index	.31	.24	+.18		376	1423
	F/C Index	.39	.22	+.41	*.001	376	1423
	S/C Index	.06	.01	+.10		376	1423
	Settings
	Indoor setting %	61	61	-.00	.986	170	591
	Familiar setting %	50	79	-.61	*.001	118	306
	Self-Concept %
	Self Negativity %	56	66	-.21	*.007	203	865
	Bodily Misfortunes %	27	35	-.17	.230	63	206
	Negative emotions %	80	80	+.00	.997	164	420
	Dreamer Involved Success	29	42	-.28	.238	24	78
	Torso-anatomy %	33	20	+.31	*.008	96	314
	Dreams with at least One:
	Aggression	58	44	+.27	*.013	100	500
	Friendliness	64	42	+.44	*.001	100	500
	Sexuality	12	04	+.33	*.003	100	500
	Misfortune	43	33	+.20	.071	100	500
	Good Fortune	24	06	+.55	*.001	100	500
	Success	10	08	+.08	.438	100	500
	Failure	17	10	+.21	.052	100	500
	Striving	24	15	+.24	*.030	100	500

UK women report more imaginary and dead characters in their dream reports than US women. UK women reported, with similar frequency, the same number of friends, family, animals and familiar characters. The male/female ratio was not statistically significant suggesting they report men and women characters with similar frequency to US women.

UK women reported more friendliness in their dream reports overall, conversely, UK women were more likely to initiate aggression (mostly verbal aggression) with other characters. This has been interpreted as UK women being more assertive.

Figure 2: UK Men vs. US Men

		UK Men	US Norms	H statistic	P value	N UK	N US
	Characters
	Male/female %	58	67	-.18	*.03	177	873
	Familiarity %	60	45	+.30	*0.001	271	1108
	Friends %	42	31	+.23	*0.001	271	1108
	Family %	14	12	+.06	.394	271	1108
	Dead & Imaginary %	02	00	+.20	*0.01	289	1180
	Animal %	04	06	-.09	.194	289	1180
	Social Interactions
	Aggression/Friendliness %	40	59	-.37	*0.001	184	546
	Befriender %	53	50	+.06	.637	94	203
	Aggressor %	55	49	+.31	*0.02	73	253
	Physical Aggression %	48	50	-.03	.774	89	402
	Social Interactions Ratios
	A/C Index	.31	.34	+.08		289	1180
	F/C Index	.42	.21	+.48	.001	289	1180
	S/C Index	.07	.06	+.02		289	1180
	Settings
	Indoor setting %	47	48	-.04	.659	138	586
	Familiar setting %	47	62	-.28	*0.01	109	320
	Self-Concept %
	Self Negativity %	52	65	-.27	*0.002	163	809
	Bodily Misfortunes %	36	29	+.14	.362	54	205
	Negative emotions %	69	80	-.26	*0.05	109	282
	Dreamer Involved Success	43	51	-.16	.482	21	141
	Torso-anatomy %	41	31	+.21	.062	112	246
	Dreams with at least One:
	Aggression	43	47	-.07	.533	93	500
	Friendliness	63	38	+.52	*0.001	93	500
	Sexuality	18	12	+.17	.145	93	500
	Misfortune	39	36	+.06	.594	93	500
	Good Fortune	27	06	+.60	*.001	93	500
	Success	12	15	+.12	.277	93	500
	Failure	17	15	+.05	.635	93	500
	Striving	26	27	-0.05	.688	93	500

UK men’s dream reports contain fewer male characters than men in the US, but more familiar characters, more friends, like UK women and more dead and imaginary characters. Categories that did not differ significantly were the number of references to family or animals.

UK men reported less aggression as a proportion of friendly and aggressive interactions and more references to the dreamer being the aggressor than US norms. There were no statistically significant differences for the frequency of befriending other dream characters or for the amount of physical aggression. UK men also reported more pleasant dreams than had been expected.

We also compared UK men and women dream reports and found some sex differences.

Figure 3: UK Men vs. Uk Women

		UK Women	UK Men	H statistic	P value	N UK	N US
	Characters
	Male/female %	52	58	-.12	.253	220	178
	Familiarity %	60	60	+00	.988	348	272
	Friends %	36	42	-.11	.163	348	272
	Family %	22	14	+.20	*0.014	348	272
	Dead & Imaginary %	03	02	+.06	.441	376	293
	Animal %	06	04	+.09	.270	376	293
	Social Interactions
	Aggression/Friendliness %	42	40	+.04	.650	237	184
	Befriender %	50	53	-.07	.619	121	94
	Aggressor %	47	55	-.17	.272	103	73
	Physical Aggression %	32	48	-.34	*0.016	117	90
	Social Interactions Ratios
	A/C Index	.31	.31	+.00		376	293
	F/C Index	.39	.42	-.04		376	293
	S/C Index	.06	.07	-.03		376	293
	Settings
	Indoor setting %	61	47	+.29	*0.013	170	139
	Familiar setting %	50	47	+.06	.651	118	110
	Self-Concept %
	Self Negativity %	56	52	+.07	.484	203	163
	Bodily Misfortunes %	27	36	-.17	.349	63	54
	Negative emotions %	80	69	+.27	*0.031	164	109
	Dreamer Involved Success	29	43	-.29	.353	24	21
	Torso-anatomy %	33	41	+.16	.253	96	112
	Dreams with at least One:
	Aggression	58	43	+.28	.051	100	93
	Friendliness	64	63	-.02	.885	100	93
	Sexuality	12	18	+.19	.177	100	93
	Misfortune	43	39	+.06	.672	100	93
	Good Fortune	24	27	-.07	.633	100	93
	Success	10	12	-0.9	.513	100	93
	Failure	17	17	-.03	.855	100	93
	Striving	24	26	-.05	.748	100	93

There were four statistically significant differences between UK men and women’s dreams, as measured by the HVCAS.

Women’s reports contained more characters that were family members, and more indoor settings.

Men’s dream reports contained significantly more physical aggression and fewer negative emotions. There were no other significant differences for any other categories.

If you would like to take part in Jennifer's research please let her know through the Contacts page and she will contact you.