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This article explains the origins and development of the continuity hypothesis in work by cognitively oriented dream researchers. Using blind quantitative analyses of lengthy dream series from several individuals, in conjunction with inferences presented to the individual dreamers to corroborate or reject, these researchers discovered that the same conceptions and personal concerns that animate waking thought are very often enacted in dreams. Other types of studies later supported this finding. The article argues that the cognitive origins and definition of the continuity hypothesis have been distorted by those dream researchers who mistakenly claim that the concept is focused on dreaming as an incorporation of everyday experiences. A review of the literature on experiential and experimental influences on dreams, which includes studies of day residues, the experimental manipulation of presleep events, the incorporation of during-sleep stimuli, laboratory references in laboratory-collected dreams, and the influence of routine daily events, reveals that none of them is very influential and most are trivial. The article concludes that those who study experiential factors should adopt a phrase such as "incorporation hypothesis" to avoid confusion in the literature and make clear that the continuity hypothesis is a central one in an emerging neurocognitive theory of dreams. The intensity of personal concerns and interests, not the events of the day, shape central aspects of dream content. In particular, the frequency of characters or activities reveals the intensity of various concerns, and these concerns can be discovered for individuals through comparisons with normative findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been suggestions that the deliberate alteration of sleep-related behaviors, such as briefly going back to sleep after waking, can be used to induce lucid dreams. The current study extends this work by investigating the association between lucid dream frequency and alarm clock use. Eighty-four participants (44 females, 39 males, 1 not stated, mean age = 33.80 years, SD = 15.00) completed an online retrospective questionnaire that measured lucid dreaming frequency, frequency of alarm clock use, frequency of snooze button use per morning, and average number of awakenings per night. Significant positive relationships were found between lucid dreaming frequency and number of awakenings per night (p = .30), number of uses of alarm clock snoozing function per morning (p = .22), and dream recall frequency

Though central to the sometimes injurious behaviors of REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), the dreams and nightmares experienced by these patients remain largely unstudied. The present work applies the Typical Dreams Questionnaire (TDQ) to assess several aspects of the content and recall of dreams and nightmares among large cohorts of RBD patients and matched controls. Sixty-eight polysomnographically diagnosed RBD patients (49 men; 63.7 ± 10.9 y.o.) and 44 healthy controls (28 men; 62.0 ± 12.2 y.o.) completed the 56-item TDQ and a night of polysomnography. Phasic EMG% in REM sleep and tonic REM sleep% were both assessed. Patients reported remembering nightmares in a typical month almost 5 times more often (3.96) than did controls (0.68) and also recalling more dreams in a month (2.3) than did controls (1.6). More RBD patients reported clinically significant nightmare frequencies than did controls and female RBD patients reported higher dream theme diversity scores than either female controls or male patients. Group main effects for TDQ theme factors pinpointed that RBD patients dreamed more of Disasters, Snakes-Insects, Paralysis-Presence, and Beasts. Patients with the highest levels of tonic EMG% during REM sleep reported remembering fewer dreams (r = -0.377, p < .01), whereas controls with the highest levels of phasic events reported recalling more dreams (r = .491, p < .01). The typical content of patients' dreams reflects threats posed by a variety of external agents, with some differences for men and women patients. RBD patients' most frequently reported themes could reflect a lack of perceived control within the dream and could mirror their well-documented day-time passivity and lack of aggressiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents argument and evidence in support of the hypothesis that dreaming can be understood as a form of embodied simulation. Building on many past studies of dream content employing the Hall and Van de Castle (1966) coding system, the article claims that most dreams dramatize the complex set of conceptions that are part of the dreamer's cognitive structure. Dreams embody conceptions primarily through literal enactments, making them somewhat akin to a theatrical play. The plausibility of this hypothesis is demonstrated through a quantitative analysis of emotions, social interactions, misfortunes, and good fortunes in a unique series of 143 dream reports written down over the space of 22 years by a widower because they were about his deceased wife. The inferences drawn from the analysis of the dream reports are consistent with the widower's written reflections on his marriage and his answer to a question sent to him by e-mail on a potentially embarrassing issue. The article also uses an Unrealistic Elements Scale to search for possible instances of figurative elements within the dream reports; about one third to one half of the unusual elements identified by means of this scale have some plausible connection to the conceptions expressed in the dream reports. The dream reports and information on the dreamer's life are available to everyone for further analysis on dreambank.net under the pseudonym "Ed." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuity between waking life and dreaming has typically been studied via the quantitative analysis of dream reports, which has illustrated that dreaming reflects waking-life experiences, thoughts, and emotions. However, there are currently no reliable methods of analyzing dreams for the more subjective aspects of dreams, such as those dreams that are metaphorically related to the dreamer's waking life, which require dreamer input. We conducted a qualitative study involving in-depth semi-structured interviews with 4 participants. The interview schedules were based on Schredl's (2010) dream group technique. Using thematic analysis we developed 3 themes that describe continuity between waking life and dreams: "experiential continuity" (between waking-life experiences/thoughts and dreams), "emotional continuity" (between waking-life emotions and dreams), and "representative continuity" (metaphorical and generic representations of waking life in dreams). Rather than being dichotomous, participants experienced continuity in gradations. A fourth theme ("attitudes toward continuity") explored how attitudes toward continuity influenced continuity experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuity hypothesis of dreaming states that waking life is continuous with dreams, but many of the factors that have been postulated to influence wake-dream continuity have rarely been studied. The present study investigated whether certain factors-- emotional and stressfulness intensity, and certain types of experiences-- influence the likelihood of a waking-life experience being incorporated into a dream. Participants (N = 32) kept dream diaries and waking-life experience logs for 14 consecutive days, and waking-life experiences were matched to dream reports. Waking-life experiences that were incorporated into dreams were significantly more emotional, but no more stressful, than those that were not incorporated into dreams. Major daily activities were incorporated significantly less than the combination of personally significant experiences, major concerns, and novel experiences. Results are discussed in terms of dream functionality, particularly in relation to a postulated emotional memory assimilation theory of dream function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the entire range of research articles in Dreaming over the past 20 years to explore how consistently they adhere to scientific standards. Articles are reviewed on the basis of how precise their description of the participant group was in terms of sample size, mean age, gender, and ethnicity; the duration of the study; the level of accuracy accepted; the sampling methodology; the number of quantitative tests; the researchers' expressed awareness of limitations of the study; and whether their conclusions were presented as being global for all dreamers or more cautiously hedged. The ultimate aim of the study is to point out the strengths and weaknesses of the published articles, and to upgrade the research standards in the International Association for the Study of Dreams' flagship publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dreams play an important role in Australia Aboriginal cosmology and society. This article focuses on the concepts, interpretation, and function of the dreams of the indigenous people of Australia from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is based on pertinent literature on the indigenous people of Australia. The author wants to demonstrate the facilitating function dreams appear to have around important events in the lifecycle and in particular the start of new life, in the conception and birth of a child. In this respect, the object relations theory proves very useful in understanding and explaining the various processes such as dream interpretation. This relational theory serves as the basis for a transitional approach to the study of dreams because it explains the dynamic interaction between individual and culture. Ultimately, this theory gave rise to the development of the notion of reves de passage, "dreams of passage." By using cultural meanings from the social and religious context, dreams help the dreamers to cope with new and/or difficult situations and to make the transition back to ordinary life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changes in body perception after invasive surgery and their internalization in dreams have been mostly neglected in the literature on dreams. We evaluated consecutive newly diagnosed patients with breast cancer about their dream content, sleep quality and quantity, and their mood both before and after the surgical intervention (T0 and T1), to determine whether the loss of a body part with specific sexual features (such as the breast) could change body schema and actuate a sexual sphere restructuring. Dream content was coded according to the Hall and Van de Castle (1966) method. Results were analyzed to compare T0, T1, and normative data (DreamSat). In our sample, we found significant differences in the dreams between T0 and T1 in some anatomical elements (torso anatomy self-concept). We also found differences between patients (T0 and T1) and the normative data, with an increased presence of male and family characters, the proportion of dead people, striving elements with failure, and a decreased presence of friends, aggressiveness, and familiar settings in the patients' dreams. Our results demonstrate that dream content in patients who have undergone cancer treatment for breast cancer is different from that of normal subjects and that there is an adjustment of dream content in patients after surgery. These results support Domhoff's hypothesis about continuity between dreams and waking life, in the sense that "the concerns people express in their dreams are the concerns they have in waking life (Domhoff, 2003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dreams are vital sources of liturgical novelty in Haitian Vodou -and this novelty is, itself an underdescribed and understudied quality that the religion possesses. Classic scholarly descriptions have tended to portray Vodou as a living artifact, tradition-bound and slave to formality. On the contrary, Vodou is constantly responding to unique lived scenarios with novelty -a generative capacity reminiscent of Hannah Arendt's natality. Dreaming plays a key role as provocateur and shaper of this natality. Additionally, it serves as a vouchsafe for belief" as a transformative force; as a form of divination; and as a source for theological and liturgical information. This article focuses, in particular, on why dreaming in Vodou has received so little scholarly attention. Additionally, it examines how Vodou priests and priestesses utilize dreaming in their work with clients, as well as the role that dreaming plays in the enactment of spiritual marriages, and in recent responses to the 2010 earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dream & always a creation -- a work of imagination similar to a work of art -- or at least the beginning of a work of art. And a dream is in many ways similar to a fantasy, reverie, or daydream: it lies on a continuum of mental functioning (and cerebral cortical functioning) running from focused waking thought at one end to dreaming at the other end. A dream is not a series of perceptions to which we respond logically or non-logically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New directions in film and media theory have begun to focus on precognitive, embodied aspects of film viewing. Drawing on these recent theoretical approaches, this article examines correspondences between the brain-mind state of the dreamer and the film viewer and formal similarities between the cinematic image and dream images. First, the study asks whether cinema's evolution toward the production of images that are more easily processed by the brain has also made film images easily accessible during dream-sleep. Then it shows how the cinematic image and the visual imaging of dreams depend on a similar construction of navigable space. The analysis suggests that the bodily systems for simulating movement and establishing spatial orientation function in a similar manner during dreaming and film viewing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My paper, "Meteorite or Gemstone…" is not trying to divide dream theories into two categories as Dr. Domhoff appears to believe. Rather, it is an effort to nudge dream theory and dream work into new directions. I review many reasons why we often consider dreams "totally different" from daydreams, fantasies, etc. (the meteorite position). For each reason, I show that there is actually considerable overlap, and that the forms of mental functioning are best considered as a continuum. I point out that many dream researchers, from different perspectives, are taking the "totally different" (meteorite position) even though they may not explicitly endorse it. For instance those who insist that dreams are meaningless are taking the meteorite position since they obviously do not consider daydreams and fantasies meaningless. Very different researchers, including Dr. Domhoff's group, spend thousands of hours doing detailed analyses of dreams, counting number of words, number of characters, number of interactions, etc. I consider them too to be taking the meteorite position since they almost never analyze daydreams, fantasies, etc. in this way. I compare their efforts to spectroanalysis, which is worthwhile when studying a meteorite (but not a gemstone), since it may yield secrets about the world the meteorite came from. I am not criticizing these researchers, who have made some important discoveries, but rather trying to nudge them toward noticing the continuum, and perhaps broadening their studies to include daydreams, fantasies, and other forms of mental functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing evidence supports the clinical view that alexithymia is associated with disturbed dreaming. However, a consistent, replicable pattern of relationships between alexithymia and different dreaming components has not yet been identified. Groups of sleep-disordered outpatients (N = 580; 46.0 ± 13.2 years) and nonclinical controls (N = 145; 22.9 ± 4.2 years) were administered the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and a 14-item Dreaming Questionnaire. Sleep diagnoses were assessed from polysomnography and clinical histories following the American Academy of Sleep Medicine classification system. The Dreaming Questionnaire was reduced by principal-components analysis to a 3-factor solution that distinguishes nightmare distress, dream recall, and dream meaning items. Factor coefficients were correlated with TAS total score and TAS subscales while age was controlled as a covariate. TAS total score was found to correlate positively with nightmare distress and negatively with dream recall for both clinical and nonclinical groups and for both men and women considered separately. TAS total score also correlated negatively with dream meaning for nonclinical participants. TAS subscales were differentially correlated with the 3 dream factors: difficulty identifying feelings (DIF) with increased nightmare distress, difficulty describing feelings (DDF) with decreased dream recall and externally oriented thinking (EOT) with decreased dream meaning. With some exceptions, these patterns were obtained independently for clinical and nonclinical groups and for men and women within these groups. Findings suggest a consistent and replicable pattern of relationships between alexithymia and dreaming components that implicates processes regulating emotion during both wakefulness and dreaming, for example, affect distress, expressive anxiety, and openness to experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dream thought is both impoverished and non-logical. While some inferential reasoning is present in dreaming, many illogicalities that would demand cognitive attention during waking go unnoticed during sleep. The physiological basis of this illogicality may include frontal lobe inactivation and amionergic demodulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lucid dreaming involves the attentional skill of having metacognition about the dreamer's state of consciousness at the same time as being engaged in the dream scenario. A combination of two levels of cognition also occurs in the incongruent condition of the Stroop task, where there is interference between the attentional demands of a relatively difficult (color naming) and an easy (reading) task. It was thus hypothesized that frequent lucid dreamers would perform better on the Stroop task than would nonlucid dreamers. Individuals who reported having lucid dreams more than once per month (n = 15) were found to be significantly faster on the incongruent condition of the Stroop task than were occasional lucid dreamers (n = 15) or nonlucid dreamers (n = 15). The groups did not differ on the standard colored nonword control condition. Continuity in attentional ability between waking and dreaming cognition was thus found. This continuity may counteract the psychophysiologically dominant and possibly evolutionarily selected lack of self-awareness in dreams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are reports of lucid dreaming being cued by the recognition that a dream event is bizarre from the point of view of waking life. However, for dreams in general, there is a lack of ability to notice or question bizarre occurrences. A waking-life analog of this inability is here proposed to be change blindness. In change blindness tasks, a prominent alteration to a photograph occurs repeatedly, but it is rare for these changes to be spotted immediately. It was hypothesized that lucid dreamers would perform better on change blindness tasks than would nonlucid dreamers. Contrary to the hypothesis, individuals who reported having lucid dreams more than once per month (n = 13), occasional lucid dreamers (n = 13), and nonlucid dreamers (n = 12) were found not to differ significantly on performance on 6 change blindness tasks. How the usually proficient unconscious detection of errors during waking life is disabled during dreams remains to be determined, but it does not seem from the results here to have a simple relationship with the waking-life phenomenon of change blindness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Big dreams" are hard to define. This paper considers "big" dreams under several more easily definable subcategories: memorable dreams; important dreams (labeled by dreamer); significant dreams; and impactful dreams. Past studies are reviewed, and five new preliminary studies are presented showing that a powerful Central Image (CI) distinguishes "big" dreams in all subcategories. 1) Dreams labeled "important" by the dreamer have higher CI intensity than dreams labeled "unimportant." 2) Dreams labeled "especially significant" have especially high CI intensity. 3) Impactful dreams (leading to a new discovery) have a very high CI intensity. 4) The dreams of people who score very "thin" on the Boundary Questionnaire (BQ)—sometimes called "dream-people"— have higher CI intensity than the dreams of people who score "thick." 5) In a separate, larger group, there is a significant positive correlation between CI intensity and "thinness." It appears that CI intensity is an important measure of the "bigness" of dreams. The present results are consistent with the Contemporary Theory of Dreaming which states that dreams involve making connections guided by emotion, that the CI of the dream pictures the emotion, and that CI intensity measures the power of the underlying emotion. "Big" dreams are dreams with great emotional power and have powerful Central Images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was an attempt to investigate the subjectively perceived role of dreams. It examined the private concepts of dreams and dreaming, attitude toward dreams, and the influence of dreams on behavior, which can manifest in sharing dreams with other people, trying to interpret one's own dreams, believing they have special meaning, or behaving according to the clues given by the dream. The sample consisted of 47 participants, students ages 19-20. A structured interview, individually administered, was used. The results indicate interesting relationships between analyzed variables and gender; they also show individual differences in both common notions about dreams and the way dreams can influence other kinds of behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors hypothesized that representations of the Self (or the dreamer) in dreams would change systematically, from a prereflective form of Self to more complex forms, as a function of both age and sleep state (REM vs. non-REM). These hypotheses were partially confirmed. While the authors found that all the self-concept-related dream content indexes derived from the Hall/Van de Castle dream content scoring system did not differ significantly between the dreams of children and adults, adult Selves were more likely to engage in "successful" social interactions. The Self never acted as aggressor in NREM dream states and was almost always the befriender in friendly interactions in NREM dreams. Conversely, the REM-related dream Self preferred aggressive encounters. Our results suggests that while prereflective forms of Self are the norm in children's dreams, two highly complex forms of Self emerge in REM and NREM dreams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lesions causing cessation of dreaming are thought to be more frequently left hemispheric than right hemispheric. However, reports of this phenomenon have not excluded epileptic cases and have not reported handedness, etiology of the lesion, lesion location, comorbidity, gender, age, and so forth, on a case-by-case basis. Some authors were also concerned about aphasia being a cause of dream loss and its lateralization, but they never measured its impact statistically. The present investigation reviews cases of post lesion dream cessation that answered to strict criteria for testing hemispheric lateralization and the effect of aphasia on it. In the 31 subjects, left hemisphere lesions were significantly more frequent than right, as predicted, but the left hemisphere lesions were very often associated with aphasia. Nonaphasic cases of total dream loss had lesions equally often in the right and in the left hemisphere. It is proposed that aphasia deprives patients of a second dream-encoding system, which is important enough to induce amnesia of dream occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief report examines the impact of imagery rehearsal treatment (IRT) on a 10-year-old boy with mild mental retardation and psychiatric illness. There is relatively little published information on the use of IRT to treat nightmares in children. The results in this case are consistent with reports of positive results from IRT in other studies with different populations. The findings in this study suggest that the limitations of IRT may not yet be known, and controlled studies with various populations are needed. This article also examines other factors present in this particular case that did not seem to impact the outcome, hence providing IRT with a robust appearance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If the awareness of what others are thinking and the ability to attribute feelings to others characterizes both waking and dreaming consciousness, it suggests that a social species like man has a state-independent need for a theory of mind; that is, an ability to know that others have feelings. The authors performed 2 studies, the first of which consisted of 35 participants who submitted 320 dream reports containing more than 1,200 dream characters and the second consisted of 24 participants who submitted 151 dream reports with 543 dream events. Participants reported that as subjects in their own dreams they were aware that their dream characters had feelings and thoughts about them. This finding shows that awareness of what others are feeling is a robust aspect of consciousness that is maintained despite the changed chemistry and changed activation patterns of the brain's neuronal connections during dreaming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between prominent visual imagery and emotion within dreams was investigated in relation to E. Hartmann's (1996) contextualizing image (CI) theory and M. Seligman and A. Yellen's (1987) dual imagery theory. Fifty-nine students recorded dreams over a 2-week period and submitted 115 dreams for analysis. Participants recorded ratings of emotion type and emotion intensity in each scene. Prominent visual images were identified and scored for intensity and detail by independent judges. As hypothesized from Hartmann's theory, there was a significant positive relationship between CI intensity and emotion intensity in the CI scene, emotion intensity generally peaked in the CI scene, and dreams containing a CI had higher overall ratings of emotion intensity than non-Cl dreams. The result for the correlation of detail of prominent imagery with emotion was inconclusive, with a low positive correlation across CI scenes. This raises the possibility that the CI is not a unitary construct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a critique of a recent inaccurate claim that the congenitally blind literally "see" in their dreams, which flies in the face of findings that were established in 3 careful previous studies. It first shows how this claim arose through a blurring of the distinction between actual seeing through the visual system and imagery that preserves spatial and metric properties without specific reliance on the visual system. It then discusses the 3 mistaken reasons for this blurring. This correction is important beyond the specific issue of seeing in dreams because the original findings lend important support for a cognitive theory of dreaming by showing that the imagery necessary for dreaming develops between ages 4 and 7. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A. Revonsuo (2000b) proposed an evolutionary theory of dreaming, stating it is a threat simulation mechanism that allowed early humans to rehearse threat perception and avoidance without biological cost The present study aimed to establish the proportion of dreams containing physical threats to the dreamer, whether these represent realistic life-threatening events, and whether the dreamer successfully and realistically escapes. It also examined incidence of threatening events in real life. A sample of most recent dreams was collected (N = 401). Only &48% of dreamers reported realistic life-threatening events in dreams and a realistic escape subsequently occurred in only one third of these reports. Actual severe life-threatening events were experienced by 44.58% of the sample. These findings contradict key aspects of Revonsuo's theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the different theoretical approaches to dreaming and compares them with recent data from brain-mapping studies. Two lines of investigation were considered: a neurobiological and a cognitive approach. Both lines of investigation can be usefully integrated into recent research using the techniques of brain mapping. Two aspects of particular interest are discussed: (a) The pattern of limbic and paralimbic activation in rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM could explain some differences of oneiric hallucination during different stages of sleep, and (b) the deactivation of the heteromodal cortex could explain the loss of reality testing and the absence of self-consciousness during dreams. The complex nature of the dreaming phenomenon makes it necessary to distinguish clearly between mental representation and the underlying neurobiological changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership and membership appear to have been motivated, inspired, and guided by certain dreams. Their understanding of dreams seems to draw at least partly on traditional and contemporary Islamic dream theories. If this hypothesis is correct, then there is a need for the urgent study of Islamic Jihadist political/religious conversion and guidance dreams across the Middle East. The dream—as experienced, reported, and interpreted—is now a significant aspect of the global conflict between Al-Qaeda and its associates versus the core value system of Western civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

J. A. Hobson's (2005) commentary merely repeats his past theoretical assertions. It asks questions that rest on the refuted hypothesis that real dreaming occurs only in REM sleep and that are already answered in the author's critique. Despite many studies, there is still no evidence that neurophysiological changes during REM are responsible for any unique formal features in dreams. As for the psychological consequences of the neuromodulatory environment during REM, there are no studies. Most important, Hobson overlooks a key point in regard to a new neurocognitive approach to dreams: The many parallels between dreaming and waking cognition raise the intriguing possibility that relatively small changes from waking to sleeping can account for the unique features of dreams, rendering his REM-based speculations irrelevant [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]