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Sleep Hypn 2016;18(4):82-91 ABSTRACT The neurostructural model of dreaming avers that dreams are actively generated by the neural network formed by the mesolimbic-dopaminergic pathway, the ventromesial-orbitofrontal cortex, and the inferomesial temporal-limbicoccipital pathway as a result of the disengagement of the frontal convexity. Although the narrative content of dreams usually appears to be uncanny and unintelligible, there are typical dream themes that are similarly experienced by most people. On the other hand, some common waking-life activities that entail prefrontal executive functions rarely emerge in dreams. The cross-cultural resemblance of prevalence profiles for typical dream themes suggests that the formation of dream images is regularly biased toward a specific group of themes and is operated on by highly stable mechanisms and predispositions. In this article, I propose that the functional architecture of dreaming as depicted by the neurostructural model can provide a framework for understanding these predispositions.

The Dream Motif Scale is a retrospective measure devised for assessing 15 predispositions that modulate the formation of dream narratives. It requires respondents to rate their lifetime frequencies with which they have dreamed about 100 themes. The Dream Motif Scale can be utilized not only as a psychometric measure but also as a classification system for analyzing themes in dream reports. Moreover, the 15 predisposition scores have been shown to be associated with a wide range of personality and psychopathological factors. A major drawback of the Dream Motif Scale, however, is that it is relatively time-consuming for respondents to read through 100 dream themes and rate each of them. In this study, therefore, I developed two shorter versions of the Dream Motif Scale. The Dream Motif Scale-Short Form-15 consists of only 15 items measuring the Ego Ideal, Grandiosity, and Persecution predispositions. The Dream Motif Scale-Short Form-20 contains the same 15 items and 5 additional items for assessing the Appetite-Instinct predisposition. Both versions were demonstrated to have good psychometric properties. Nevertheless, because they were developed based on a previous sample (N = 1186), they should be tested on other samples in the future.