Broken Dreams: A Study of the Effects of Divorce and Depression on Dream Content

Abstract

To investigate the dream characteristics associated with a major life change, 29 women (ages 30-55) undergoing divorce were studied six nights in a sleep laboratory. The group was stratified on a self-report depression scale (the Beck Depression Inventory) into a depressed (N = 19, mean = 23.2) and nondepressed (N = 10, mean = 8.2) group and compared to a nondepressed married group who had never considered divorce. The dreams of those divorcing without major mood upset were longer and dealt with a wider time frame than those of the other two groups. They also dealt with marital status issues which were absent in the dreams of the depressed group. On follow-up those who had been depressed showed positive dream changes in mood, dreamlike quality, and identification of dream self with the marital role. The study suggests that some dream characteristics respond adaptively during life changes but that this is delayed when subjects are depressed. This raises the possibility of a corrective intervention for such persons.

Cognitive and emotional processes during dreaming: A neuroimaging view

“…This proposal is compatible with psychological models suggesting that dreaming is a process of internal activation, arising from a person's affective and emotional history and serving an emotion-regulation function (e.g. Cartwright, Lloyd, Knight, & Trenholme, 1984;Cartwright, Luten, Young, Mercer, & Bears, 1998;e.g. Mancia, 2005;Nielsen & Levin, 2007).…”

Evidence for the preferential incorporation of emotional waking-life experiences into dreams.

“…Breger, 1967;Koulack, 1993;Piccioni et al, 2002;Wright & Koulack, 1987). For example, dreams are very clearly affected by traumatic experiences (see reviews by, for example, Barrett (1996) and Punamäki (2007)), and other more common stressful waking-life experiences such as surgery (Breger, Hunter, & Lane, 1971) and divorce (Cartwright, 1991(Cartwright, , 2011Cartwright et al, 1984;Cartwright et al, 2001;Cartwright et al, 2006). However, while some experimental studies have found measurable effects of stressful experiences on dreams, mostly in terms of dream affect (de Koninck & Brunette, 1991;de Koninck & Koulack, 1975;Koulack et al, 1985), a naturalistic study found no effect either in terms of direct or indirect incorporations, or changes to dream affect (Delorme et al, 2002).…”

“…Nevertheless, it was surprising that stressfulness was not also found to be a factor, since some research has illustrated that experiencing stressful situations leads to dreaming of those situations, such as surgery (Breger, Hunter, & Lane, 1971) and divorce (Cartwright, 1991(Cartwright, , 2011Cartwright et al, 1984;Cartwright et al, 2001;Cartwright et al, 2006), and many researchers have concluded that dreams reflect waking-life stressors (e.g. Breger, 1967;Koulack, 1993;Piccioni et al, 2002;Schredl, 2002;Wright & Koulack, 1987).…”

The content of recurrent dreams in young adolescents

“…Many kinds of contemporary dream theories converge in their view that recurrent dreams are related to unresolved difficulties in the dreamer's life (e.g., Bonime, 1962;Domhoff, 1993;Fantz, 1987;Fosshage & Loew, 1987) and researchers have shown that the occurrence of recurrent dreams during adulthood is associated with stressors and lowered levels of psychological well-being (Brown & Donderi, 1986;Cartwright, Lloyd, Knight, & Trenholme, 1984;Robbins & Houshi, 1983;Zadra, O'Brien, & Donderi, 1998). Similarly, one study of 11-year-old children found that the presence of recurrent dreams was associated with emotional difficulties in boys although not necessarily in girls (Gauchat, Zadra, Tremblay, Zelazo, & Seguin, 2009).…”