Does early-night REM dream content reliably reflect presleep state of mind?

Abstract

In a small-scale study, Rados and Cartwright (1982) found that presleep thought samples, but not postsleep-elicited significant concems, could be matched with a night's REM dream content on a cross-participant basis. We collected either presleep thought samples or significant concerns for later blind judge matching with 8 participants' mentation reports from the night's first REM period over 8 nonconsecutive nights each. Although some persons' first-REM dreams were successfully identified by judges from presleep ideation, both vs. presleep ideation from the same person on other nights and vs. presleep ideation from other persons on the same night, there was no overall group pattern suggesting continuity of dream content with presleep ideation. We also did not replicate the claimed superiority of thought samples vis a vis significant concerns.Reliable content analysis showed a different proportional distribution of life experiences in waking and dream ideation.

Dreaming and personality: Wake-dream continuity, thought suppression, and the Big Five Inventory

“…Social interactions have also been found to be more common in dream reports than waking reports (McNamara, McLaren, Smith, Brown, & Stickgold, 2005). Similarly, interpersonal themes in dreams have been found to be much more common than other day-to-day concerns such as finances (Roussy, 2000;Roussy et al, 1996), a finding that was replicated in the present study. Thus the present results add to the body of evidence suggesting that dreams are peculiarly social experiences.…”

A review of empirical research supporting four conceptual uses of dreams in psychotherapy

“…Thus, dreams can be seen to be life consistent, as much as wish fulfilling; one cannot argue that wishes are played out in dreams as well. Sleep laboratory studies have also provided evidence that, rather than reflecting immediate pre-sleep stimuli or neutral current events, which an individual might be thinking about, dreams tend to reflect significant emotional life events, such as divorce (Cartwright, 1977(Cartwright, , 1990Roussy et al, 1996). This research further demonstrates the potential of dreams to provide valuable clinical information to therapists regarding current sources of patient anxiety and concern, which patients may not always be aware of or willing to share.…”

Dream Content is Continuous with Waking Thought, Based on Preoccupations, Concerns, and Interests

“…The content of the dreams often revolved around daily life, such as family, friends, and school, but if the actual events of the day were incorporated in any specific way, it was not understandable to independent raters. [40][41][42] Secondly, the continuity usually is with both thought and behavior, but sometimes it is only with thought. For example, an analysis of a dream series with over 1000 dream reports from an engineer in his early 30s showed that sexuality in dream reports is not always accompanied by waking behavior related to the same activities as occurred in the dreams.…”