Kluwer Academic/Human Sciences Press, Inc., New York City

Dreaming Volume 12, Number 2, June 2002
 

CONTENTS

Dream Content and Political Ideology
Kelly Bulkeley
Page 61
[Available Online]

Invisible Elites? Authority and the Dream
Iain R. Edgar
Page 79

Significance of Automatically Detected Word Recurrences in Dream Associations
Umberto Barcaro, Rosa Calabrese, Corrado Cavallero, Roberta Diciotti, and Carlo Navona
Page 93

Phenomenal Qualities of Nightmare Experience in a Prospective Study of College Students
Ross Levin and Gary Fireman
Page 109

Kelly Bulkeley

Dream Content and Political Ideology

Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams.  Vol 12 (2) 61-77, June 2002.

 Abstract:

This pilot study focuses on the relationship of dream content and political ideology in a contemporary U.S. context.  The study involved 56 people, 28 (14 male and 14 female) who identified themselves as members of the political right and 28 (14 male and 14 female) who identified themselves as members of the political left.  “Most recent dream” reports from these subjects were analyzed using Hall and Van de Castle content analysis categories.  Following that quantitative analysis, each dream was analyzed in terms of its narrative qualities (themes, images, emotional patterns, etc.).  Although the small size of the study makes it impossible to offer definitive interpretations, the findings are suggestive: people on the political right had more nightmares, more dreams in which they lacked personal power, and a greater frequency of “lifelike” dreams; people on the political left had fewer nightmares, more dreams in which they had personal power, and a greater frequency of good fortunes and bizarre elements in their dreams.  These findings have plausible correlations to certain features of the political ideologies of people on the left and the right, and merit future investigation in larger-scale studies.

KEY WORDS: dream content; political ideology; political right; political left.

Dr. Iain R. Edgar

Invisible Elites? Authority and the Dream

Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams.  Vol 12 (2) 79-92, June 2002.

Abstract:

This paper seeks to develop a perspective on the dynamic interplay between dreaming, culture and identity. A spectrum of examples show that dream imagery has had and still has today tremendous cultural significance across a whole array of historical, religious and contemporary political and personal contexts. The visionary dream is shown to have underpinned the charter myths of both Israel and Serbia/Kosovo as well as having been the generative source of a core body of hierarchically organised spiritual knowledge in Islamic societies, possibly including the Taliban. Annunciation and calling dreams are commonplace in shamanic and some other societies and individuals can have dreams that prefigure aspects of their developing personal myths. The power and politics of dreaming is further exemplified in the author’s example from his dreamwork group that suggest we can dream within the cultural and oppressive stereotypes of our gendered and racist time. Our experience of reality is presented as being dynamically co-created out of both the normative events of everyday life as well as from the human experience of the dream in its powerful and politically evocative forms.

KEY WORDS: dream; authority; power, nationalism; religion.

Umberto Barcaro, Rosa Calabrese, Corrado Cavallero, Roberta Diciotti, and Carlo Navona

Significance of Automatically Detected Word Recurrences in Dream Associations

Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams.  Vol 12 (2) 93-107, 2002.

Abstract:

Verbal data files including dream reports and associations with the report items were subjected to automatic analysis aiming at the recognition of word recurrences. The research was based on the following assumptions: the associations can provide information about the dream sources; the recognition of word recurrences in text files can be a useful tool for the study of dreaming; the identification of links between different dream sources can provide an interesting insight into the phenomenon of dreaming. The principal result obtained was that word recurrences often evidence possible significant links between dream sources. A number of the possible links evidenced by the automatic analysis not only escaped the subject’s notice, but might also be unexpected for an analyzer not assisted by a computer.

KEY WORDS: dreaming; dream sources; associations; text analysis; word recurrences.

Ross Levin and Gary Fireman

Phenomenal Qualities of Nightmare Experience in a Prospective Study of College Students

Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams.  Vol 12 (2) 109-120, June 2002.

Abstract:

The present study investigated the relationship between both state and global measures of phenomenal qualities of nightmare experience and nightmare prevalence as measured prospectively by dream logs. Sixty three frequent nightmare individuals and 53 controls completed a retrospective measure of their sleep and dreaming processes and kept a dreaming and nightmare log for 21 consecutive nights. Nightmare prevalence was unrelated to all three state-based rating dimensions including a concurrent rating of how distressing the actual nightmare was but was significantly associated with a global measure of nightmare distress. Similarly, global ratings of dream and nightmare saliency showed greater predictive validity than ratings of the same dimensions rated concurrently. The results suggest that whether a person reports having a nightmare on any given night is more associated with how they view their global dreaming processes than with the phenomenal qualities of the actual nightmare itself

KEY WORDS: nightmare prevalence; nightmare distress; disturbed dreaming.