Published by American Psychological Association • Journals Department
750 First Street, NE • Washington, DC • 20002-4242
800-374-2721 • 202-336-5540 • Fax: 202-336-5549
journals@apa.org  • TDD/TTY: 202-336-6123

Dreaming

Increased Mastery Elements Associated With Imagery Rehearsal Treatment for Nightmares in Sexual Assault Survivors With PTSD
Ann Germain, Barry Krakow, Brigitte Faucher, Antonio Zadra, Tore Nielsen, Michael Hollifield, Teddy D. Warner, and Mary Koss
Page 195

Client Reactions to Working With Dreams in Psychotherapy
Rachel E. Crook Lyon and Clara E. Hill
Page 207

Incidence of Threat in Dreams: A Response to Revonsuo’s Threat Simulation Theory
Susan Malcolm-Smith and Mark Solms
Page 220

Do the Blind Literally “See” in Their Dreams? A Critique of a Recent Claim That They Do
Nancy H. Kerr and G. William Domhoff
Page 230

Lucid Dreaming and Personality: A Replication
A Patrick and A. Durndell
Page 234

Dumuzi’s Dream: Dream Analysis in Ancient Mesopotamia
Curtiss Hoffman
Page 240

Increased Mastery Elements Associated With Imagery Rehearsal Treatment for Nightmares in Sexual Assault Survivors With PTSD
Ann Germain, Barry Krakow, Brigitte Faucher, Antonio Zadra, Tore Nielsen, Michael Hollifield, Teddy D. Warner, and Mary Koss
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 14(4) 195-206, December 2004.

Exposure, abreaction, and mastery have been proposed as the therapeutic processes of nightmare (NM) reduction. Imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT) effectively reduces NMs but involves minimal exposure and abreaction. The authors investigated the use of mastery in the scripting of new dreams (NDs) elaborated during IRT. NM and ND reports were collected from 44 female sexual assault survivors with chronic NMs during their initial application of IRT. Mastery was assessed with a standardized dream coding system and a multidimensional mastery scale. NDs contained significantly fewer negative elements and more occurrences of positive elements and mastery than did Nms. NDs were not devoid of negative dream elements. An increase in mastery over negative dream elements is a core process involved in NM reduction.

KEY WORDS: nightmares; imagery rehearsal; mastery; dream coding

Client Reactions to Working With Dreams in Psychotherapy
Rachel E. Crook Lyon and Clara E. Hill
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 14(4) 207-219, December 2004.

A questionnaire about working with dreams was given to 95 clients in ongoing psychotherapy. Results indicated that clients who discussed dreams in therapy (68%) had more positive attitudes toward dreams, higher dream recall, and more therapist encouragement for talking about dreams than clients who did not. Clients reported that therapists used more exploratory than insight or action dream-related activities. The outcome of the dream session was positively related to the therapists’ encouragement of dream work and dream-related activities used. Clients who had not discussed dreams in therapy indicated that they had not because there was not enough time in sessions to work on dreams or it had never occurred to them to talk about their dreams in therapy.

KEY WORDS: dream interpretation; attitudes toward dreams; client outcome; dream activities

Incidence of Threat in Dreams: A Response to Revonsuo’s Threat Simulation Theory
Susan Malcolm-Smith and Mark Solms
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 14(4) 220-229, December 2004.

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 8.48% 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.

KEY WORDS: dreaming; evolutionary psychology; threat simulation theory

Do the Blind Literally "See" in Their Dreams? A Critique of a Recent Claim That They Do
Nancy H. Kerr and G. William Domhoff
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 14(4) 230-233, December 2004.

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.

KEY WORDS: dreaming; blindness; dream content; cognitive theory

Lucid Dreaming and Personality: A Replication
A Patrick and A. Durndell
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 14(4) 234-239, December 2004.

This article reports an investigation of personality variables that may be associated with the reporting of lucid dreaming. The present study confirmed that lucid dreamers, both frequent and occasional (n = 26), were more internal on J. Potter’s (1966) locus of control measure and scored higher on J. Cacioppo and R. Petty’s (1982) need for cognition measure than did nonlucid dreamers (n = 24). Frequent but not occasional lucid dreamers were more field independent on H. A. Witkin et al.’s (1971) Group Embedded Figures Test than the nonlucid dreamers. Need for cognition, internality on locus of control, and field independence all correlated with each other. The results can be argued to show a continuity between styles of waking and dreaming personality.

KEY WORDS: lucid dreaming; personality; locus of control; field independence; need for cognition

Dumuzi’s Dream: Dream Analysis in Ancient Mesopotamia
Curtiss Hoffman
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 14(4) 240-251, December 2004.

Mesopotamian civilization was the first to develop writing and the first from which literary texts remain, dating back to the late 3^rd millennium B. C. Some of these texts contain accounts of dreams, especially of royal figures. The earliest of these texts, evidently the earliest recorded dream in history, is the dream of Dumuzi of Uruk. This dream is embedded within the framework of the larger epic of the Descent of Inanna, and not only is the dream text itself included but also its interpretation, by Dumuzi’ sister Geshtin-anna. She appears to have played the role of a professional dream interpretress. There are also several cylinder seals that appear to depict the motifs of Dumuzi’s dream. This article examines this dream and its interpretation within the Mesopotamian cultural context. It also compares the dream with several other well-known dream texts from Mesopotamia.

KEY WORDS: Mesopotamian dreams; myth; ancient dream interpretation