Clocks in Dreams: Analysis of a Long Dream Series.

Michael Schredl

doi:10.3390/clockssleep3040043

Abstract

Many dream content analytic studies focus on dream characters, animals, social interactions and so on, but they rarely analyze the frequency of everyday objects in dreams. In the present paper, the frequency and phenomenology of clock dreams in a dream series of 12,476 dreams of a single male dreamer was analyzed. The clock dreams (0.74% of all dreams) show a variety of contexts not only related to the time management of the dreamer within the dream. Interestingly, clocks that belong to the dreamer in waking life occurred very rarely in his dreams. Given that keeping time schedules and appointments in waking life is of importance to almost everyone, the low frequency of clock dreams might be explained by novelty, that is, waking-life experiences that repeat themselves regularly do not show up in dreams that often. Thus, studying everyday objects such as clocks in dreams might help refine the current models describing the continuity between waking and dreaming.

Highlights

Many biological organisms are governed by molecular clocks that are synchronized with the 24-h day–night rhythm [1]
Given that keeping time schedules and appointments in waking life is of importance to almost everyone, the low frequency of clock dreams might be explained by novelty, that is, waking-life experiences that repeat themselves regularly do not show up in dreams that often
As the mathematical model of the continuity hypothesis postulated that the emotional intensity of the waking-life experience increases the chance of it being incorporated into subsequent dreams [5], one might assume that time management, overall, is not that important to people

Summary

Introduction

Many biological organisms are governed by molecular clocks that are synchronized with the 24-h day–night rhythm [1]. The history of measuring time with clocks dates far back in history, starting with sun dials and continuing with the high-precision atomic clocks used today [2]. According to the continuity hypothesis of dreaming [4,5], we dream about topics that are important to us, e.g., family members [6], spouses [7], sexuality [8], our own children [9], pets [10] and work [11]. Given that punctuality and timekeeping is important (see above), the question arises as to how often clocks for measuring time occur in dreams. Clocks (e.g., grandfather clock) and/or watches (often “my watch”) were found in 45 of the 4254 dreams (1.06%)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion