Abstract
We examined a series of twenty dreams—the last ten dreams recorded before 9/11/01 and the first ten dreams recorded after 9/11/01—from each of sixteen individuals in the United States who regularly record all their dreams. Blind scoring using established scales demonstrated that dreams after 9/11/01 were characterized by more intense imagery, but were not longer nor more “dreamlike,” compared to data before 9/11/01. The dreams after 9/11/01 did not contain significantly more content related to the attacks. The results show that traumatic events such as the attacks of 9/11/01 have a detectable effect on dreams—specifically an increase in dream image intensity—in a population of dream recorders. Whether this finding can be generalized to the entire population is not clear from this preliminary study. The results of this study are consistent with previous findings that dream image intensity is related to emotional arousal.
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