Dream interpretation sessions: Who volunteers, who benefits, and what volunteer clients view as most and least helpful.

Abstract

Undergraduate students (N = 336) completed measures of personality, cognitive functioning, and attitudes toward dreams; reported average hours of sleep and estimated dream recall; and kept a 2-week dream diary. A subset of 109 students volunteered to participate in, and 65 students actually participated in, a dream interpretation session. The students who volunteered for dream interpretation had more positive attitudes toward dreams, recalled dreams more frequently, were more open, were higher in absorption (capacity for restructuring one's phenomenal field), and were more often female than nonvolunteers. The volunteer clients who gained the most from dream interpretation reported fewer dreams in a 2-week dream diary. Clients reported that the most helpful aspects of dream interpretation were insight, links to waking life, and receiving another person's input.