Home and Laboratory Dreams: Four Empirical Studies and a Conceptual Reevaluation

Abstract

Four empirical studies were presented on how the setting in which dreams are collected may influence the reporting and content of dreams of children on REM awakenings. In these studies it was shown that (1) with constant dream-sampling procedures, home and laboratory did not differ in the degree to which dream reports could be elicited from 4/5 year old children; (2) the rate of truly spontaneous reporting of dreams at home by 6/7 year olds is so minimal as to render these dreams an unfit base for generalization to typical dream life at these ages; (3) with constant dream sampling procedures, home and laboratory reports were not significantly different in content for 10/11 year olds; (4) results typically observed in uncontrolled home versus laboratory studies are replicable at the child level (ages 12/13), but probably reflect biased recall at home rather than effects of REM-monitoring procedures in the laboratory. The extant literature on home versus laboratory dream differences was reviewed, and it was concluded that even for normative dream studies, the REM-monitoring procedure is the method of choice.