Manifest dreams from three clinical groups.

Abstract

EXPERIMENTAL, clinical, and metapsychological studies of manifest dream content are being reported in growing numbers. 16,22,34,35 The present paper extends these endeavors by assessing manifest dreams from three different clinical groups: paranoid schizophrenic reaction, hysterical character disorder, and psychotic depressive reaction. The aims of this comparative study are to ascertain whether the dreams of each group are distinctive on a manifest level and to explore the areas in which differences between groups appear. Specific experimental studies of manifest dream content date back to the work of Alexander and Wilson 2 who studied the dreams of 18 patients in psychoanalysis. They scored the manifest dreams and associations along selected dimensions in order to assess the status of certain drives during the course of the patient's psychoanalytic treatment. A series of reports by Saul and his associates broadened these methods. 29,31-33,35 Initially, they demonstrated that the manifest dreams of hypertensive patients