More complex dreams with emotions or aggressions are associated with longer reports

Abstract

Report length is an indicator of dream recall, cognitive activity of the dreamer and biases due to recording data in the laboratory as opposed to at home. The aim was to investigate the way in which the number of characters, aggressions and emotions affect report length. Hall and Van de Castle’s normative data were taken from DreamBank.net, composed of the dreams of 491 women and 499 men, all of them university students. Data were extracted on the number of characters, aggressions and emotions in the dreams. Subsequently, the relationship between these variables and report length was analysed. A multiple correspondence analysis was also carried out to explore the relationship of emotions and aggressions involving the Dream Self with the number of characters and report length. A significant relationship was found between report length and the number of characters (r = .47, p < .001), the number of aggressions (r = .21, p < .001) and the number of emotions (r = .26, p < .001). The correspondence analysis showed that report length was associated with non-physical aggressions, a greater number of characters and emotion (anger). However, other emotions such as apprehension, happiness, sadness and confusion also produced significant differences in the number of words in the report. A clear differentiation between physical and non-physical aggressions was also observed. The presence of more characters, the role of the Dream Self as the aggressor or victim, and emotions were related to an increase in the length of dream reports. More complex dreams required more words in order to report them. The results show that physical aggressions should be analysed differentially from non-physical aggressions. The latter are associated with threats of a social nature, involving greater anger and more characters.