Self-rated effects of reading, TV viewing and daily activities on dreaming in adolescents and adults: The UK library study.

The continuity hypothesis of dreaming states that our daily activities like reading books and watching films, movies and shows should be represented in our dreams. The majority of participants in the UK library study (N = 1375) stated that their dreams are affected by their reading and TV consumption, and by their daily activities. The more time they spend with an activity, the more likely they reported an effect of this activity on dreaming. Future studies should use daily logs and dream diaries to validate the present findings. In addition, measures of emotional intensity of the waking life experience and attitude towards dreaming should be included as these factors might have an effect on the continuity between waking and dreaming

Self-rated effects of reading, TV viewing and daily activities on dreaming in adolescents and adults: The UK library study.

The continuity hypothesis of dreaming states that our daily activities like reading books and watching films, movies and shows should be represented in our dreams. The majority of participants in the UK library study (N = 1375) stated that their dreams are affected by their reading and TV consumption, and by their daily activities. The more time they spend with an activity, the more likely they reported an effect of this activity on dreaming. Future studies should use daily logs and dream diaries to validate the present findings. In addition, measures of emotional intensity of the waking life experience and attitude towards dreaming should be included as these factors might have an effect on the continuity between waking and dreaming

Gender Differences in the Dream Content of Children and Adolescents: The UK Library Study

While gender differences in the dreams of adults have been studied extensively, large-scale studies in children and adolescents are relatively scarce. The UK Library study collected 1995 most recent dreams of children and adolescents. Boys reported more physical aggression and less female characters in their dreams, whereas indoor settings were more prominent in girls’ dreams – results that are consistent with the findings in adults and the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. The study indicates that dream content analysis is a valuable tool for studying the inner world of children and adolescents as dreams reflect their waking life experiences, thoughts, and concerns. It would be informative to include measures of waking-life aggression, frequency of social contacts and leisure time activities in order to provide evidence for direct links between waking and dreaming

Lucid dreaming in children: The UK library study

The term lucid dream designates a dream in which the dreamer, while dreaming, is aware he or she is dreaming. Whereas lucid dreaming has been studied in adults, large-scaled surveys in children are scarce. The sample here included 3579 children for the ages from 6 to 18 who completed a brief questionnaire distributed in UK libraries. 43.5% reported having had at least one lucid dream. As hypothesized, incidence of lucid dreams was most strongly associated with the preference for reading fantasy/science-fiction. Whether lucid dreaming might be beneficial for children in skills training or coping with nightmares are interesting topics for future research

TV viewing and dreaming in children: The UK library study

Since watching TV represents a considerable constituent of children’s waking-life, TV content should hence have a great influence on dream content. The present study in children (N = 3167) clearly indicates that most children stated that watching TV affect their dreams. Whereas the amount of TV watching is weakly associated with nightmare frequency, the children who incorporate TV contents into their dreams have more nightmares. This is most likely explained by emotional intensity experienced while watching TV and/or personality traits. Carefully designed studies eliciting TV content, emotional response to TV watching, and personality traits are necessary to better understand the effect of TV consumption on dreaming

Gender differences in dreaming in childhood and adolescence: The UK Library study

This study evaluates gender differences in dream recall frequency, dream sharing frequency, dream listening frequency and nightmare frequency in childhood and adolescence. The sample included 3534 children for the ages from 6 to 18 who completed a brief questionnaire distributed in libraries. We were able to show that overall girls recalled dreams more often, shared dreams more often, listened more often to dreams and reported higher nightmare frequency than boys. For dream sharing frequency and dream listening frequency gender differences increased significantly with age indicating that gender-specific dream socialization might be probable. As this effect was most prominent for adolescents of 13 years and older, one might speculate that the peer group – especially same-sex friendships play an important role in dream socialization. Dream listening is still a very young field of research and longitudinal studies are necessary to study when gender differences in dreaming emerge and whether this processes effect dream recall frequency and other dream variables in adults

Reduced dream-recall frequency in left-handed adolescents: A replication

The ability to recall a dream upon waking up in the morning has been linked to a broad variety of factors such as personality, creativity, sleep behaviour and cognitive function. There have been conflicting findings as to whether dream recall is related more to the right or to the left hemisphere, and conflicting findings regarding the relationship of dream-recall frequency to handedness. We have found previously that right- and mixed-handers report having more dreams than left-handers, a finding more pronounced among adolescents than adults. In the present sample of 3535 participants aged from 6 to 18 years, right-handedness and mixed/inconsistent handedness were associated with higher dream-recall frequency compared to that of left-handed persons, again especially in adolescents compared with children. Further research is required to uncover the reason for the lower frequency of dream recall by left-handers

Dream Sharing, Dream Recall, and Personality in Adolescents and Adults

Although dreams are very private experiences, they are often shared with others. The findings of the present study (N¼1,375) indicate that sharing dreams is indeedvery common and that dream sharing frequency is related to gender (only in adolescents, with girls sharing dreams more often than boys), extraversion, dream recallfrequency, and nightmare frequency. Future studies should study the dream sharing process in more detail—with whom dreams are shared—and possible beneficialeffects of dream sharing