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