Writing a Dream Class for the World Wide Web
Assignment Feedback Reports to Students
These course reports are based on the beta run of the class with 40+ volunteers. Unfortunately too few completed the fourth and fifth assignments to do an analysis of the data. These are the reports which were e-mailed to the course registrants.
Assignment #1
It was with eager anticipation that I sat down at my computer to look at the results of the first assignment. First let me thank all of you who took the time to complete the assignment. If you did not do the assignment but plan to do one or more of the subsequent assignments PLEASE DO ASSIGNMENT #1 first. The reason is that most of the demographic information is on that assignment. This is the sort of information which makes an analysis of subsequent assignments richer. For instance, if I want to further examine possible sex differences I couldn't if I did not have your assignment one data to determine your sex. Now to the results.
Demographics
[In order to facilitate the readers scanning this material the variable being discussed is in caps at its first mention.]
Talking about sex differences, to my surprise there are as many men as women in this class. This is very unusual as dream classes/workshops typically draw more women. I'm not sure if this is because men are getting more interested in their inner life or if it reflects the composition of the Internet which is more male than female.
Although the AGE range of the class participants ranges from 16 to 79 the majority are middle aged with the largest age category being 40 to 49 year olds.
Most of those who answered are married (56%) while the next most frequent relationship status was single (22%). Slightly less than half (41%) do not have children.
I was surprised that so many of you are only children or first borns (67%). In the birth order literature only children and first borns share many of the same characteristics including a high achievement motivation.
Almost all of you have some post-high school education while 54% of you have graduated from college. Needless to say the occupational categories were all over the map but the largest represented were those working in computers. Although no one reported earning more than $100,000 a year average incomes were between $35,000 and $50,000 a year.
Although a few students are from outside North America the majority are from this continent with the most from western Canada. Your ethnic background is primarily European.
The demographics of this class basically reflect the demographics of Internet users except the sex ratio. Whereas in classes and workshops on dreams females dominate, due to the large male presence on the net there are more men in this class. Turning the coin around perhaps it is the high incidence of females on this net activity which is unusual. I think that this class, and others like it, provide a unique place where the worlds of men and women can meet. Welcome. Now I will summarize the sleep and dreaming questions from the first assignments.
Sleep and Dream Questions
Given this unusual configuration of the sexes in this dream class I examined many of these sleep and dream questions as a function of sex. That is, I looked at whether men and women differ in their replies to these questions. Sometimes you did and sometimes you did not.
Although females reported sleeping slightly longer then males there were no sex differences in dream recall, having kept a dream diary and the length of keeping a dream diary. Nor were there any sex differences in any of the religious, meditation type questions. However, as a group you indicated that you were significantly more likely to be interested in and have experience with meditation than with prayer.
In terms of the subscales of the Dream Response Questionnaire (DRQ) those that the group scored the highest on indicated that your dreams are vivid in imagery, provide you with personal insight, and you discuss them. Those that you scored the lowest on were rejecting the dream meaning and using the dream for leisure.
In addition, on three of the eight subscales of the DRQ there were significant sex differences. Women were more likely to be especially interested in the story like nature of their dreams and their vivid imagery whereas men were more likely to report rejecting the meaning of their dreams. No sex differences emerged in terms of authorship/style, use of dreams as leisure/escape, spirituality of dreams, discussion of dreams, or insight gained from dreams. I find it a bit confusing that men are more likely to reject their dreams yet report just as much insight as the women in this class. Any ideas???
Some of the Students Comments
Here are some of the comments/questions from the first assignment (in quotes). Where appropriate I have answered or responded to the comments after each comment. My responses are in brackets [...].
"Subtype information is interesting, but some of the terms in the questions probably need to be explained better. Answering this questionnaire is certainly thought-provoking of my own dreaming life."
"I don't understand what's meant by "dreamer's style" in question 24."
[Thanks for pointing this out, the scale designer is working on a new wording for this often misunderstood concept.]
"I'm a Unitarian which may be Protestant but isn't Christian so I was unsure how to answer that question."
[Often when filling out closed ended questionnaires one finds items where none of the responses fit. If you feel very uncomfortable with such a question simply leave it blank. If, however, you feel like you would like to answer it within the constraints of the question that is also possible. This is an educational process not a research process thus what works best for each individual student is the direction you should go.]
"I think people would be surprised to see how many dreams come true. You can only do this if you keep a journal."
"I found it difficult to answer the last question because it depends on the content of the dream. If I had a dream that was about hangin on the beach and playing in the waves I might relax when thinking about it. It could also be used for exploration and might reveal multiple levels of understanding. The questionnaire lacked rating the dreams on a multi-leveled scale."
[Good idea and especially relevant when working with material as rich as dreams. Thanks.]
"I would describe my religious views as more "New Age"."
"I equated "religion" with "spirituality". If you mean an organized religion then the answer would be d. not at all important."
[Questions about what is religion and what is spiritual were the most frequently asked in the comments. I'm afraid for this course the answer has to lie within each student.]
"I am blind and haven't seen ever."
"this course is great! I feel so fortunate to be involved in it!"
"I answered "mixed" on family culture as I am adopted and have no lineage information.I responded negatively to religion as I don't belong to a religion and am however extremely spiritual."
"G'day... so far this is enlightening Anticipate that it will remain interesting as we progress. . . . Looking forward to the next lesson."
"the way i answered many of the questions above is i think due to a type of availability heuristic.For instance i find that i answer questions on mystical dreams is influenced by me having a mystical like feeling this morning and from there i remember more mystical like dreams - so i report the mystical experience as happening more often than it likely does. Does this pose a problem to the questionnaire (my intuition is that it might not likely due to phenomenological nature of the questionnaire) and if so how would you counter that problem? Thank-you."
[This is a common problem in questionnaire design and implementation. In a research setting we would try to control for the influence of such extraneous variables by having every one take the questionnaire in the same room at the same time. Or having everyone report their mood before taking it. In other words we can design the study to control for some of these effects or we can do some correction with various statistics. In an educational environment there is more error due to these extraneous influences so it would be wise to keep that in mind when interpreting the nature of your responses relative to your classmates.]
"I recently experienced an actual event in life that I dreamed last year. I don't recall that ever happening before."
"I am not religious. I am pretty much an atheist. but religion spirituality etc. are a strong interest of mine. I don't look for great plots in dreams but rather powerful symbols issues meaning etc. I don't get the kind of spirituality you asked about from dreams but I do get a strong feeling of humanity etc. from dreams. Dreams do not take my mind off my problems they put my mind on my problems and give me fresh ways of looking at them."
Assignment #2
You are probably thinking about assignment 3 about now as you will have just finished it or assignment 4 as you are about to start it, but I’ve had my head in assignment 2. Hopefully this time lag will be less of a problem once we get through the beta test. We had a lot of glitches getting this assignment to me and then I had a lot more work in cleaning up the data than I had anticipated. But that is why one does a beta run to iron out such problems.
Again thanks for your time and patience with the glitches that may slow you down from time to time. Before I begin reporting on the results of this assignment I want to remind you to be sure to read the assignment 4 directions early in the week so that if you want to you can participate in an on-line dream group during these last two weeks of this class which you can begin right away.
As with the first assignment the major way that I examined your sense of your typical dreams was as a function of sex. This questionnaire was based on the content analysis work of Calvin Hall and Robert VandeCastle. Because of the many sex differences in dream content, they reported all their data as a function of sex. The norms provided you as you filled out the questionnaire did not examine sex differences. To be fair the degree or type of dream content sex differences is an area of some disagreement. My purpose with these questionnaires is educational and not research thus the inclusion of normative data.
Verbal Aspects of Dreams
The first content question dealt with dream dialogue. For both sexes dialogue was reported as more likely to be in dreams than not so but it was significantly more likely to be reported in the dreams of women. So too women were more likely then men to say that this dialogue/conversation was similar to those that they have in waking life. Given the oft reported superiority of women on various measures of verbal skills this is not surprising. One would have thought, however, that for the second item, degree to which dreams were logical, that a sex difference would emerge (at least stereotypically speaking). But there was none as both sexes reported that on occasion their dreams were typically logical.
Problem Solving Function of Dreams Emerges
The problem solving function of dreams was queried in items 4, 5 and 7. Both sexes felt that their dreams solve problems and that in their dreams they are likely to finish a task. However, women were more likely to say that their dreams give them ideas upon which to base projects.
A particular type of problem which dreams seem to especially work on are those involving some sort of conflict. Items 9 and 10 addressed conflict. Both sexes said that when conflict arises in their dreams it is usually resolved and that the conflict was more likely to happen in the first half of the dream rather than the last half.
Things That Go Bump in the Night!
A series of questions dealt with the various forms of scary/nightmarish dreams. Recurring dreams were unusual for you as a group but slightly more likely to occur among the women than the men. Relatedly the women reported nightmares more frequently then the men. Although neither group said they were very common (women = on occasion; men = rarely).
A nightmarish theme is often aggression and violence and several questions queried this. Both sexes said they often have dreams where verbal or physical fighting occurs. Although if one looks at the wording of the question it does lead the response in that direction. Verbal versus physical aggression was also asked about. Here the sex difference echoed Hall and Van de Castles findings and the research literature on the incidence of verbal versus physical aggression while awake as a function of sex. Among the women 73% said their dreamed aggression was typically verbal while among the men 70% said theirs was physical. However, when you were asked if the dreamed aggression involved you as being verbally/physically abusive/abused you all replied you were verbally abusive. This is in contrast to the questionnaire norms where there was a fairly even distribution between the four categories with slightly more in the "verbally abused" category. This puzzles me, do you have any ideas?
You said that the kinds of aggression in your dreams was rarely similar to the type of aggression you exhibit in your waking life. Dream aggression was typically directed at others (40%) and then at yourself (28%). Everyone said that they typically witnessed aggression rather than participated in it. This is in contrast to the norms provided by the questionnaire authors who report most of their sample saying they participated in dreamed aggression.
Emotional Expressions in Dreams
Both males and females felt that their dreams were typically exciting (59%) while the second most frequent response was that they were disturbing (26%). I suspect this may be an artifact of you as a group, so interested in your dreams that you are taking a course about them. For you these are not boring and relaxing experiences rather they are exciting and disturbing thus you are acting on getting acquainted better with your dream life.
Item 22 listed five ways in which you might view yourself in your dreams, friendly/compassionate, frustrated/confused, embarrassed/humiliated, powerful/successful, and detached/observing. About a third of you feel into each of the first two categories while none reported themselves as embarrassed/humiliated. Eleven percent said they were generally powerful/successful and the final 26% said they were more typically detached/observing.
THE RELEVANCE OF DETACHMENT
When designing this assignment I added the category detached/observing because of my work with witnessing/lucid dreams and sleep. Because of this addition we cannot really compare this classes results to the questionnaire norms.
However, I believe that it represents an important conceptual point in our understanding of lucidity and its relationship to some eastern philosophical perspectives. Specifically, I have proposed in my books and papers on lucidity that it is a bridge state between normal sleeping "consciousness" and what has been called higher states of consciousness. As I have thought about lucidity over the years and spoken to many people about it, it has become clear to me that another important quality in the development of higher states of consciousness is the detached/observer perspective. This is true not only in dreams but also in waking. This is not to be confused with denial or repression but rather is better conceptualized as graceful aging, that state of being where the emotions and stresses of daily life are less likely to impact us. In the Indian Vedic tradition this is called the state of the witness and can exist while asleep or awake. I have done some research with colleagues about witnessing sleep and dreams. We have defined it as that state where one is aware that one is dreaming/sleeping but is detached from the activity in sleep.
Dreams fall along two dimensions which are related to lucidity/witnessing; degree of awareness of the true state you are in (high awareness being knowing you are dreaming while you are in the dream and low awareness being our normal unaware state in dreams) and degree of detachment (high detachment being removed from involvement in the dream and low detachment being caught up in the dream activities). This topology results with high awareness but low detachment as the classical lucid dream, low awareness and low detachment as the average dream, low awareness and high detachment as perhaps another sort of bridge state between average dream consciousness and higher states of consciousness in dreams, and finally high awareness and high detachment as witnessing dreams.
Although there were not enough of you to break into four cells as just described I was able to further investigate differences between those of you who said you generally were detached/observing in your dreams relative to those who said they were friendly/compassionate or frustrated/confused. None, you'll recall, fell into the embarrassed/humiliated category and too few were in the powerful/successful category to include in these analyses.
The first thing I looked at was if there was a relationship between detachment and lucidity frequency. As I had found in my dissertation on lucid dreaming, there was no such relationship. This would certainly support the model I propose above and can not be said to be a function of dream recall as those who differed in these self views in their dreams did NOT differ in their degree of dream recall.
When I examined responses on the Dream Response Questionnaire from the first assignment, group differences were found to be significant in three of the eight subscales; spirituality, discussion, and insight. Those who said they saw themselves as detached in dreams were LESS likely than the other two groups (friendly and frustrated) to see their dreams as spiritual or to discuss them with others. This is important because although lucidity/witnessing can be conceptualized in some sense as a spiritual experience it need not be thought of in that way. Rather as my colleague Stephen LaBerge has often said it may represent a cognitive perspective or tool. Personal insight was significantly more likely to be a part of the dream responses of those who felt they were frustrated in their dreams than for either the friendly or the detached groups.
Among the questions asked in this assignment on your typical dreams there were few differences as a function of the way in which you viewed yourself in your dreams (friendly, frustrated, or detached). However those that did emerge were consistent with these self perceptions. Those who said they felt themselves most often as frustrated in their dreams also reported that when there was dream conflict it was rarely if ever resolved. The frustrated dreamers typical dreams were more disturbing than either of the other two groups and female characters were more likely to be seen as aggressive or weak than was the case in the other two groups. Finally, the frustrated groups dream settings were more likely to be dangerous and restrictive than the other two groups.
Two variables showed distinctions between the friendly and detached groups; if you were the central character and if you had sex in your dreams with people you knew or people who were strangers. The detached group were more likely to say they were the central character while the friendly group was least likely to report being the central character with the frustration group falling between these two. Perhaps to experience friendliness and compassion one also is less central to the dream story while if detached from what is going on around you you remain the central character. Regarding sexuality with familiar versus unfamiliar people both the friendly and frustrated groups were more likely to say it was with a familiar person while the detached group was more likely to say it was with straollowed by techniques for ascertaining the content of ones own dreams relative to norms. The cultural or other group relativity of these norms is pointed out. It is stressed that the dreamer and not the course instructor, friends, psychotherapists, scientists or anyone else is the owner of their dream and thus the final authority on his/her dream.
Assignment: The dreamer is asked to answer various questions about their dream experiences. Norms of the class along with those used in the dream research are provided.
Perhaps I've gone into a bit too much detail regarding this dream concept but it is one which has concerned me for most of my professional life. Let's return now to the rest of the results from this assignment.
Who Are You Dreaming About?
The self is often the most central character in your dream although you said that on occasion you are not the central character (item 32). You reported that you are most often with a few people in those dreams rather than alone or with many (item 31). Among the other dream people, similar to the Hall and Van de Castle norms, females were more likely to say that the characters in their dreams were familiar (item 21). A variation on this was item 26, "Are the characters in your dreams generally people you know?" But here there was no sex difference with both sexes replying, "yes, often". It is difficult to say why these two very similar questions would result in different replies. Do you have any ideas?
People in this beta class said that the dream characters were mostly of the same sex. Whereas they viewed their female characters about the same (item 24), mostly trustworthy and loyal, there was a significant sex difference in how they viewed the male characters. Men reported the men in their dreams were most often (80%) trustworthy and loyal whereas women saw men in their dreams as equally likely to be erotic/sensual as trustworthy/loyal. This sexual element of the opposite sex was not significant different for the female characters.
In fact, when asked about the types of social interactions most common in your dreams it was friendly that was reported by both sexes (69%) while sexual was reported by only 4% of you. This is roughly parallel to the findings of the questionnaires authors.
Imaginary Lovers
The last part of the questionnaire inquired in the main about dream sexuality. This began with item 33 which asked, "Many people report having sexual dreams. Are your dreams typically sexual?" There was no sex difference to this item, with most of you replying "on occasion". I need to point out that again the question was a bit leading by it's wording giving permission to say yes I dream about sex. Although sexual dreams occur and vary as a function of life circumstance, Hall and Van de Castle's normative data indicate that it is a relatively rare theme. This was important in their work because of the Freudian emphasis prior to the publication of their "Content Analysis of Dreams" on dreams as being primarily sexual in nature, at least on the latent if not on the manifest level.
Of the remaining sexual dream items only one showed a sex difference, with whom you had dream sex. Whereas 79% of the women said it was people they knew, the majority of the men (55%) said it was with strangers. This reflects the findings of Hall and Van de Castle. Both sexes in the this class reported reaching an agreeable state of excitement in their sexual dreams, that they occasionally or rarely occur in a familiar setting, and that they are often pleasant and emotional.
WHAT'S THAT PLACE CALLED DREAMLAND?
Three of the last four questions concerned the settings in which dreams occurred. There were no sex differences in these items. The setting remained constant "on occasion", in spacious and vast places (48%), indoors (65%), and unfamiliar (73%). Hall and Van de Castle found, in contrast to you all, that men dreamt more about outdoor and unfamiliar settings while women dreamt more about indoor and familiar settings.
Time, Lucidity and Death
Several items were scattered throughout the questionnaire which did not fall directly into any of the aforementioned topics. For instance, and not surprisingly, every one of those who completed assignment 2 said they look forward to their dreams. Females were more likely to say their dreams were colorful. In terms of lucidity in dreams (i.e., knowing you are dreaming while you are dreaming), women reported these experiences significantly more often then men. This is similar to what I have found in the past but when I controlled for dream recall this sex difference disappeared. This may not be the case herein as you will recall that there was no sex difference in dream recall, a question asked in the first assignment.
Three questions dealt with dream time and none showed a sex difference. All of you said that your dreams generally shift time frames but occur in the present (77%) and during the daytime (78%).
Finally, when asked if you ever die in your dreams most said "rarely" or "never". This is consistent with the work of Diedre Barrett who has found that although people dream about dying and then wake up, it is a rare occurrence. Interestingly when people do die in their dreams it tends to be associated with no emotion or pain.
RELIGIOUSITY/SPIRITUALITY IN DREAMS
Needless to say there are many ways in which the data could be viewed from these two assignments but time constraints do not allow me to explore it fully. However, a student e-mailed me upon receiving the results of the first assignment and asked about the religious type variables and their potential relationship to dreams. This is a question which I also find most interesting and alluded to it above so I took some time to try to answer his question.
In the first assignment there were four items which asked about beliefs/practices related in some way to religiosity; prayer and meditation frequency/involvement, religion importance and type of religion. I combine the first three of these to create a religiosity index by converting your responses to standard scores, summing the three variables and then doing a median split on these sums. This left me with high and a low religiosity groups. The highs would have expressed interest in and experience with prayer and meditation and said that religion was important while the opposite would be true of the lows. Keep in mind that because of the way in which I created these groups one person could have said that religion was not at all important to them but if they also said they had experience with and were interested in prayer/meditation they could still have fallen in the high category.
Then I looked at this religiosity variable as a function of the subscale scores on the Dream Response Questionnaire which you filled out in assignment one. Differences were found in four of the eight scales; storydriven, leisure escape, spiritual, and insight. Specifically, those who scored high on religiosity were more likely to be especially interested in the story like nature of their dreams, see them as spiritual in nature, and gain deepened personal insight from them. They were less likely, however, to use dream reflection as a means of leisure or escape.
I then examined the dream content questions from the second assignment as a function of religiosity. First and foremost all but four of the 42 questions showed no difference. In other words, in terms of the specific content of dreams as measured by this questionnaire the overwhelming finding is that there is no difference as a function of the religiosity of the dreamer. I am not really statistically justified to talk about the four differences but I will mention them for your information. The low religiosity group was marginally more likely to say there was dialogue in their dreams and that they finished tasks begun in dreams than those who were classified as high in religiosity.
The other two differences dealt with dream sex! What's your guess? Those who scored high in religiosity, as defined herein, were more likely to report reaching an agreeable state of sexual excitement in their dreams.
Assignment #3
I am sorry it took me so long to get assignment 3 analyzed. There were a variety of reasons from computer to human glitches as well as work overload! As I e-mailed you a week ago we have extended the course a week because of the slowness of getting the dream groups up and running. Whether or not you participated in the dream groups or did all the assignments, please be sure to fill out the evaluation form which is assignment #5. In this way we can continue to refine the course for future students. As there is still some activity on the dream groups it will be later this week until I examine the results of assignment #4.
ASSIGNMENT #2 RESPONSES FROM YOU
First about your feedback on the results of assignment #2. There were a variety of perspectives on the questions I posed. They included:
You asked about the area of "verbally abused"....that this class tends to respond as abusing rather than abused verbally in dreams. I wonder if the subconscious is feeling free to work out, a form of retribution, and complete responses to those in the "safe" dream state that the conscious mind feels unsafe and possibly dangerous while awake. This could be also, depending on the date of the "norms" questionnaire, that humans are feeling more anger and agitation that is not being appropriately released on a regular basis.?
The other point you questioned was the characters in dreams being "familiar" or "people you know". I wonder if the difference could be the semantics of the words. Either term could be interpreted as either celebrities or those people who we have regular, perhaps daily, contact with to include; family, friends, co-workers, and those who offer services (teachers, cashier at a frequented business, UPS delivery person).
Perhaps it has been too threatening to admit being abusive in the past? I wonder how they phrased their questions about whether one was abused or abusive. I also wonder about the extreme selectivity of this group and perhaps because of being so highly verbal (one has to be to participate in this project) that the high reporting of being verbally abusive fits with natural skills. It may also be, perhaps, that people who are very involved with dreaming tend to "act in" rather than "act out" and being abusive may be a perceptual twist on what other people may consider normal. By that I mean it may be compensatory for the lack of speaking out or the psychological trouble with having spoken out that this group may demonstrate. These are wild guesses, but fun to consider, and perhaps ideas for theses/research?
The series of questions on aggression were the most difficult for me to answer, primarily because I specifically noted (for myself) that the inclusion of the word "threat of" might have helped shape the answers better. I therefore felt that my answers were the result of "forced choices" which did not fit my general feeling about my dreams. I therefore felt I was contributing unreliable data but did not know what to do about it.
The question of religion and spirituality also posed some problems for me. For example: My mother was Catholic and I started in parochial school, later changing to heavy duty Episcopalian. When I did not feel comfortable with the "We are all born sinners" viewpoint of life and investigated religion by my own choice, I was active in the Congregational framework, but find myself most aligned with the Society of Friends. I find myself much more aligned with a sense of order in the universe (although I sure question the amount of violence we are witnessing worldwide) as my "religion." Questions about "religion" are therefore difficult to answer.
Interpreting the dreams of unseen strangers isn't a task for the verbally timid!
Using myself as a sample of one, I suspect you're dealing w/ group which is very articulate, but sometimes socially w/drawn. They're either verbally aggressive, may they merely fear that they're verbally aggressive. I may be projecting all over my classmates, but this type of activity seems to draw people who sometimes give offense when they're exploring others' internal environments. (Mucking about in others' interior living rooms w/ their muddy boots still on.) Hence the great value of the phrase, "If it were my dream..."
The net also provides some protective anonymity to individuals who fear that their verbal aggression may offend others.
I too rarely dream of my own death, at least one of these dreams was among the most joyous I've ever had. There was a tremendous feelings of relief as my body was incinerated in an atomic explosion, but I felt no pain and my spirit lived on. I felt wonderful knowing I continued to exist and no longer needed to fear death.
As the the rest of your feedback I find it FASCINATING and am already imagining ways to adjust my clinical work from it's influence.
What a wonderful variety of takes on the last assignment. You make me realize why it is good to discuss findings with the people who actually contributed to the data. I hope this information will enrich your understanding of the last set of results. Now I will discuss the assignment #3 results.
Part 1: Metaphor Dream Interpretation Task
We had even more computer type problems with this assignment than with getting the dream groups up and running. Programming wise the programmers came to call part 1 of assignment #3, "The assignment from *%#@!" I think there may still be some problems with it both technically and more importantly with your understanding of how to go about doing it, but perhaps I am wrong. In any case I do hope you will give me your impressions on it, understanding wise, in the final evaluation or by e-mail. Although most of you completed it once on the practice run where you were instructed to think about a dream "action" and then about an "animal" which might serve as a metaphor for that dream action, very few went further than once. Any insight as to why you did not go further would be appreciated. I tried it with a class here at Grant MacEwan Community College and we ran into some major technical glitches so I am unsure of the nature of the problem.
Therefore the analysis I was able to complete are based only on the practice run, action/animal. Remember you were asked nine questions about the metaphor exercise, with two exceptions your average responses were half-way between the two extreme possibilities. So that it was moderately easy to reflect on the animal, the imagery fit moderately well, and so forth. The two exceptions were in terms of your perceived novelty of the animal which you choose, not at all novel, and upon completing the exercise you were very curious about the meaning of the action in your dream imagery.
As with the previous two assignments I examined sex differences in responses to the nine metaphor questions. There were no sex differences for seven of the nine questions. Females were significantly more likely to respond that they were sensitive to aspects of the the animal they choose which they typically would have ignored than were males. Likewise, females were also more likely to say that they knew or understood their animal vis a vie their dream in a way that could not be put into words.
Curiously there were no comments submitted for this part of the assignment whereas you wrote a lot about the next part.
Part 2: Individual dream interpretation task
Virtually all the people who did the first part of the assignment also did this part with the same dream, which occurred in the last week and were from 50 to 200 words in length. Interestingly there were no sex differences for any of the questions asked in part 2 of assignment 3.
After having written down the dream but having done the metaphor exercise, your anticipatory feelings about this part of the activity were high. Specifically, you felt the dream was important, you were curious about it, found it moderately confusing, frightening and exciting, felt it had a lot to do with your life and felt that you already understood some of it but felt there was more to know. All but one of these seven dimensions showed a significant change by the end of this dream interpretation activity. Specifically you felt the dream was more important than in the beginning, less frightening, more exciting, had more to do with your life and you understood it more than at the beginning of the individual technique. However, you reported that your curiosity was about the same and you were at once more confused about the dream while also feeling like you understood your dream more. This last seems a bit contradictory, what do you think?
When asked to pick which dream aspect categories the words, phrases or images you circled in your dream were from, you responded most frequently that they included yourself (72%), the dream place (83%), and dream persons (72%). Slightly less likely to be mentioned were dream actions (61%) and dream objects (50%). There was only one sex difference in these choices, all of the males included a dream person while only 58% of the females did so. Here are some of the words/phrases which you circled in your dreams: old lady; crucified man; protective; construction or mining machinery; termites; large silver box; anxiety; on the sly; and pager. Even without the context of the dream or the person I find this list potentially evocative. We begin to see the universality of dream images/emotions.
You were then asked to write a sentence about yourself including each of the words/phrases. After writing these sentences you said basically the same things you said in the beginning of this task, at least quantitatively (i.e., in the beginning the average felt importance of the dream was 1.6 and after the sentences it was still 1.6). There were some slight shifts in your average quantitative replies towards the eventual final feelings. These continued for each stage of the process. However, when you read some of the sentences the quality of the exercise begins to emerge:
1. I wish that I could live in two environments like the frog.
2. When I want to make a phone call to home, I can't because I
don't have enough money.
3. I was in the office building where I worked, and I was on one of the highest floors... I could look down and see what was happening below me.
4. I want to dig in.
5. I wish I could speak everybody's language, but not their language, more like their communications with others.
6. I use slowness to avoid danger.
7. Termites are pests which eat away at foundations unseen until the damage is done.
8. I capably avoid wrecks when I am driving in traffic.
9. Make items purple that aren't.
10. I get anxious because I know she can point out things that are difficult for me to recognize.
11. I don't think I should have to feel MORTIFIED about my weaknesses or flaws.
12. My pager makes me feel important.
All these sentences reflect themes of the human condition and are certainly ones that I find I can relate to. Can you?
You were then asked to rewrite the dream from the perspective of one of the words/phrases that you had chosen. Again your quantitative replies again evidenced slight shifts in felt meaning but this spontaneous comment demonstrates some of the impact of this part of the activity, "When I rewrote the dream from the perspective of the other woman there, I felt upset for me; obviously to the other, I was quite upset and worried over not knowing what to prioritize: my need to give birth and protect my baby, or to uphold my work responsibilities."
Recall that you were then asked to enter into an imaginary dialogue with the chosen word/phrase and then to write a "to do" statement based on what emerged for you from the dreamwork. Here is what some of you wrote:
1. I need to be careful about getting enough exercise or I will gain weight.
2. I need to have more faith that something is looking out for me and will show me the path.
3. By now the dream seems a little less overwhelming, but I also realize that it is a very important theme for me, and I wonder at myself for writing it down and then kind of forgetting about it; I want to be more willing to follow my own impulses and less willing to listen to all the "shoulds" that cause me to ignore what is really vital in my life, to the detriment not just of me personally, but of my purpose in life, and the world.
4. My work is not unrespectable, it's just small and difficult for me. I can do it and find surprising moments of peace and warmth.
5. When I feel stuck, I need to dialog with the critical parent and the fearful child. I feel like many more doors have opened and there is more chance to create peace in my interior. Still feels like there's more work to do before I reach the peaceable kingdom.
6. Believe more in myself and how I affect people, to open up more to my boyfriend, not keep it all locked up inside, to "listen" more to people (emotion, language, body), and to try and help everyone a little more than I already can.
7. I haven't gained much additional insight via the exercise, though the recognition of possible repressed anger was a new insight. As usual, with the feeling of lack of fuller understanding, I am left with the feeling of the value of just keeping open and present to my dreams and inner self, even if not very well 'understood'.
8. It seems as if this dream would be a little frightening since it hints at unseen destructive forces but I prefer to be grateful for the dream and take it as a warning to pay attention. I will pay attention to thoughts and ideas that are just under the surface and try to work to transform them before they destroy my foundations.
9. Stop poking around for dirt.
10. Although I am afraid to take risks, rather than just going with the slow flow, I can do so safely.
11. Evolve in my learning/education, and let a significant other individual get closer to me.
12. I am looking forward and thinking about my relationship with my children and wife, and that I can get out of that only-for-me world and develop an open heart sharing with them, without the sense that I am losing a time for me (narcissistically). My head won't take me further if I stay away from my heart. This is a pathway.
13. I don't want to involve other people in my problems, but I have no need to hide the problems, and other people may be able to help.
14. I have to get away from this dangerous person.
15. Do increase my Lucid Dream control.
Feelings of uncertainty also characterized this process: "I am not at all clear about the dream message. But I wonder, what is it that I am supposed to look at? So my statement is, "Do look at that! Do look at that!" and "The format was limiting; it would have been much better to have done this in, maybe a group of women, so that we could share and discuss. On the other hand, it allowed me to focus on myself, without interference." Despite this uncertainty it was also useful:
1. I feel that doing this exercise emphasized something I knew about myself, but reminded me why I am that way and that I no longer need to isolate myself in order to protect myself, that I can now take care of myself in healthier ways.
2. Thanks for this exercise it was very helpful.
3. This was helpful, and will be put to good use in the future.