FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE DREAMS

by: Lauren Schone, Bong Sok, Carrie Myers, Lauren Hollinger

INTRODUCTION

DREAM: a sequence of images, etc. passing through a sleeping

person’s mind

~ dreams intrigue because they have a mystical and illusive

quality

~ but do certain factors cause specific dreams?

SLEEPING

~ essential part of human life

~ one quarter of sleep time is spent dreaming, that’s seven and a half

years!!!

Sleep Stages

DREAM THEORISTS

FREUD and JUNG

Freudian Function

~ tool for wish-fufillment~ two occurrences during

sleeping~ dreams as “guardians”

Jungian Juxtaposition

~ worked closely with Freud and his ideas

~ believed in “spiritual” aspect of unconscious

WHY DREAM?

~ helps brain grow during young ages

~ strengthens connections between certain areas of

brains

~ sleep deprivation and dream deprivation one

night will result in lots of REM sleep the next night

~ this is why we believe that those who do not

sleep well one night will have many dreams the

next night

MEN vs. WOMEN

~women and men have different dream themes

that relate to pleasantness, setting,

sexuality, and stereotypical dreams

STRESS

~ we dream because the mind is still processing

issues and concerns

~ tension and unresolved struggles follow into sleep

~ people incorporate their stress into dreams

~stress increases dream emotionality

~ more stress =more dreams (that means

architect majors)

EXPERIMENT

~ based upon learned information we have chosen categories to examine in relation to

dreams~ comparison of these

categories will hopefully expose dream patterns

~ sex / gender~ stress

~ number of hours slept~ number of dreams per

night~ academic major~ residence hall~ dream theme

RESULTS~male vs. female

~dorm~major

~Spearman Rank Test

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

~the number of hours slept did not appear to affect the number of

dreams~the greatest number of dreams recorded in one

night was five

~sleep rating and stress levels both ranged from

one to ten~most stress appeared to

be due to school, then friends, then family (which makes sense since we are

in college)

FACTORS THAT AFFECT RESULTS

~the number of people surveyed

~honesty of participants~limited dream type list

HOW WOULD WE DO IT DIFFERENTLY?

~survey more people and the same number of

people in each category (sex, dorm, major)

~expand list of dream types

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