Structural differences between waking life narrations and dream reports: A lexical approach

Abstract

Dreams have held the attention of psychology researchers for a long time. One possible explanation for dreams is that they represent the brain’s attempt to consolidate impressions and emotions from waking-life. However, little is known about how the language in dream reports differs from waking-life narrations. Using a lexical approach to examine dream reports can facilitate our understanding of the nature of dreams more deeply. We hypothesize that dream reports are syntactically different from waking-life narrations as measured by the percentage of given parts of speech. Moreover, certain frequently used parts of speech may be associated with nightmare frequency and negative dream emotions. Two groups of participants kept a structured dream diary over 28 consecutive days. For comparison, a third sample of students wrote reports about their waking-life. Results showed that there were structural differences between dream reports and waking-life narrations. These results support the Continuity Hypothesis and also suggest that dream reports may be more negatively toned than those of waking-life. Future research could investigate this more deeply.