Dreams stimulate waking-life creativity and problem solving: Effects of personality traits

Abstract

Well-known examples, e.g. Paul McCartney who composed “Yesterday” because of a dream, have shown how dreams can inspire creativity. In a sample population of 2492 participants who completed an online questionnaire the goal of this study was to examine the frequency of dreams which stimulate creative ideas and help solving problems. Participants had on average both creative ideas and problem solving help by dreams once every other month. Factors such as gender, age, attitude towards dreams and personality traits influenced the frequency. Although all personality traits showed an impact on the frequency, Openness to Experience and Neuroticism had the strongest influence. Agreeableness and Conscientiousness showed negative correlations only with the creative ideas by dreams item. Persons with higher scores of Openness to Experience and Neuroticism were more often influenced by their dreams. Further research could have a look at persons working in creative fields and possible results of creative and problem solving dreams, e.g., new music, advertising slogans, website designs, and poems.