Kathryn Belicki

Nightmare frequency versus nightmare distress: Relations to psychopathology and cognitive style.

The hypotheses that psychopathology is related to nightmare distress but not nightmare frequency and that cognitive style is related to nightmare frequency were examined. The sample consisted of 85 subjects (58 women and 27 men) who completed several measures: a sleep and dream inventory, Symptom Check List-90-R, Fear Survey Schedule-II, Beck Depression Inventory, an abbreviated version of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Vividness of Visual Imagery, an absorption scale, a social desirability scale, and the Boundaries Questionnaire. The results strongly support the first hypothesis but only slightly the second. Such findings underscore the need to differentiate nightmare frequency from suffering (waking distress associated with nightmares) and suggest that although frequency may be related to an intensification of dreaming process, suffering is related to waking emotional adjustment.

On the Psychometric Properties of Retrospective Dream Content Questionnaires

The present study examined the psychometric properties of retrospective questionnaires as measures of dream experience. One hundred and six university students filled out a dream content questionnaire and kept a fourteen-day dream diary on two separate occasions, in addition to completing two trait personality inventories and measures of spatial ability and imaginativeness. The dream content questionnaires reliability was acceptable, as was its discriminant and construct validity. In contrast, dream diary content was inconsistent over time and unrelated to personality traits. The questionnaires concurrent validity could not be adequately appraised due to this inconsistency in diary content. The results suggest that greater attention must be paid to the psychometric properties of all measures of dream content. In addition, prior problems with mapping the relationship between personality and dream content may be due to measurement issues.

Sixteen Years of Dreams Following Spousal Bereavement

This study compares two contrasting models concerning the relationship of dreams to phases of bereavement. To accomplish this, a content analysis of a widowers 16-year dream diary was conducted. While there was a small tendency for dreams of the deceased being alive again to occur earlier in the diary, and dreams of being separated from the deceased to occur later, in general there was no evidence of an orderly emergence of dream themes across time. These findings are supportive of more recent views of bereavement that stress the importance of redefining a relationship with the deceased rather than resolving grief in an orderly and timely manner. More generally, the present study contributes to a growing recognition that dreams can be a valuable tool for studying reactions to bereavement.