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Hi everybody, After reading the first two comments on the "Determinants ans mental health effects..." I am afraid that my evaluation is drastically different. I read the paper several times and each time I read it I was more confused. There are too many questions related to the data presentation and data collection procedure that cast some doubt regarding the meaning of the findings. The following are just few examples to exemplify my points: 1. The scales for the frequency of dream recall in Figures 1 and 2 ranged from 9 to 13, while the same data in Figure 3 range from 1 to 3 how come? 2. Similarly, the scale for depression scores range from -.9 to -1.2 while the scores for anxiety range from -1 to 9? (Fig 4). 3. There is no information on the magnitude of the differences in dream recall frequency between the so called traumatized and the so called non traumatized subjects. Only data on "every night recallers" and "no recallers" are provided. 5. There is no information on the number of subjects in each category of traumatic events (Figures 1a 1b and 2). It is very difficult to understand these findings without some idea on the number of subjects in each category. Likewise, no data on the number of subjects in the three repression category groups are provided (Figure 3). 6. What are the definitions of frequent and infrequent dream recalls (every night ? 6/7 nights? vs 0?, 1-2/7 nights???). Why the categories are inverted in Figure 4a and 4b? 7. Why the same scale for the level of traumatic events in figure 4a and 4b range from 0.4 to 0.9 in (a) and from 2 to 16 in (b)? 8. The differences between the traumatized and non-traumatized groups are far from being clear. While there was no difference between the groups regarding how frequently they were wounded, 12% of the trauma group vs 6% of the other group reported losing a family member through death. There is no mentioning of the kind of death, violent death? accidents? Since there is a very substantial diffrence in life expectancy between the two regions such a difference is no surprising. These are just few of the problems. How anyone can make any sense of the findings without sorting out these issues? I also found it particularly distressing that in the discussion section, Dagan Lavie and Bliech (1991) study is cited as supporting the observation that "the sleep of traumatized people is lighter.." while this study reported precisely the opposite. It showed that paradoxically the sleep of traumatized people was deeper...This paradoxical finding was just replicated in an independent group of war related PTSD patinets (Lavie et al , Biological Psychiatry, in press). I await your advice how to treat these findings, Peretz Lavie Sleep Lab, Technion Israel Institute of Technology