Human Sciences Press, Inc., New York City

Volume 1, Number 2, June 1991

Flying Dreams and Lucidity: An Empirical Study of Their Relationship
Deirdre Barrett
Page 129

Impactful Dreams and Metaphor Generation
Don Kuiken and Laurie Smith
Page135

Dream Translation: A Nonassociative Method for Understanding
the Dream
Milton Kramer
Page147

The New Anthropology of Dreaming
Barbara Tedlock
Page 161
Available Online

Gackenbach, Jayne.
Frameworks for understanding lucid dreaming: A review.
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 1(2) 109-128, Jun 1991.

Abstract:

Major recent psychological and psychophysiological frameworks for understanding the experience of knowing you are dreaming while the dream is ongoing, lucid dreaming, are reviewed. Several of the psychological approaches take an information processing view of lucid dreaming. One sees lucidity in sleep as a cognitive tool whereas others put more emphasis on a model of 'self' awareness. Lucidity in sleep as one form of intensified dreaming along a self-reflectiveness dimension is the perspective of some while lucidity is also seen as a bridge to post formal operation functioning within dreaming sleep. Psychophysiological perspectives on lucid dreaming show that lucidity is a significantly more aroused REM sleep experience than nonlucid REM sleep. The EEG and lucidity work is based on the association of lucidity to meditation. This sleep experience is also viewed from the framework of spatial skills especially as implicated in vestibular system functioning. Finally, the connectionist view of neural nets is another explanatory vehicle.

Key Words: dreaming; lucid dreaming; meditation.

Barrett, Ph.D., Deirdre.
Flying dreams and lucidity: An empirical study of their relationship.
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 1(2) 129-134, Jun 1991.

Abstract:

Flying dreams have anecdotally been suggested to be related to lucid dreams, either by general proximity of occurrence or by flying directly triggering lucidity. The present study of 1910 dreams from 191 subjects found flying dreams were likelier to be reported by subjects reporting lucid dreams or any of three related categories: "pre-lucid" dreams, dreams of sleep, or "false awakenings." When flying and lucidity occurred in the same dream, lucidity preceded flight rather than being triggered by it. Possible bases for this relationship of lucid and flying dreams are discussed in terms of their psychological and physiological commonalities.

Key Words: dream; lucid dream; flying dream; false awakening.

Kuiken, Don; Smith, Laurie.
Impactful dreams and metaphor generation.
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 1(2) 135-145, Jun 1991.

Abstract:
This study examined whether impactful dreaming increases the ease with which novel and apt metaphors are generated immediately after awakening. For about two weeks, 42 participants rated the impact of their spontaneously recalled dreams on thoughts and feelings during subsequent wakefulness. During those weeks, participants completed a metaphor task either immediately after a relatively impactful dream or immediately after an ordinary dream. For the metaphor task, participants were instructed to either generate metaphors using actions, persons, and places from their dream imagery or to generate metaphors using actions, persons, and places from (guided) fantasies that they created immediately after dreaming. Participants' ratings of their own metaphors indicated that metaphors generated from actions in dream imagery were more novel than metaphors generated from actions in fantasy imagery. Also, participants' ratings indicated that, when using dream imagery, metaphors created after impactful dreams were more easily generated and more apt than metaphors created after ordinary dreams, although, when using fantasy imagery, metaphors created after impactful dreams were less easily generated and less apt than metaphors created after ordinary dreams.

Key Words: dream; metaphor; impactful dreams.

Kramer, M.D., Milton.
Dream translation: A nonassociative method for understanding the dream.
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 1(2) 147-159, Jun 1991.

Abstract:

An approach to dream understanding is presented. The systematic examination of the dream text provides a wealth of information about the dreamer. Such an approach substitutes the controlled associations of the reader (therapist) for those of the patient (dreamer). It presumes an organization latent in the dream which is reflective of the emotional state of the dreamer. An illustration of the methodology is provided. Dream translation illuminates the dreamer to the therapist but is not a substitute for the collaborative work necessary for dream interpretation.

Key Words: dream; translation; psychotherapy; manifest dream.

Tedlock, Ph.D., Barbara.
The new anthropology of dreaming.
Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 1(2) 161-178, Jun 1991.

Abstract:

Dreams are private mental experiences which have never been recorded during their occurrence, while dream reports are public social performances which are accessible to researchers. There has been a major shift in cultural anthropological methodology away from interviewing "non-Western" dreamers in order to gather dream reports which might then be subjected to a statistical content analysis. Instead, anthropologists today are relying more on participant observation, in which they interact within natural communicative contexts of dream sharing, representation, and interpretation. In such contexts the introduction of an anthropologist's own recent dreams is quite natural, even expected. This methodological change has resulted in the publication of highly-nuanced, linguistically informed analyses of dream narration and interpretation as psychodynamic intercultural social processes. Recently, anthropologists have also become more skilled at uncovering their own unconscious reactions to the peoples they are attempting to describe. In time, perhaps, cultural anthropologists may become more like psychoanalysts in the skill with which they listen to emotional dream communications of others and examine their own responses. 

Key Words: anthropology; dreaming; participant observer; culture.

Available Online