Announcing the IASD Student Awards for 2027!
The IASD Student Research Awards are given to students (undergraduate and graduate) in two areas: best original scientific research on dreams and dreaming, and best original historical, literary, artistic, or theoretical research on dreams. There will be three awards of $500 each.
We are pleased to announce that two anonymous donors have graciously agreed to provide matching funds for the 2027 competition! The IASD Board of Trustees will provide the balance of funds.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE
March 15, 2027
5,000 word maximum for all submissions
Submit Online →
The Awards | Who May Apply | How to Submit | Past Winners
The Three Awards
Award 1: Quantitative
Best student submission of original quantitative research on dreams and dreaming.
Award 2: Qualitative
Best student submission of original qualitative (historical, literary, artistic, or theoretical) research on dreams.
Submissions in both categories are evaluated on four criteria:
- Originality
- Relevance
- Coherence
- Significance of contribution to the study of dreams
Award 3: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)
Newly instituted by the IASD Board to lift up and amplify the voices of dream researchers from ethnic groups that have been underrepresented in dream research. It may be awarded for either quantitative or qualitative research. Applicants remain eligible for Awards 1 and 2.
Who May Participate
- Undergraduate or graduate students (you must send a valid student ID)
- Applicants must say whether their research should be considered quantitative or qualitative
- Applicants must state their level: Undergraduate, Masters, Ph.D., or other (please specify)
Applying for the DEI Award
- Attach a short statement (a few sentences) confirming your identification in an ethnic group that has been underrepresented in academic dream research
- Final selection is made by the IASD Diversity Advisory Committee, from candidates ranked by the Ernest Hartmann Student Research Awards Committee
- Details: IASD Dreams & Ethnicity Portal
- Questions? Email diversityresponse@asdreams.org
Previously Published Work & Multiple Authors
- Research published before the submission deadline is not eligible
- For papers with multiple authors, clearly indicate which portions are your own work (in the paper or in an accompanying letter)
Using AI in Your Submission
The Student Research Awards Committee recognizes that AI is increasingly part of academic life. Starting with the 2025 award cycle, submissions that use AI are accepted if you:
- Clearly identify which portions relied on AI, and how
- Name the specific program(s) used
- Show that the bulk of the work is your own, just as you would cite published literature or mentor assistance
Submissions that rely heavily on uncited AI, or where AI is the major part of the work, may be deemed not acceptable for the Ernest Hartmann Student Research Award.
How to Submit
- All entries go through the Student Award Online Submission Form
- DEI applicants: attach your identity statement
- You may also submit videos (AVI format) or music (MIDI or MP3 format)
- Winners are announced at the General Membership Meeting at the IASD annual conference (check the conference schedule for date and time)
Good luck to all participants!
DreamTime Magazine, Winter 2015Ernest Hartmann Student Research Award Celebrates its 10th Year
Curtiss Hoffman, Student Research Awards Committee Chair
“The inception of the Student Research Awards Committee was a result of an inspiration from the late Dr. Ernest Hartmann at the 2004 IASD conference. Since then, thanks to generous grants from anonymous donors supplemented by funds from the IASD Board, the committee has been able to offer two awards each year to outstanding student researchers: one for quantitative and one for qualitative research.
Part of the awardees’ commitment upon receiving the award is to continue to pursue dream studies by presenting their research in an IASD-approved format, either at a conference or as a journal article.”
A follow-up study of the past 10 years’ awardees is available to download. Download the PDF of the article from the Winter 2015 issue of IASD’s DreamTime Magazine.
Past Winners
2026 Student Award Winners
- Quantitative Award: John Gilbert, “Agency Restoration as a Central Mechanism in Lucid Dream Therapy for PTSD”
- Qualitative Award: Michael Headrick, “Exploring the Feasibility of Dream Groups with Ceramic Making”
- Qualitative Honorable Mention: Beril Ozturk, “Exploring Counsellors’ Dreams Through Photography: A Visual-Narrative Study”
There were no submissions in the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity category this year.
2025 Student Award Winners
- Quantitative Award: Simge Genc, “A Smartphone-Based Lucid Dream Induction Study”
- Qualitative Award and Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Award: Canis Lin, “The Healing Potentials and Working Mechanisms of Rewriting Nightmares for Chinese Adults – A Qualitative Study”
Honorable Mentions in the Qualitative Category
- Vanessa Dromel, “When Places Don’t Find Their Place in Our Dreams: A Journey Between Memory, Emotions, and Narration”
- Sonia Kolasinka, “Dream Work Approaches in Integration of Spiritual Emergency: A Transpersonal Psychology Perspective”
2024 Student Award Winners
- Quantitative Award: Elena Gerhardt, “Exploring the Links between Lucid Dreaming, Mindfulness, and Meditation Practices – Thesis”
- Qualitative Award: Molly Basterfield, “Dream Groups as a Container for Rites of Passage: A Qualitative Research Project Documenting Adolescents Sharing Dreams within School, and Identifying Similarities to Processes which Occur in Dagara Rite of Passage Initiations”
- Qualitative Honorable Mention: Sonia Kolasinka, “Spatial and Temporal Non-locality of Dream Consciousness: Exploration Inspired by Dreams of Clarity”
There were no awards in the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity category.
2023 Student Award Winners
- Quantitative Award: Cameron Sandell, “Intentionally awakening from sleep through lucid dreaming”
There were no awards in the Qualitative category or the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity category.
2022 Student Award Winners
- Quantitative Award: Maddy Wary, “Assessing the Role of Sleep in American Sign Language Learning”
- Qualitative Award: Victoria Rogers, “Black Noise: Dream the Revolution”
- Qualitative Honorable Mention: Farah Aziz Annesha, “An Analytical Study of Birth Dreams in Bangladesh”
Note: The Diversity Advisory Committee awarded the DEI Student Research Award to Farah Aziz Annesha and named Victoria Rogers as an honorable mention in that category.
Show earlier winners (2020 and before)
2020 Student Award Winners
- Quantitative Award: Katharina Luth, “Effectiveness of the Imagery Rehearsal Therapy for Nightmares in a Telephone Counseling”
- Qualitative Award: Lana Sackwild, “The Healing and Transformative Potential of Lucid Dreaming for Mitigating Depression: An Interpretive and Phenomenological Analysis”
- Qualitative Honorable Mention: Wania Shakeel, “What Are Dreams?”
The last of these submissions, remarkably, was by a 10-year-old girl! This led to a lively discussion at the Annual Board Meeting about creating a special category for “young oneironauts.” It was part of Ernest Hartmann’s original vision that the awards be open not only to undergraduate and graduate students but also to younger dreamers. We welcome input from IASD members interested in developing an innovative program in this area! Contact Curtiss Hoffman at teximus@comcast.net.
2019
No awards in 2019.
2018 Student Award Winners
- Josh Black, “Who Dreams of the Deceased? The Roles of Dream Recall, Grief Intensity, Attachment, and Openness to Experience”
- Karen Konkoly, “Learning to Lucid Dream Enhances Aspects of Personal Growth”
2017 Student Award Winners
$500 Award
- Sheri D. Kling, MATS, MAR, PhD
PERCEPTIVE BODY-MIND: A RELATIONAL-IMAGINAL THEORY OF DREAMING
Claremont School of Theology
Honorable Mentions
- Heather Dawn, PhD (qualitative)
Dreams That Were Used as Legal Evidence in the New England Witch Trials From 1661 to 1692
Saybrook Institute
- Jesse Kipperman (quantitative)
The Effectiveness of Dreamwork for Personal Growth and Healing: A Specific Case Study on Using Intention Towards Dreams
Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Integral Health with an Emphasis on Integral Psychology, California Institute for Human Science
2016
Coming soon
2015
Coming soon
2014 Student Award Winners
Thank you to the 2014 donors to the Ernest Hartmann Student Awards: Rachel and Michael Rosen
Honorable Mention winner Nicholas Zink
- Qualitative: Polly A. McCann, “From Where We Write: Writers’ Self-Awareness through Dream and Memory”
- Quantitative: Hye Joo Han, “How do social networks in dreams differ from waking-life social networks?”
- Quantitative Honorable Mention: Rafael Ayala, “REM Sleep, Dreams and Attachment Orientation”
- Honorable Mention: Nicolas Zink, “Relationship between Lucid Dreaming, Creativity and Dream Characteristics”
2013 Student Award Winners
- Quantitative: Josie Malinowski, “The preferential incorporation of emotional and ‘important’, but not stressful, waking-life experiences into dreams”
- Qualitative: Laurenţiu Malomfălean, “A dreamland of death: Oneirodystopia, phantoms and hypertext in the last works of William S. Burroughs”
Honorable Mentions
- Quantitative: Anna Lezon, “Sleep Deprivation and Delusion Proneness: Influence on Dream Bizarreness”
- Qualitative: Nicholas Atlas, “The Fountain of Youth: Dreaming, Kundalini and the Clear Light”
- Qualitative: Darlene Cimino-DeRose, “Projective Dream Work and the Cultivation of Compassion”
2012 Student Award Winners
The Student Awards Committee presented the 2012 awards to two quantitative researchers:
- Isaac Taitz, “Learning Lucid Dreaming and Its Effect on Depression in Undergraduates”
- Nils Sandman, “The Prevalence of Nightmares”
2011 Student Award Winners
- Category I, Quantitative (Science): Tadas Strumbrys, “An exploratory study of creative problem solving in lucid dreams: Preliminary findings and methodological considerations”
- Category II, Qualitative (Arts, Literature, Humanities): Juan Miguel Marín, “A shortcut through dreams to the Nobel Prize? Re-assessing Wolfgang Pauli’s ‘Lucid Platonism’ and ‘Background Physics'”
- Honorable Mention: Danielle Pearson
- Honorable Mention: Lucie Kracmarova
2010 Student Award Winners
- Category I, Quantitative (Science): Connie Svob, “Dream Remembering: Theory and Measurement”
- Category II, Qualitative (Arts, Literature, Humanities): Linda Mastrangelo, “Animal Dreams”
2009 Student Award Winners
- Category I, Quantitative (Science): Winner, Amy Blum, “Gender differences in dreams: Applications to dreamwork with male clients”
- Category II, Qualitative (Arts, Literature, Humanities): Winner, Melanie Rosen, “The Narrative Fabrication Theory of Dreams”
- Category II Runner-up: Linda Mastrangelo, “The Prima Materia as Golden Shadow”
2008 Student Award Winners
- Category I, Quantitative (Science): Eva Murzyn, “Do We Only Dream In Colour? A Comparison of Younger and Older Adults with Different Experiences of Black and White Media.”
- Category II, Qualitative (Arts, Literature, Humanities): Winner, Ryan Dungan Hurd, “A Treatise on Lucid Nightmares”
2007 Student Award Winners
- Category I, Quantitative (Science): Winner, Peter Simor, “Emotional Regulation in Dreaming”
- Category I Runner-up: Miloslava Kozmova, “Body Image and Anorexia Nervosa”
- Category II, Qualitative (Arts, Literature, Humanities): Winner, Patricia Spangler, “Therapist Dreams about Clients: A Qualitative Investigation of Themes, Exploration, and Use”
- Category II Runner-up: Melody Conroy, “Unraveling the Darkness: Dreams in Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur”
2006 Winners
- Category I, Quantitative (Science): Winner, Sheila Asato, “The Design of Dreams: How the Healing Collage Process Relates to Dreaming”
- Category I Honorable Mention: Marlene Canton, “Menopausal Women and their Dreams”
- Category II, Qualitative (Arts, Literature, Humanities): Winner, Lana Nassar, “Creative Interpretation of a Dream” (no honorable mentions)
2005 Winners
- Category I, Quantitative (Science): Winner, Gillian Finocan, “Women’s Use of Dreamwork”
- Category II, Qualitative (Arts, Literature, Humanities): Winner, Clare Johnson, “Lucid Dreaming and Plot Development”
