Continuity between waking and dreaming for psychiatric patients. A review and discussion of the implications for dream research
Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Despite positive results from the use of dreams in psychotherapy and for personal growth, little is known of their nature and function. As an approach to expand our knowledge of dreams, their relationship to waking life of the dreamer have been investigated. Several patterns of connection between waking life and dreams has been identified, resulting in the so called continuity hypothesis of dreaming. Yet the formulation of this hypothesis remains too vague to thoroughly account for the relationship between waking life and dreams. To increase our knowledge of this relationship, the existing literature on dreams of psychiatric patients were reviewed in the present thesis, to identify the continuities and discontinuities between the dreams and the waking life psychopathology of these patients. This is an area of dream research not often approached. The findings demonstrate that several aspects of the waking life psychopathology of the patients show both continuity and discontinuity in dreams. The results indicate that a more specific and comprehensive definition of continuity is needed, and that more attention must be granted to the phenomenon of discontinuity. Furthermore, assessments of specific symptoms should compliment the patients' diagnoses for comparisons with dreams to be meaningful.
Author: Skancke, Joacim Foss
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6990059086