Dreams
Dreams, the realm of the collective unconscious, are where our holographic and ancestral memories live, and we can access them from there, and they likewise access us through the dreamworld.
Carl Jung brought the topic of mythology into psychotherapy, and he wrote about his own "personal myth." One approach to dreamwork is the identification of the functional or dysfunctional personal myth (or belief system) embedded in the dream. This personal myth usually is implicit or explicit in what Hartmann calls the "central image" of the dream. In addition, it typically serves as the "chaotic attractor" that self-organizes material drawn to it by the sleeping brain's neural networks. Jung's perspective on dreams is remarkably congruent with many findings in neuroscience as well as the self-regulatory processes that typify contemporary dream theory and research.
My collaborators and I have been studying what Jung called "big dreams" for some time. For various research studies we defined "big dreams" either as "memorable" dreams, as "important" dreams, as "especially significant" dreams, and as "impactful" dreams. In each case we found that the "big dreams" were characterized by significantly higher Central Image Intensity than control groups of dreams - thus more powerful imagery. We did not find clear differences in Content Analysis scoring of these dreams. We will discuss these studies and also present a possible neurobiology of "big dreams."
In an early work, Jung wrote about two types of thinking, directed and fantasy thinking, He had in mind what we might today see as the difference between left brain analytical thinking with words and right brain thinking in images and stories. The brain works differently in each mode, with different areas active and with different chemicals suffusing the neurons. Jung's two types combine what we would now distinguish as right and left brain activity while awake and dream thinking while we are asleep. In referring to the lunar mind, I am speaking about the sleeping mind at work as it dreams us and also the (probably mostly) right brain activity that we use in active imagination. In Jungian psychoanalysis, we are concerned with bringing lunar and solar minds into contact with one another in the field of an analytic relationship, and working with dreams is an essential aspect of this process.
Insights from contemporary neurobiology support rather than contest Jung's view that emotional truth underpins the dreaming process. Recent imaging studies confirm that dreams are the mind's vehicle for the processing of emotional states of being, particularly the fear, anxiety, anger or elation that often figure prominently. Dream sleep is also the guardian of memory, playing a part in forgetting, encoding and affective organization of memory.In the clinical sections of the presentation Margaret will let the dreams speak, revealing the emotionally salient concerns of the dreamers in a way that demonstrates the healthy attempt of the brain-mind to come to terms with difficult emotional experience. The dreams become dreamable as part of the meaning-making process.
Carl Jung brought the topic of mythology into psychotherapy, and he wrote about his own "personal myth." One approach to dreamwork is the identification of the functional or dysfunctional personal myth (or belief system) embedded in the dream. This personal myth usually is implicit or explicit in what Hartmann calls the "central image" of the dream. In addition, it typically serves as the "chaotic attractor" that self-organizes material drawn to it by the sleeping brain's neural networks. Jung's perspective on dreams is remarkably congruent with many findings in neuroscience as well as the self-regulatory processes that typify contemporary dream theory and research.
My collaborators and I have been studying what Jung called "big dreams" for some time. For various research studies we defined "big dreams" either as "memorable" dreams, as "important" dreams, as "especially significant" dreams, and as "impactful" dreams. In each case we found that the "big dreams" were characterized by significantly higher Central Image Intensity than control groups of dreams - thus more powerful imagery. We did not find clear differences in Content Analysis scoring of these dreams. We will discuss these studies and also present a possible neurobiology of "big dreams."
In an early work, Jung wrote about two types of thinking, directed and fantasy thinking, He had in mind what we might today see as the difference between left brain analytical thinking with words and right brain thinking in images and stories. The brain works differently in each mode, with different areas active and with different chemicals suffusing the neurons. Jung's two types combine what we would now distinguish as right and left brain activity while awake and dream thinking while we are asleep. In referring to the lunar mind, I am speaking about the sleeping mind at work as it dreams us and also the (probably mostly) right brain activity that we use in active imagination. In Jungian psychoanalysis, we are concerned with bringing lunar and solar minds into contact with one another in the field of an analytic relationship, and working with dreams is an essential aspect of this process.
Insights from contemporary neurobiology support rather than contest Jung's view that emotional truth underpins the dreaming process. Recent imaging studies confirm that dreams are the mind's vehicle for the processing of emotional states of being, particularly the fear, anxiety, anger or elation that often figure prominently. Dream sleep is also the guardian of memory, playing a part in forgetting, encoding and affective organization of memory.In the clinical sections of the presentation Margaret will let the dreams speak, revealing the emotionally salient concerns of the dreamers in a way that demonstrates the healthy attempt of the brain-mind to come to terms with difficult emotional experience. The dreams become dreamable as part of the meaning-making process.
The Value of Dreamwork,
by Iona Miller
The archetypes to be discovered and assimilated are precisely those which have inspired the basic images of ritual and mythology. These eternal ones of the dream are not to be confused with the personality modified symbolic figures that appear in nightmares or madness to the tormented individual. Dream is the personalized myth. Myth is the depersonalized dream. --Joseph Campbell
No one who does not know himself can know others. And in each of us there is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dream and tells us how differently he sees us from the way we see ourselves. When, therefore, we find ourselves in a different situation to which there is no solution, he can sometimes kindle a light that radically alters our attitude; the very attitude that led us into the difficult situation. --C. G. Jung
As we spend a large proportion of our lives in a dream state, a fuller understanding of their implications may prove valuable. Today, there are several prevailing theories concerning the significance and value of dreams. No final statement about dream may be made. There are several approaches to each perspective which is assumed a priori. There are many alternatives to choose from. One's choice of style in dreamwork will be determined by the mythemes currently embraced. The characteristic attitudes associated with the archetypes will motivate and influence one's approach to the dreamworld.
Strephon Kaplan Williams (3) (Jungian-Senoi Institute) is one of the foremost proponents of Dreamwork. He outlines a six-point program for continued use. 1. Dialogue with the dream characters, asking questions and recording answers. 2. Re-experience of the dream through imagination, art projects, and creativity. 3. Examination of unresolved aspects of the dream, and contemplation of solutions. 4. Actualization of insights in daily life, where relevant. 5. Meditation on the source of dreams and insight from the Self. 6. Synthesize the essence of dreamlife and its meaning in a journal and apply them in one's life journey. To offer a variety of other approaches, we will cover theories on dreams and dreaming from Jung's original work, the analytical psychology school, para-psychology, and archetypal or imaginal psychology.
Knowledge of the antiquated Freudian system is so wide-spread that no further comment here seems necessary. Jung was the first to depart from Freud's "sexuality-fraught" perception of dreams. Where Freud saw one complex, Jung saw many. He saw in dreams a gamut of archetypes overseen by the transcendent function, or Self. Analytical psychology amplified and clarified his original material. Most of this work is concerned with the fantasy of the process of individuation. It reflects an ego with a heroic attitude, and proceeds by stages of development. Consciousness, at this stage, is generally monotheistic. It has a tendency to seek the center of meaning, as if there were only One.
Parapsychological work done with dreams also seems to reflect this attitude of searching, influencing, and controlling. In Re-Visioning Psychology, James Hillman differs from the traditional analytical viewpoint by stating: Dreams are important to the Soul--not for the message the ego takes from them, not for the recovered memories or the revelations; what does seem to matter to the soul is the nightly encounter with a plurality of shades in an underworld...the freeing of the soul from its identity with the ego and the waking state...What we learn from dreams is what psychic nature really is--the nature of psychic reality; not I, but we...not monotheistic consciousness looking down from its mountain, but polytheistic consciousness wandering all over the place. In Jung's model, one major function of dreams is to provide the unconscious with a means of exercising its regulative activity. Conscious attitudes tend to become one-sided. Through their postulated compensatory effect, dreams present different data and varying points of view. Individuation is the psyche's goal; it seeks to bring this about through an internal adjustment procedure. There is an admonition in Magick to "balance each thought against its opposite."
Dreams, according to Jung, do this for us automatically. However, there must be a conscious striving toward incorporation of the balancing attitudes presented through dreams (this applies equally to fantasies and visions). Another apparent function for a dream state is to take old information, contained in long-term memory, incorporate it with those experiences, and integrate them with new experiences. This creates new attitudes. Since the dream conjoins current and past experiences to form new attitudes, the dream contains possible information about the future. There is a causal relationship between our attitudes and the events which manifest from our many possible futures. In studies at Maimonides Dream Labs, Stanley Krippner and Montague Ullman were trying to impress certain information on an individual's dream. They found that an individual, being monitored for dream states, could incorporate a mandala, which was being concentrated on by another subject, into his dream. This led to their famous theory on dream telepathy.
Dream symbols appear to allow repressed impulses to be expressed in disguised forms. Dream symbols are essential message-carriers from the instinctive-archetypal continuum to the rational part of the human mind. Their incorporation enriches consciousness, so that it learns to understand the forgotten language of the pre-conscious mind. The dream language presents symbols from which you can gain value through dream monitoring. You can use these dream symbols directly to facilitate communication with this other aspect of yourself.
Should you choose later to re-program yourself out of old habit patterns, you're going to want an accurate conception of what dream symbols really mean. A symbol always stands for something that is unknown. It contains more than it's obvious or immediate meaning. The symbolic function bridges man's inner and outer world. Symbolism represents a continuity of consciousness and preconscious mental activity, in which the preconscious extends beyond the boundaries of the individual. These primitive processes of prelogical thinking continue throughout life and do not indicate a regressive mode of thought.
Dream symbols are independent of time, space, and causality. The meaning of unconscious contents varies with the specific internal and external situation of the dreamer. Some dreams originate in a personal or conscious context. These dreams usually reflect personal conflicts, or fragmentary impressions left over from the day. Some dreams, on the other hand, are rooted in the contents of the collective unconscious. Their appearance is spontaneous and may be due to some conscious experience, which causes specific archetypes to constellate. It is often difficult to distinguish personal contents from collective contents. In dreams, archetypes often appear in contemporary dress, often as persons vitally connected with us.
In this case, both their personal aspect (or objective level), and their significance as projections or partial aspects of the psyche (subjective level) may be brought into consciousness. A dream is never merely a repetition of preceding events, except in the case of past psychic trauma. There is specific value in the symbols and context the psyche utilizes. It may produce any; why is it sending just this dream and not another?
Dreams rich in pictorial detail usually relate to individual problems. Universal contexts are revealed in simple, vivid images with scant detail. No attempt to interpret a single dream, or even the sequence dreams fall in, is fruitful. In fact, later research by Asklepia Foundation researchers asserts it is more important to journey using dreams as experiential springboards for therapeutic outcomes. In interpreting a group of dreams, we seek to discover the 'center of meaning' which all the dreams express in varied form.
When this 'center' is discovered by consciousness and its lesson assimilated, the dreams begin to spring from a new center. Recurring dreams generally indicate an unresolved conflict trying to break into consciousness. There are three types of significance a dream may carry: 1) It may stem from a definite impression of the immediate past. As a reaction, it supplements or compliments the impressions of the day. 2) Here there is balance between the conscious and unconsciousness components. The dream contents are independent of the conscious situation, and are so different from it they present conflict. 3) When this contrary position of the unconscious is stronger, we have spontaneous dreams with no relation to consciousness. These dreams are archetypal in origin, and consequently are over-powering, strange and often oracular. (These dreams are not necessarily most desirable to the student, as they may be extremely dangerous if the dreamer's ego is still too narrow to recognize and assimilate their meaning.)
We can never empirically determine the meaning of a dream. We cannot accept a meaning merely because it fits in with what we expected. Dreams can exert a reductive as well as prospective function. In other words, if our conscious attitude is inflated, dreams may compensate negatively, and show us our human frailty and dependence. They also may act positively by providing a 'guiding image' which corrects a self-devaluing attitude, re-establishing balance. The unconscious, by anticipating future conscious achievements, provides a rough plan for progress. Each life, says Jung, is guided by a private myth.
Each individual has a great store of DNA information. It is generally mediated by the archetypes which are deployed by both myth and dream. As you create this individual or private myth, it attracts, if you will, an archetypal pattern and molds itself in a characteristic way (or visa versa). The archetype precipitates compulsive action. It is the motivating factor which may become externalized in the physical world. Jung notes: "The dreamer's unconscious is communicating with the dreamer alone. And is selecting symbols which have meaning to the dreamer and no one else. They also involve the collective unconscious whose expression may be social rather than personal."
We may discover hidden meaning in our dreams and fantasies through the following procedure: 1) Determine the present situation of consciousness. What significant events surround the dream? 2) With the lowering of the threshold of consciousness, unconscious contents arise through dream, vision, and fantasy. 3) After perceiving the contents, record them so they are not lost (the Hermetic seal). 4) Investigate, clarify, and elaborate by amplification with personal meanings, and collective meaning, gleaned from similar motifs in myth and fairy tale. 5) Integrate this meaning with your general psychic situation. INstincts are the best guide; if you are obtaining "value" from your interpretation, it will "feel" correct. Complexes and their attendant archetypes draw attention to themselves but are difficult to pinpoint.
We may use conscious amplification of the symbolism presented in dream form. All the elements of the dream may be examined in a limited, controlled, and directed association process, which enlarges and expands the dream material through analogy. The nucleus of meaning contained in the analogy is identical with that of the dream content. When a dream is falsely interpreted, others follow to correct the error. Preconscious contents are on the verge of being remembered.
Just as language skills facilitate new conceptualization, knowledge of the vocabulary of dream symbolism allows closer rapport with the preconscious. Dreaming is one of the easiest methods of contact with the numinous element, or unknown. To illustrate how archetypes may affect perspective, we will now examine another of the methods for working with dreams and other images. If Freud's view on dreams can be seen as Aphroditic/sexual, and Jung's as heroic/developmental (Yesod and Tiphareth, respectively in QBL), then Hillman's newer "Verbal Technique" might be seen as associated with Hades, Lord of the Underworld or deep subconscious, (DAATH in QBL).
This relationship to the image is seeking value, depth, and volume. This method stresses keeping to the image as presented rather than analyzing symbols. This method, while usable by anyone, is being applied by those who are thoroughly acquainted with symbols and their meaning in an attempt to recapture to unknown element. The dream image expresses this if the symbols are not dissected from their "specific context, mood, and scene." An image presents symbols with their particularity and peculiarness intact.
Dream presents a variety of images which are all intra-related. Time and sequence are distorted in dream. Hillman prefers to view dream images with all parts as co-relative and co-temporaneous. This approach to the dream is a sort of metaphorical word-play. The elements of the dream are chanted or interwoven. Repeat the dream while playfully rearranging the sequence of events. Remain alert to analogies which form themselves during this word play. Ruminate on any puns which may occur. As the play unfolds, deeper significance emerges as a resonance.
By allowing the dream to speak for itself, interpretations appear indirectly. This is a method of communicating with the psyche which is in harmony with its inherent structure. In alchemy, it is known as an iteratio of the prima materia. Its value is evident, according to Hillman. "We do not want to prejudice the phenomenal experience of their unknowness and our unconsciousness by knowing in advance that they are messages, dramas, compensations, prospective indications, transcendent function.
We want to get at the image without the defense of symbols." (1) The archetypal content in an image unfolds during participation with it. We have found that an archetypal quality emerges through a) precise portrayal of the image (including any confusion or vagueness presented with the image); b) sticking to the image while hearing it metaphorically; c) discovering the necessity within the image (the fact that all the symbols an images presented are required in this context); d) experiencing the unfathomable analogical richness of the image. (2) In this context, 'archetypal' is seen as a function of making. The adjective may be applied to any image (6) upon which the operations are performed. This means that no single image is inherently more meaningful than another. Value may be extracted from them all. This coincides with the alchemical conception of the Opus as work. Here the Opus is carried by the dreamwork technique. Archetypal psychology contends that the value of dreams has little application to practical affairs.
In Re-Visioning Psychology , Hillman postulates that: Dream's value and emotion is in relation with soul and how life is lived in relation with soul. When we move the soul insights of the dream into life for problem-solving and people-relating, we rob the dream and impoverish the soul. The more we get out of a dream for human affairs the more we prevent its psychological work, what it is doing and building night after night, interiorly, away from life in a nonhuman world. The dream is already valuable without having any literalizations or personalistic interpretations tacked on to it.
Hillman ends his "Inquiry Into Image" by stating that the final meaning of a dream cannot be found, no matter how it seems to "click." Analogizing is like my fantasy of Zen, where the dream is the teacher. Each time you say what the image means, you get your face slapped. The dream becomes a Koan when we approach it by means of analogy. If you can literalize a meaning, "interpret" a dream, you are off the track, lost your Koan. (For the dream is the thing, not what it means.) Then you must be slapped to bring you back to the image. A good dream analysis is one in which one gets more and more slaps, more and more analogies, the dream exposing your entire unconscious, the basic matters of your psychic life.
This type of analysis seems consistent with the origins of the word. Originally, it had to do with "loosening." This type of dream analysis loosens our soul from its identity with day-to-day life. It reminds us that styles of consciousness other than that of the ego have validity.
The soul experiences these styles nightly. No paper of dreams would be complete without some mention of nightmares. Even though dream is an easy method of contacting the unconscious, it is not always pleasant. Occult literature speaks of a figure called "the Dweller on the Threshold." In Eastern philosophies there are the wrathful deities. This figure corresponds with Trump XV, The Devil, in Tarot. This seems consistent with Hillman's attribution of the dream as Hades' realm. The healthy person learns easily to cooperate on his descents into the psyche.
The uninformed or neurotic personality is likely to encounter hindrances. These hindrances often take the form of frightening, monstrous, overpowering forces. Ego-consciousness is not able to comprehend them. When the subconscious is highly activated these images may occur during waking hours and in sleep. This dread and oppression form the basis for nightmares. Pan and his attendant phenomena (such as panic) are archetypal representations of the nightmare. Pan also corresponds with Trump XV. In the heroic model, as consciousness develops, there is a marked difference in both the content of dream and the dreamer. He gains increased ability to assimilate the charges of energy associated with the dream. The more conscious the experience of the numinous, the less fraught with irrationality and fear the experience. This holds true in waking and sleeping hours.
John Gowan, in Trance, Art, and Creativity , states, "It is this gentling, humanizing process exerted on the preconscious by creative function of the individual which is the only proper preparation for the psychedelic graces." These graces include an immersion of the ego in the expanded context of the subconscious. The ego is then able to return from its experience enriched by the contact. Contents which might formerly have been considered nightmarish are more fully understood, and the monsters become transformed into butterflies. (7) This attitude toward nightmare is not consistent with Hillman's approach. He does not advocate changing or controlling the psyche. This is, in fact, neither possible nor desirable. He asserts that to enter dream is to enter the underworld, Hades' realm.
Psychic images are metaphorical. All underworld figures are shades or shadow souls. There is no reason for them to conform to the constraints of the ego's dayworld. Soul is the background of dream-work. Underworld is psyche. This relates, therefore, to a metaphorical perception of death. Dreams present us with that different reality, in which pathology and distortion are inherent aspects. We needn't control them, but rather acknowledge their value and depth. Assuming it is necessary or desirable to control any aspect of dream life, there is a further development of consciousness which enables one to consistently experience what is known as the "lucid dream" or "high dream." In a lucid state, there is an overlapping of normal waking consciousness coupled with the dream state. At this stage, one is able to progressively acquire and exercise will in dream states.
In the lucid dream, one "witnesses" the fact that one is dreaming, and may take an active role in the unfolding of the dream. This optional ability is generally associated with the heart-center, or Tiphareth. The heart-center has to do with developing consciousness of the imaginal realm. Rather than control or meddle with dreams, it is more effective to exercise creative expression in waking hours. Many persons pursuing their fantasy of individuation have an outlet through active imagination. Active imagination is, in itself, an art form. It is generally practiced through a discipline, such as psychology, alchemy, or Magick. It may be dramatic, dialectic, visual, acoustic, or in some form of dancing, painting, drawing, modeling, etc.
People who give free rein to fantasy in some form of creative imagination often dream less. All psycho-active drugs also tend to diminish dreaming. In other words, there seems to be a variable ratio between creativity and dream. Jung made the discovery that "this method often diminished to a considerable degree, the frequency and intensity of dreams, thus reducing the inexplicable pressure exerted by the unconscious." There need be no conscious desire to control or interfere in the actual dream. The ego learns to meet the subconscious on a middle ground, the vale of soul making. The activities and intent of both are harmonized. Staying close to the original image is fundamental.
http://www.pauldevereux.co.uk/body_dragonproject.html
The Dragon Project The Dragon Project, latterly the Dragon Project Trust (DPT), was founded in 1977 in order to mount an interdisciplinary investigation into the rumour (existing in both folklore and modern anecdote) that certain prehistoric sites had unusual forces or energies associated with them. The DPT, a loose and shifting consortium of volunteers from various disciplines, conducted many years of physical monitoring at sites in the UK, and other countries. In the end, it was concluded that most stories about "energies" were likely to have no foundation in fact, and in a few cases might be due to mind states and psychological effects produced by certain locations. But hard evidence of magnetic and radiation anomalies was found at some sites, and some questionable evidence of infrared and ultrasonic effects also. In addition, it was found that the kind of locations favoured by megalith builders tended to have a higher than average incidence of unsual lightball phenomena or "earth lights".
Some initial on-site studies were conducted with dowsers and psychics, but results of this work were not published as the research remained incomplete. In 1990, the DPT, with its limited resources, decided to shift the main focus of its work to the study of the interaction between human consciousness and ancient site environments. It has started this broad area of enquiry with a research programme investigating dreaming at selected ancient sacred places. This dreamwork programme, which is being conducted jointly with the Saybrook Institute in San Francisco, and is still ongoing at the time of this writing, is a kind of modern re-visiting of the ancient practice of temple sleep (see Divination).
The basic aim of the programme is to run many dream sessions at just four selected ancient sites: a holy hill in the Preseli range in Wales, and three Cornish sites - a Neolithic dolmen, a Celtic holy well, and an Iron Age underground passage and chamber called a fogou in Cornish dialect and a "souterrain" by archaeologists. Each of these places possesses an interesting geophysical anomaly. The sleep volunteers are drawn from as wide a range of the public as possible. Ages have ranged from teenagers to 70-year-olds. Women volunteers have so far slightly outnumbered men. Work at the Welsh site and the Cornish souterrain has now been completed, though dreams are still being collected at the other two sites. Each volunteer is accompanied by a least one helper who keeps watch while he or she is alseep. When the helper notes a rocking and rolling action beneath the volunteer's closed eyelids, a motion called Rapid Eye Movements ( R.E.M) which denotes dreaming sleep, the sleeper is awoken and a report of any dreams being experienced at that time are tape-recorded in situ. Later, these are transcribed and sent, along with control "home" dreams from each subject, to the Saybrook Institute in San Francisco under the consultancy of Dr Stanley Krippner. There the dreams are subjected to long and painstaking analysis, breaking each one down into a set of designated elements, and are coded. They will ultimately be presented for double-blind judging under scientifically-accepted protocols. The aim is to test if dreams had at these places revealed site-specific components: will there be a statistically significant number of the coded dreams that, in effect, could be identified as relating to the sites they took place at? Is there something about the physical nature of the places that influences dreams experienced at them? For instance, do the geophysical anomalies of the places affect the dreaming mind? ( The DPT had already noted that places with high background radiation can trigger brief, vivid hallucinatory episodes in some subjects - see the Energies entry.) Even more exotically, do these ancient and long-used magico-religious locations have a "memory field" that could be picked up by the dreaming mind? (If so, this might speak to such ideas as Rupert Sheldrake's "morphic resonance".) But the research programme is an experiment, and there may be negative answers to all such questions. The point is to test and see. Even if the experiment does produced a negative result, the DPT will be able to console itself that a unique and important body of dream data has been brought into existence that can be used for other, future research.
In 2003, the 10-year long DPT ancient sites dreamwork programme came to a pause if not an end. The beginning of the analysis of the dreams began. An initial academic (peer-reviewed) paper was published in the refereed journal Dreaming in June, and a general article was published in Fortean Times magazine in December.
Fortean Times 178 (December, 2003) had an article on the DPT ancient sites dreamwork programme as its cover story. The article actually contained some new material that had not been ready for the slightly earlier academic paper, shopwing how different dreamers had picked up similar dream themes at a specific one of the four selected sites, hinting that transpersonal information may have been picked up by the dreamers’ sleeping minds.
This is the abstract of the academic paper:
The Use of the Strauch Scale to Study Dream Reports from Sacred Sites in England and Wales
Stanley Krippner, Paul Devereux, and Adam Fish Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. Vol 13(2) 95-105, June 2003. Thirty-five volunteers spent between one and five nights in one of four unfamiliar outdoor “sacred sites” in England and Wales where they were awakened following rapid eye movement periods and asked for dream recall. They also monitored their dreams in familiar home surroundings, keeping dream diaries. Equal numbers of site dreams and home dream reports were obtained for each volunteer. Two judges, working blind and independently, evaluated each of the resulting 206 dream reports, using the Strauch Scale which contains criteria for identifying “bizarre,” “magical,” and “paranormal” elements. Of the 103 site dream reports, 46 fell into one of these categories, versus 31 of the home dream reports. A number of explanations exist for this difference, including expectancy, suggestion, the effect of unfamiliar surroundings, the nature of the volunteers' awakenings, and possible anomalous properties of the sacred sites. The latter possibility, however, is unlikely due to the fact the 22 volunteers reported site dreams containing Strauch Scale items, while 20 reported home dreams containing these content items, a minimal difference.
KEY WORDS: content analysis; dream reports; sacred sites. At:
http://www.asdreams.org/journal/issues/asdj13-2.htm#The%20Use%20of%20the%20Strauch%20Scale%20to%20Study%20Dream%20Reports