Normality, pathology, and dreaming

Abstract

This study provides an overview of the associations of healthy and pathological traits with dream experiences. The Dream Intensity Scale, Dream Motif Scale, and Ko’s Mental Health Questionnaire were used to assess 575 nonclinical participants’ dream experiences, healthy personality traits, and pathological tendencies. The dream scales were found to be correlated positively with empathy and negatively with counterdependence, with the effect sizes being small. Normality, ego strength, gregariousness, and independence did not show significant associations with any dream scales. By contrast, neuroticism and psychoticism, their subcategories, and all types of deviant personality were positively and characteristically correlated with various dream variables, such as greater incidence of sexual dreams in people with stronger antisocial character. Furthermore, somatoform features were predicted by aggressive symbols in dreams, narcissism being indicated by erotomanic dreams. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)