Content analysis of Chinese dreams—Pleasure or pain?

Abstract

Unlike dream reports around the world, Chinese people’s dreams seem to display more pleasant affect and content. In view of this cultural disparity, the present study examined whether the predominance of unpleasant dream content revealed by Western studies using the Dream Threat Scale and the Hall and Van de Castle (1966) coding system could be replicated in a sample of dreams reported by Chinese people. The sample consisted of 252 most recently recalled dreams and 228 diary dreams collected from 286 Chinese participants over 3 consecutive nights. The employment of the Hall and Van de Castle system in dream coding was supplemented with the Good Fortune Scale and a neuroscientific-based classification of emotions to equalize the numbers of positive and negative coding categories. The analysis confirmed the results of previous similar research in other countries of a negativity bias in dreaming but did not lend support to the theory of threat simulation as a primary function of dreaming. The inherent limitations of content analysis were discussed in light of the present findings and the Chinese personality characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)