|
|
|
Children�s Dreaming: A Study Based on Questionnaires Completed by Parents
Claudio Colace, Ph.D.
Objective: This paper reports an investigation on children�s dreaming based on
questionnaires completed by parents. The purpose of the study was to collect data on
a large group of subjects and evaluate their consistency compared to the traditional
studies on children�s dreams (i.e., REM dreams, home-collected dreams and schoolcollected
dreams).
Method: The questionnaire (QSEE) used mainly considers questions about parents
compliance with dreams and questions about children�s dreaming, particularly the
last dreams they have had. The study was conducted in different schools of Center-
North Italy. 1148 questionnaires were distributed to parents, 652 of these were
returned to the experimenter (return rate = 57%) and 565 were usable (usability rate
= 49%). The 565 questionnaires involved 565 children (255 female, 310 male) aged
between 2 years;9 months and 9 years;4 months.
Results and Conclusions: The questionnaire employed has proved to be useful in
collecting data on several aspect of children�s dreaming in a relatively simple and costeffective
way. Furthermore, the indications obtained on child dreaming matched with
several data from studies that adopted more conventional dream collection methods.
A large part of well-established knowledge about children�s dreams (e.g., short
length, presence of animal characters and so on) was supported by the use of a large
sample of children/dreams, that allow for a more certain generalization. The use of
questionnaires of this kind may stand side by side with conventional methodologies
allowing a valid opportunity of cross-checking their results.
| Keywords: Children�s dreams, dreaming, dream content, dream bizarreness |
|
|
| To download full text of articles please |
|
|
| |
|
 
|
|
 |
Jonathan ... |
|
Jonathan ... |
|
Carson ... |
|
Publisher:
|
