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The Emotion Pictured by a Dream:An Examination
of Emotions Contextualized in Dreams
Ernest Hartmann, M.D., Michael Zborowski, M.D., and Robert Kunzendorf, M.D.
This is the first report describing which emotions are judged to be contextualized or pic-
tured by the imagery of a dream,based on a total of 1401 dreams from a number of our
recent studies.These studies stemmed from the observations of dreams after trauma,
especially the paradigmatic "tidal wave dream"in which someone who has experienced a
trauma of any kind frequently dreams,"I am overwhelmed by a tidal wave,"or something
similar.Here the tidal wave obviously pictures the emotion (fear,terror)experienced by the
dreamer.We have developed and standardized the "CI score,"which measures the fre-
quency and intensity of such contextualizing images as the tidal wave.We have shown that
the CI score is especially high in people who have experienced trauma,that it is higher in
students reporting any abuse than in students reporting no abuse,and that CI scores are
much higher in dreams than in daydreams,all scored on a blind basis.In scoring dreams
the rater is asked first to assign a CI score,and then to guess which emotion (from a list of
eighteen)might be pictured by that dream image.The present report examines which
emotions are judged on a blind basis to be pictured by the dreams.We find that the first
two emotions,fear/terror and helplessness/vulnerability,are by far the most frequent and
that this is true not only of dreams after trauma but of dreams from all our groups.However,
this trend is especially prominent in the most traumatized subjects.We also report that the
CIs characterized by highest intensity scores tend to be those in which the emotion is
judged to be fear/terror and helplessness/vulnerability.Positive emotions are fewer and
appear to produce less intense images.We report that emotions judged to be pictured
were relatively weaker and tended towards more positive emotions in a laboratory-style
study,compared to home-reported dreams.And we find that the emotions pictured were
more positive in a group of artists and professionals compared to groups of students.
Overall,however,it appears that groups of interest to us,such as abuse vs.no abuse,or
trauma vs.no trauma,are differentiated more clearly by the CI score than by the type of
emotion judged to be pictured.(Sleep and Hypnosis 2001;3(1):33-43)
| Keywords: dream, emotion, contextualizing image, imagery, trauma, abuse |
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