Dream Content

Dream content varies depending on stage of sleep and time of night. Research
has also revealed that characteristics of the dreamer and environmental
factors can influence the nature of dreams.
Three human characteristics that influence dreams are age, gender, and
personality. It has been found that children are more likely to report dreams
(probably because they experience more REM sleep), and their dreams are
reported to have more emotional content, particularly nightmarish themes.

Elderly people report more death themes in their dreams. Male dreams
have more sexual and aggressive content than female dreams, which have
more themes dealing with home and family.Women report that they dream
of their mothers and babies more when they are pregnant. Introverts report
more dreams and with greater detail than extroverts. Psychotic individuals
(those with severe mental disorders), depressed people, and those whose
occupations are in the creative arts (musicians, painters, and novelists) report
more nightmares. Schizophrenics and severely depressed people provide
shorter dream reports than those of better mental health. It is also reported
that depressed people dream of the past more than those who are
not depressed.

Environmental factors occurring before and during sleep can shape the
content of dreams. What people experience prior to falling asleep can show
up in dreams in blatant, subtle, or symbolic forms. People watching movies
that evoke strong emotions tend to have highly emotional dreams. In fact,
the greater the emotionality of a daily event, the greater the probability that
the event will occur in a dream during the subsequent sleep period. Those
who are wrestling mentally with a problem often dream about that problem.
Some have even reported that the solutions to their problems occurred during
the course of dreaming. The German physiologist Otto Loewi’s Nobel
Prize-winning research with a frog’s nerve was inspired by a dream he had.
Sometimes events during the day show up in a compensatory form in
dreams. Those deprived of food, shelter, friends, or other desirables report
an increased likelihood of dreaming about those deprivations at night.
Events occurring during sleep can be integrated into the dream plot as
well. External stimuli such as temperature changes, light flashes, and various
sounds can be detected by the sleeping person’s senses and then become
part of the dream. However, research indicates that sensory information
is only infrequently assimilated into dreams. Internal stimulation from
physiological activities occurring during sleep may have a greater chance of
influencing the nature of dreams. Dreams about needing to find a bathroom
may be caused in part by a full bladder. Similarly, nighttime activation
of the vestibular system (which controls the sense of balance), the premotor
cortex (which initiates movements), and the locus coeruleus (which plays a
role in inhibiting muscles during sleep so that dreams are not acted out)
perhaps can stimulate the production of dreams about falling, chasing, or
being unable to move, respectively.