Abstract

In the hopes to further our body of knowledge on the effects of daily routines on dream content, my study aimed to measure both bizarre content in dreams and the routineness of participants’ day prior to dreaming. The method I am using to distinguish bizarre dreams from usual dreams was developed by Revonsou and Samilvalli (1995). Following this method, I first identified dream elements by categorized them into 14 categories; and then scored those dream elements for their bizarreness according to four types of bizarreness (Non-bizarre, Incongruous, Vague, or Discontinuous). I hypothesized that bizarre dreams would occur more frequently after a non-routine day than after a routine day. The results of my study were inconclusive due to a lack of participation. I received six dream submissions that all occurred after routine days, and zero dreams that occurred after non-routine days. I was able to perform the content analysis on the six submitted dreams, I identified 204 dream elements, categorize these elements into 12 of the 14 categories, and found that after participants had a routine day (31.86% of all elements were Incongruous, Vague, or Discontinuous; 68.14% were Non-bizarre). I also identified the most common content categories for all three bizarre types (31.25% of Incongruous bizarre elements were actions, 25% of vague bizarre elements were actions and 25% were events, and 23.53% of discontinuous bizarre elements were actions and 23.53% were places).

Recommended Citation

McGowan, Kevin (2017) "Presence of Daily Routine on Frequency of Bizarre Dreams, and Online Study," Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal: Vol. 1: Iss. 20, Article 11.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/psych_journals/vol1/iss20/11