Psychologists from the University of Greenwich are looking at how real-life events affect our dreams, and how age affects this relationship.
Initial study findings:
· Over 40s dream less but have more intense dreams
· Worriers dream about searching
· Under 40s dreams are more negative
· Dreams 'mask' trauma so we can stay asleepA short online test which anyone can take launches on World Sleep Day (Friday 13 March):
Dr Oliver Robinson says: "Waking emotions get represented not only as feelings in the dream but also as images that metaphorically represent the emotion. The 'tidal wave' dream is very common in people who have recently experienced trauma. Hartmann's Contemporary Theory of Dreaming uses this example, where the dream is of being swept away by a huge wave, which represents overwhelming fear."
Initial findings from a recent small online study suggest that, for younger people, negative waking life emotions, such as stress, are associated with more negative dreams. Whereas older people's negative waking life emotions are associated with more intense dreams, regardless of whether the dream was positive or negative.
Oliver and researcher Nikolay Petrov looked at emotions, such as worry, against dream themes, such as threat and danger or active search. People were split into under 40 and over 40 age groups.
Nikolay adds: "Older people have fewer dreams so they're more intense because the brain has less time to process events from when they're awake.
"As your age increases, you have fewer dreams (dream recall frequency) and fewer negative emotions in dreams. Although we all have a bias to remember any kind of negative information better.
"In our study, young people's dreams were guided by whether their waking life emotions were negative (and not necessarily intense).
"Young people dream more often so they have more time to process, which makes the dreams less intense.
"We found that people who are high in worry have dreams where they're actively searching. We interpret this as a drive to find solutions to the problems that are causing the worry."
The new survey questions include brief demographic information and a brief description of a recent dream. There are also questions on wellbeing and recent emotion.
Nikolay adds that the brain incorporates waking life events into dreams in order to process them. This processing can be very disturbing, so the brain 'masks' these events.
"We think one way that dreaming reduces this disturbance during sleep is by using associations - so that it doesn't wake us up and feel even more distressing," he says.
"For example, if you are trying to find a new job but are getting nowhere you might be frustrated. In a dream this might be masked, so you're chasing a ball or feel like you are running towards something but can't get there.
"We mostly dream about social relationships and emotional events - when did you last dream about reading or writing? We can use dreams to pinpoint parts of our lives we need to ponder to understand ourselves better."
Nikolay adds that keeping a dream diary is a good way of encouraging yourself to dream.
"If you see themes recurring, then you should take stock of that - pick it apart yourself," he says. "As the great dream scientist Ernest Hartmann suggested, rather than attempting to translate some elusive hidden meaning of a dream, it is best to 'appreciate it, admire it, learn from it'."
