New research published in the journal Communications Psychology sheds light on why people dream about certain things. The study found that dream content is often shaped by a person’s personality and shared life experiences.
Researchers collected data from nearly 300 adults over two weeks. Participants recorded their daily experiences and their dreams. The study also looked at sleep patterns, personality traits, and cognitive abilities. This resulted in more than 3,700 reports.
The team used advanced natural language processing techniques to identify patterns and semantic structures in dreams. They found that individual traits and shared life experiences influence what people dream about.
For example, data gathered during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic showed that dreams were heavily influenced by the state of the world at that time. People reported emotionally intense dreams and dreams about limitations. These dreams began to subside as the pandemic went on, suggesting that as people adapt, their dreams also change.
The study also found links between personality and dream content. Participants who were more prone to mind-wandering reported fragmented, bizarre, and rapidly changing dreams. Vivid and immersive dreams were more common for participants who believed that dreams have significance and meaning.
The natural language processing data revealed that everyday lives are transformed, almost warped, by dreams. Participants described their waking lives and their dreams, and the language processing techniques showed that dreams often reorganize or reinterpret waking events.
“Rather than constituting a direct replay of daily experiences, dreams may offer a hyper-associative reinterpretation of past events and future expectations, weaving together apparently distant elements into coherent, though often bizarre, scenarios,” the study authors wrote.
Lead study author Valentina Elce, Ph.D., said the findings show that dreams are not just a reflection of past experiences but a dynamic process shaped by who people are and what they live through. She added that combining large-scale data with computational methods allowed the team to uncover patterns in dream content that were previously difficult to detect.
The study authors wrote that dreaming serves as a mechanism through which the brain processes and integrates newly acquired memories, gradually stripping away or reducing their emotional intensity.
The research suggests that dreams are shaped not only by lived experiences but also by shared experiences, emotions, and personalities. The study authors noted that more research is needed to understand the mechanisms underlying dream content, such as how personality actually influences dreams.
