Themes in participants’ understandings of meaning in their Most Recent Dreams: Worries, relationships, and symbolism

Summary. The ways in which individuals construct meaning in their dreams may be influenced by well-known psychological
theories, popular understandings of dream meaning, or religious interpretations of dream meaning, but little research
so far has been conducted investigating the kinds of meaning people ascribe to their dreams. The present study aimed
to paint a snapshot picture of individuals’ understandings of one of their own dreams. Participants (N=106) reported their
Most Recent Dream and answered the open-ended question “What do you think this dream is about, or means?”. Data
were analysed with inductive thematic analysis. Six major themes were created, all of which pertained to how the dream
related to participants’ own waking lives: 1) Worries and Emotions; 2) Relationships; 3) Work and Studies; 4) Events
and Situations; 5) Desiring, Wanting, and Longing; and 6) Symbolism. Further analyses were conducted to investigate
whether there were any noticeable differences between participants who saw symbolic relations between their waking
life and their dream (N=25), and those who saw only literal relations with waking life (N=46). It was found that symbolic
interpreters had more trait thought suppression, more aggression/violence in their dream, more intense emotions in
their dream, and more continuity between their dream and their waking-life emotions, than literal interpreters. Difficulties
around and suggestions for researching dream symbolism are discussed.