Interest in Dream Interpretation: A Gender Difference

Michael Schredl
Central Institute of Mental Health
Edgar Piel
Institute for Demoscopy
Although several studies reported a signicant effect with regard to the gender
difference in an interest in dreams, the generalizability of these studies is
limited because mainly students were recruited as participants. In this study,
gender differences with regard to interest in dream interpretation as an
indicator of interest in dreams in general have been demonstrated in a
representative sample. There was, however, a signicant agegender interac-
tion, indicating that interest in dreams might not be a potent variable for
explaining gender differences in dream recall. In future studies, the course of
interest in dreams over the life span and any associated gender differences
should be investigated using carefully designed scales.
Keywords: dream interpretation, dream recall, gender difference
Several large-scale studies (Giambra, Jung, & Grodsky, 1996; Schredl, 2002a;
Schredl & Piel, 2003) reported a gender difference in dream recall of medium to
moderate effect size. That is, women tended to report dreams more often than men.
It is surprising that only a few studies have investigated the factors that might
explain this difference.
To be a candidate for explaining the gender difference in dream recall fre-
quency, two criteria have to be fullled. First, the variable should correlate in a
signicant way with dream recall frequency. For interest in dreams, for example,
this has been demonstrated in several studies (Robbins & Tanck, 1988; Hill,
Diemer, & Heaton, 1997). Even if some methodological issues have been stressed,
for example, different correlations between interest in dreams and dream recall
frequency measured retrospectively by questionnaire and prospectively via dream
diary (Beaulieu-Prevost & Zadra, 2005), and even if many scales measuring interest
in dreams or positive attitudes toward dreams are confounded with dream recall
frequency (Schredl, Brenner, & Faul, 2002; Schredl, Ciric, Go tz, & Wittmann,
2003), a recent study (Schredl, Wittmann, Ciric, & Go tz, 2003) controlling for these
problems found a small but signicant relationship between interest in dreams and
Michael Schredl, Sleep Laboratory, Central Institute of Mental Health, Manheim, Germany;
Edgar Piel, Institute for Demoscopy, Allensbach, Germany.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michael Schredl, Sleep Laboratory,
Central Institute of Mental Health, P.O. Box 12 21 20, Mannheim, Germany 68072. E-mail:
Michael.Schredl@zi-mannheim.de
11
Dreaming Copyright 2008 by the American Psychological Association
2008, Vol. 18, No. 1, 1115 1053-0797/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1053-0797.18.1.11
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dream recall frequency. Second, the variable itself should exhibit a gender differ-
ence.
Two studies (Schredl, 2000; Schredl, 20022003) have selected variables with
well-documented gender differences and equally well-documented relationships to
dream recall frequency. Although the estimated meaningfulness of dreams and the
occurrence of problem-solving dreams had an effect on the genderdream recall
relationship (a signicant reduction of the correlation coefcient by partialing out
these variables), the gender difference in dream recall frequency was still signicant
(Schredl, 20022003). That is, these variables were not able to fully explain the
gender difference in dream recall frequency. In a second study, the gender effect
was not affected by including sleep variables (e.g., subjective sleep quality, number
of nocturnal awakenings; for gender differences in these variables see, e.g., Zhang
& Wing, 2006), but it was affected by entering a variable that took into account how
often persons thought about their dreams during the day (Schredl, 2000).
One might speculate that a positive interest in dreams can explain the gender
difference in dream recall. It is, however, difcult to assume causality because a
positive interest in dreams can motivate the person to focus on dreams, which often
increases dream recall (e.g., Redfering & Keller, 1974; Halliday, 1992). This is true
especially in low dream recallers (Schredl, 2002b). On the other hand, high recall
can stimulate the interest in dreams, for example, by the occurrence of problem-
solving dreams or other dreams arousing the curiosity of the dreamer.
Although several studies (Domino, 1982; Robbins & Tanck, 1988; Schredl,
Nu rnberg, & Weiler, 1996; Schredl, 2000, 2004) reported a signicant gender effect
regarding the gender difference in the interest in dreams, the generalizability of
these studies is limited because mainly students were recruited as participants. The
present study in which a representative sample of the German population was
studied lls this gap.
METHOD
Measurement Instrument
The participants received a list of topics and were told, We have listed here
different topics. Which topic do you think is worth looking at or pursuing? The 22
themes that were presented comprised topics such as meditation/yoga, dream
interpretation, astrology, Eastern religions, and so forth. For the present study, the
positive answers to the dream interpretation item were analyzed.
Participants and Procedure
Studies by the Allensbach Institute of Demoscopy were carried out with quota
samples that were representative of the German population. The quota criteria
were gender, age (1829, 3044, 4559, 60 years of age and older), marital status
(married, single, widowed/divorced), household size (one person, two persons,
three persons, four persons, ve or more persons), education (primary education,
secondary education), occupation (worker, farmer, employees, ofcials, self-em-
12 Schredl and Piel
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ployed), population of town of residence (less than 5,000, 5,00020,000, 20,000
100,000, more than 100,000) and state (16 German states). The interviewers re-
ceived a list of randomly generated combinations of the aforementioned criteria.
As shown in Table 1, the sample size was 996. By presenting the dream-related
item within a larger context of diverse themes, possible biases caused by the
interviewers selecting persons who are interested in dreams were to a minimum.
For a detailed discussion of the pros and cons of this sampling method, see
Noelle-Neumann and Petersen (2000). The differences in percentages were trans-
formed into effect sizes (cf. Cohen, 1988).
RESULTS
Women showed a higher interest in dream interpretation than men. A logistic
regression including gender, age group, and the interaction between gender and age
group yielded a signicant gender effect,
2
(1, N 996) 22.0, p .0001; a
nonsignicant age group effect,
2
(3, N 996) 7.3, p .0642; and a signicant
interaction,
2
(3, N 996) 15.0, p .0001. Analysis of the data for each age
group revealed a large effect in the youngest age group and small effect sizes in the
older groups.
DISCUSSION
The results of the present study conrmed the previous ndings regarding a
gender difference in the interest in dreams ( interest in dream interpretation in this
study). Splitting the total sample into four age groups showed that there is a
signicant interaction with age; the expected difference is marked only within the
youngest age group. Because differences in dream recall frequency have not shown
this interaction with age (see Schredl & Piel, 2003, 2005), it seems unlikely that this
variable is a very potent factor in explaining gender differences in dream recall in
general. This was demonstrated by Schredl (2000) for a sample with a mean age of
about 36 years.
From the methodological point of view, the measurement of interest in dream
interpretation is a very crude measure of interest in dreams in general. As pointed
out previously, it is necessary to construct items that are not confounded with
dream recall frequency and link these scores with the gender difference in dream
recall.
Table 1. Gender Differences in Interest in Dream Interpretation
Age groups
Women Men
Effect size
Statistical test
% n % n z p
Total 25.0 513 15.3 483 0.246 3.9 .0001
1829 years 47.7 77 7.7 77 0.962 6.0 .0001
3044 years 23.5 136 19.9 146 0.087 0.7 .2317
4559 years 25.0 124 18.5 130 0.158 1.3 .1041
60 years 17.8 176 11.2 490 0.189 1.6 .0515
Interest in Dream Interpretation 13
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Another topic that is implicated by the present ndings is the development of
the gender difference in dream recall and interest in dreams during childhood and
adolescence. Whereas the data collected thus far indicate nonexistent to small
differences in young children (e.g., Foulkes, 1982) but marked differences in
adolescents (Nielsen et al., 2000) for dream recall frequency, similar studies regard-
ing interest in dreams have not been carried out. The overall decrease of interest in
dreams in cross-sectional studies (more pronounced for women in this sample) has
also been reported by Herman and Shows (1984). Thus, one might speculate that an
interest in dream recall can only explain gender differences in dream recall in
relatively young samples.
To summarize, gender differences with regard to interest in dream interpre-
tation as an indicator of interest in dreams in general have been demonstrated in a
representative sample. There was, however, a signicant agegender interaction,
indicating that interest in dreams might not be a potent variable for explaining
gender differences in dream recall. In future studies, the course of interest in
dreams and its gender difference over the life span should be investigated using
carefully designed scales.
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Interest in Dream Interpretation 15
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