Further Insights about Dream Content Based on Studies of Individual Dream Series

This chapter discusses what has been learned through detailed quantitative studies of the hundreds or thousands of dreams that a small number of people have kept for their own reasons over the course of months, years, or decades, and later made available to researchers. Studies of over two dozen such dreams series add the new discovery that most people’s dreams are consistent over time from young adulthood to older ages. At the same time, some studies have been able to show how dream content can change when a person develops new personal concerns or loses interest in a past personal concern, such as an infatuation with a person they meet. All of these conclusions are demonstrated in detail through a quantitative analysis of over 4000 dreams kept over the space of two decades by a middle-aged adult woman. She also answered detailed questions in interviews with the lead researcher after he and his assistants had finished with their quantitative studies of her dreams.