Abstract
During single 20-40 minute sessions, 51 volunteer clients were given instructions to either describe their dream images in rich detail, to provide associations to the dream images, or to combine these descriptive and associative activities. Volunteer clients in the association condition reported significantly more exploration/insight gains (e.g., becoming involved while working on the dream, making previously unobserved connections between the dream and waking life) than did volunteer clients in the description condition. No differences were found among conditions on clients' ratings of session depth (e.g., valuable, powerful), judges' ratings of the cognitive complexity of client's dialogue during the session (e.g., clear, elaborative), judges' ratings of how insightful clients were in their written dream interpretations, and judges' ratings of the quality of clients' written action plans. Implications for dream interpretation are discussed.
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Hill, C.E., Nakayama, E.Y. & Wonnell, T.L. The Effects of Description, Association, or Combined Description/Association in Exploring Dream Images. Dreaming 8, 1–13 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:DREM.0000005910.62383.0b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:DREM.0000005910.62383.0b