Tag: politics

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Dream Recall and Political Ideology: Results of a Demographic Survey

An article with the title above just appeared in the IASD journal Dreaming, vol. 22(1), March 2012, pp. 1-9.  It’s the latest in a series of research projects I began in 1992 on the interaction of politics and dreaming.  The abstract for the new paper is below; links to the other projects are below that.  All the data for the new project are available at the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb). 

Here’s a pdf file of the article:

Dream Recall and Political Ideology final

A brief report on the study just appeared in the “Week in Ideas” section of the Wall Street Journal.

The results of this new study are consistent with my previous findings suggesting that American liberals tend to be worse sleepers and more expansive dreamers than American conservatives, who tend to be better sleepers and relatively minimal dreamers.

Abstract: This report presents findings from a survey of 2992 demographically diverse American adults who answered questions about dream recall and questions about their political views. Participants who described themselves as “liberal” or “progressive” (n = 802) were compared to people who described themselves as “conservative” or “very conservative” (n = 1335). Previous studies have suggested that political liberals tend to have higher dream recall than political conservatives. The results of the present survey provide new evidence in support of this hypothesis. On all 11 questions asked about different types of dream recall, people on the left reported higher frequencies than people on the right. The same pattern was found when the two groups were divided by gender: Liberal males reported consistently higher dream recall than conservative males, as did liberal females compared to conservative females. These findings indicate that political ideology is at least one of the cultural factors influencing dream recall frequencies among American adults.

2008.  American Dreamers: What Dreams Tell us about the Political Psychology of Conservatives, Liberals, and Everyone Else (Beacon Press).

2006. Sleep and Dream Patterns of Political Liberals and Conservatives. Dreaming, vol. 16(3), pp. 223-235.

2002. Dream Content and Political Ideology. Dreaming, vol. 12(2), pp. 61-77.

1995. Political Dreaming: Dreams of the 1992 Presidential Election.  In Among All These Dreamers: Essays on Dreaming and Modern Society (State University of New York Press).

 

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Lucid Dreaming Quiz Answers

Who is more likely to say they have had a dream of being aware they are dreaming:

Men or women?  Women 66.8%, Men 59.8%

People between the ages of 30 and 49 or people age 65 and older?  Between 30 and 49 68.6%, 65+ 54.8%

Whites, African-Americans, or Hispanics? Hispanics 67.3%, Whites 62.4%, African-Americans 58.9%

People who make less than $25K a year or people who make more than $100K a year? <$25K 67.8%, $100K+ 64.8%

People who are politically progressive or people who are very conservative? Progressives 68.9%, Very Conservatives 58.3%

People who live in the Southern US or people who live in the Western US? Western 66%, Southern 59.6%

McCain voters or Obama voters? Obama 67.3%, McCain 56.8%

People who say they are “spiritual not religious” or people who say they are neither spiritual nor religious? Spiritual not religious 66.1%, neither spiritual nor religious 59.4%.

OK, what do you think we should we make of these results?

The differences aren’t huge, and in every case the low end of the spectrum is still greater than 50%.  I’d say these findings, based on a survey of 2992 American adults, adds more evidence to the idea that lucid dreaming is a widespread phenomenon among the general public.

Women tend to remember dreams than men, and younger people tend to remember usually recall more dreams than older people, so the results on gender and age make sense.

The racial/ethnic finding is intriguing.  I don’t know of any other research on this question.

The political results are certainly consistent with my previous research on this topic. 

The political dynamic may account for the regional difference, with somewhat more lucid dream recall in the West than the South.  As a California native this seemed an obvious one to me, but no one guessed it.

The spirituality/religion results mayreflect the appeal of lucid dreaming to people who are spiritual seekers of one form or another. 

The income difference isn’t that large.  From what I can tell of the results from the whole survey, income has more of an impact on the recall of frightening dreams (higher among those lower on the income scale). 


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Sarah Palin Dreams

When Sarah Palin was first named in late August 2008 as John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, several people (both supporters and opponents) began reporting dreams of her.  An article posted on Slate by Abby Callard and David Plotz, “Your Dreams (and Nightmares) about Sarah Palin,” appeared on September 12, 2008.  The article includes twenty of what they judged to be the most interesting dreams sent in by their readers, with some comments from me. 

 Since then I have gathered several other dreams involving Sarah Palin.  At some point soon I will set up a website for people who want to share dreams they’ve had of Sarah Palin, comparable to the www.idreamofobama.com site for people to share dreams of President Obama. 

Till then, here’s one that came in response to the 2010 Zogby survey question asking, “What is the most recent dream you can remember?”:

 “You’re not going to believe this, but it was a dream with Sarah Palin. It wasn’t sexual, it was a situation where she was with me at my boyhood home in San Antonio, Texas, whereby I was in the front yard with her standing with me. I was showing her a Christmas ornament I made along with a table and chair I made. Next thing I know we’re in my older brother’s 1965 Chevrolet Impala. I was in the driver’s seat and she was sitting next to me real close like we were an item. I don’t remember any words being spoken, but it was very cool since she is such a beautiful woman. I hated the dream to end, but it did after only a few frames. It’s amazing to me because I remember very few dreams that I have so this one was very cool to have remembered.”

 The dream came to a 50-year old Hispanic man in Texas, a Catholic and conservative Republican who voted for McCain and Palin in the 2008 election. 

 Not knowing anything else about the dreamer personally, it’s impossible to say what the dream means to him.  But it does seem to accurately reflect his positive feelings toward Palin.  Indeed, the dream’s intensity and strong memorability suggest that Palin represents ideals, aspirations, and values that are especially meaningful to this man.

 In light of previous research I’ve done, the dream sounds similar to the dreams of Bill Clinton that liberal Democrats reported in the early 1990’s.  In those dreams, people found themselves in close, casual, rather intimate contact with a political candidate they greatly admired in waking life.  Often there was an aura of romantic ambiguity, as if the dreamer was struggling to understand powerful feelings of attraction that were more than friendly but not exactly sexual. 

 Then, as now, it seems that dreams offer a kind of “charisma index” that shows the deep psychological impact a politician can have on his or her supporters.