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Abstract

The relationship of culture to the representation of conflict in children's manifest dreams was explored. Dream reports of Irish, Israeli, and Bedouin children were collected and independently scored by raters who were blind to the culture of the dreamer. Conflictual dreams were found to be more distorted than nonconflictual dreams in all three cultures. Manifestly conflictual dream reports differed cross-culturally along four domains: self-representation, other representation, realistic quality of the dream, and the nature of the conflict. Cross-cultural differences observed in the representation and distortion of dream conflicts were explored as reflecting culturally related socialization practices. The findings were used to support the idea that the manifest dream reflects characteristic coping processes of the dreamer and is therefore a useful measure of culturally mediated ego processes.

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The Role of Culture in the Representation of Conflict in Dreams

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