The Frequency of Contacting Persons you Dreamed About: A Social Aspect of Dreaming

Abstract

Although dreams are very private, dreaming has also social components, i.e., dreams are shared quite often. We studied the frequency of how often the dreamer deliberately contacted another person because s/he dreamed about this person, as this might intensify the waking-life bonds with this person. Overall, 2929 participants completed the dream survey, and a subsample also completed a Big Five Personality inventory. The findings indicate that 37% of the participants contacted other persons because they dreamed about them. Dream recall frequency, attitude towards dreaming, younger age, and female gender was associated with contacting the person(s) dreamed of. Moreover, extraversion was also related to the frequency of contacting the person(s) dreamed of – similar to the relationship found for dream sharing frequency and extraversion. However, the association with low conscientiousness is a new finding. It would be very interesting to test whether this social behavior (contacting another person) motivated by dreams strengthens the social bonds between the dreamer and the contacted person(s) and thereby provide support for the Social Simulation Theory.