24-1 A Study of Recurrent Dreams from Childhood
The purpose of this study was to understand the meaning of recurrent dreams from childhood. The research gathered information by interviewing five undergraduate students with nine recurrent dreams from their childhood. The interpretation of the data and analysis of the dreams were based on Clara E. Hill’s cognitive-experiential dream model. Qualitative research methodology was applied to process and analyze these data. The research findings were: (1) If a person had more than one recurrent dreams during childhood, the different recurrent dreams were highly correlated and mostly reflected similar issues. (2) Recurrent dreams that occurred during kindergarten and elementary school years mostly reflected traumatic experiences with parents in early years of life as the result of insecure attachment or separation anxiety. In general, recurrent dreams from childhood can be divided into two main categories. First, recurrent dreams that only lasted within a short period of one’s life and that first occurred during kindergarten and elementary school years, mostly reflecting specific traumatic events. Second, recurrent dreams that first appeared during kindergarten and elementary school years and throughout the college years and persisted in the long-term, then, mostly reflecting early unresolved traumatic experiences with parents.
Keywords
child, cognitive-experiential dream model, dream, dream analysis, dream interpretation, Hill’s dream model, recurrent dreams.
Download