Dreams: Resources for Scientists

Resources for Scientists

This page is the gateway to the parts of our site which will be of most interest to people who are doing their own quantitative studies of dreams, or who want to learn more about the methods we use.

Before you get into this seriously, you should probably look at everything in our "More about Content Analysis" section, especially the page on statistical analysis. (If you're writing a paper, make sure you've read our page about doing research projects.) Having read all of that, you might also be interested in some of our more interesting findings.

Dream Library
The Dream Library contains published and unpublished papers meant for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and dream researchers, with the hope that the papers will be of use to them in formulating research projects or adopting a theoretical framework. DreamBank
The DreamBank is a collection of dream reports from various sources: from the files of Calvin Hall, from our own studies, from individuals who have kept long-time dream journals, etc. You can do keyword searches to find dreams that are of interest to your research.

Hall/VdC coding rules
We have put complete instructions for the Hall/Van de Castle coding system on the Web. This system enables anyone to consistently, reliably code various elements in dream reports; from there, it is possible to perform any number of statistical analyses on the data. The Norms
The Hall/Van de Castle normative findings for American college students. 500 men's and 500 women's dreams were coded using the H/VdC coding system. These norms have been replicated several times, and we use them as a basis of comparison when examining dream series.

Examples of coded dreams
This section contains two sets of dreams that have already been coded; studying these dreams and their codings is a good way to learn the coding system. One of the series has detailed explanations of the coding decisions, and the other one uses JavaScript to provide an interactive learning experience. DreamSAT
DreamSAT is a spreadsheet that we created to facilitate entry and analysis of Hall/Van de Castle data. DreamSAT analyzes the codes and automatically generates percentages and h-profiles. To use it, you need a Macintosh or Windows system and Microsoft Excel 5.0 (or later).

Randomization Statistics
Randomization strategies for statistical analysis are based on repeatedly drawing thousands of new subsamples from the original sample. We have a number of experimental randomization programs that compare dream content indicators. The Scientific Study of Dreams
Bill Domhoff's new book (published January 2003) is an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to learn more about the latest advances in scientific dream research; you can buy it from Amazon.com, where it costs less than $30.

Most Recent Dream form
A good way to gather dreams from a large group of people is to simply ask each of them to write down the most recent dream that they can remember. If MRD studies are to be compared with one another, the data collection process should be standardized; hence, we are making our MRD form available to the public. Blank coding cards
Once you've collected some dreams and learned the coding system, you need a way to record your codes before entering them into the computer or counting them. One way to do this is to use specially designed forms that have places to write down all the categories of dream elements. You'll find copies of those forms here.

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Dream Library The Dream Library contains published and unpublished papers meant for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and dream researchers, with the hope that the papers will be of use to them in formulating research projects or adopting a theoretical framework.	DreamBank The DreamBank is a collection of dream reports from various sources: from the files of Calvin Hall, from our own studies, from individuals who have kept long-time dream journals, etc. You can do keyword searches to find dreams that are of interest to your research.
Hall/VdC coding rules We have put complete instructions for the Hall/Van de Castle coding system on the Web. This system enables anyone to consistently, reliably code various elements in dream reports; from there, it is possible to perform any number of statistical analyses on the data.	The Norms The Hall/Van de Castle normative findings for American college students. 500 men's and 500 women's dreams were coded using the H/VdC coding system. These norms have been replicated several times, and we use them as a basis of comparison when examining dream series.
Examples of coded dreams This section contains two sets of dreams that have already been coded; studying these dreams and their codings is a good way to learn the coding system. One of the series has detailed explanations of the coding decisions, and the other one uses JavaScript to provide an interactive learning experience.	DreamSAT DreamSAT is a spreadsheet that we created to facilitate entry and analysis of Hall/Van de Castle data. DreamSAT analyzes the codes and automatically generates percentages and h-profiles. To use it, you need a Macintosh or Windows system and Microsoft Excel 5.0 (or later).
Randomization Statistics Randomization strategies for statistical analysis are based on repeatedly drawing thousands of new subsamples from the original sample. We have a number of experimental randomization programs that compare dream content indicators.	*The Scientific Study of Dreams* Bill Domhoff's new book (published January 2003) is an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to learn more about the latest advances in scientific dream research; you can buy it from Amazon.com, where it costs less than $30.
Most Recent Dream form A good way to gather dreams from a large group of people is to simply ask each of them to write down the most recent dream that they can remember. If MRD studies are to be compared with one another, the data collection process should be standardized; hence, we are making our MRD form available to the public.	Blank coding cards Once you've collected some dreams and learned the coding system, you need a way to record your codes before entering them into the computer or counting them. One way to do this is to use specially designed forms that have places to write down all the categories of dream elements. You'll find copies of those forms here.