Dream Practice: Women have more nightmares than men (article)

note: this is a pretty interesting study on difference between male and female dreaming, and the different kinds of issues that dream practice might need to address. michael

WOMEN HAVE MORE NIGHTMARES THAN MEN, STUDY FINDS
By Richard Savill
The Telegraph
January 20, 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4296859/Women-have-more-nightma
res-than-men-study-finds.html

Women suffer more nightmares than men because they find it harder to switch
off their emotions at the end of the day, research has found.

They carry their worries into their dreams, and continue to process
emotional concerns while they are asleep, according to the study.

The findings came from a study of 193 male and female volunteers at the
University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol.

When asked to record their most recent dream, 19 per cent of male students
reported having a nightmare compared to 34 per cent of women. Their emotions
were recorded in diaries.

Jennifer Parker, a psychology lecturer at the university, who carried out
the study over five years, said it was the first to examine the difference
between women’s and men’s nightmares.

She said: “From our results it appears that men and women differ in the
frequency of nightmares – women have more – and women perceive those
nightmares to be more emotionally intense.

“I think that women use their dreams as a subconscious coping strategy.

“I believe these results show that women carry over their waking concerns
into their dream life more so than men do, and they appear to have more
difficulty with ‘switching off’ their concerns.”

Her work found women’s nightmares could be divided into three categories,
being chased or life threatened, losing a loved one, or confused dreams.

She said: “The interesting thing is, looking at the content of the nightmare
reports, men and women are experiencing the same things, but women are
experiencing them more intensely.

“Women had more unpleasant dreams than men and unpleasant dreams contained
more misfortune, self-negativity and failures.”

Other research found women’s dreams contained more family members, more
negative emotion, more indoor settings and less aggression than men’s
dreams.

Men’s dreams contained more references to sexual activity. Men reported more
actual intercourse, while women reported more kissing and sexual fantasies
about other dream characters.