Perceptual and Motor Skilk, 1991, 72, 1281-1282. O Perceptual and Motor Skills 1991

DREAMING AND HABITUAL SLEEP DURATION

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ROBERT A. HICKS, KRISTY LUCERO AND RASHMITA MISTRY San Jose State University Summary.-By demonstrating that habitual short-sleeping university students were less likely to report dreaming but were more likely to experience unpleasant dreams than their long-sleeping peers, we replicated Hartmann's 1973 results.

I n discussing his research on the relationships between personality and habitual sleep duration in adults, Hartmann (1973) observed that longer-sleepers exhibited greater amounts of more intense D-(REM) sleep, reported a significantly higher frequency of home dreams per week, and made longer dream reports, with significantly more primary process content, after laboratory awakenings than their short-sleeping peers. To our knowledge the differences that Hartmann reported between the quantity and the quality of the dreams of long- and short-sleeping adults have not been replicated and that was the purpose of this study. First, we asked a large group of college undergraduates to respond to a questionnaire which contained critical items on sleep habits and dreams. From this group, we identified 252 long-sleepers, i.e., students who habitud y slept 1 8 hours per night and 336 short-sleepers, i.e., students who habitually slept 1 6 hours per might. All of these students reported that, in general, they were satisfied with their sleep and that their current sleep duration had been established for at least the preceding six-month period. We tabulated these students' responses to a set of questions related to dreaming. To the question "Did you dream last night?", the frequencies of the yes-no responses for the long- and short-sleeping groups were 170 yes and 82 no and 191 yes and 145 no, respectively. The difference between these yes-no distributions is significant ( X , Z = 6.84, p < .01). TO the question "Was your dream experience last night pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant?", for the 170 long-sleepers and 191 short-sleepers who reported dreaming during this period 84 long- and 8 1 short-sleepers reported pleasant dreams, 39 long- and 44-short sleepers reported unpleasant dreams, and the remainder of this group classified this experience as neutral. The difference between these distributions is not significant (X22 = .62). I n addition to these questions, we asked three questions that measured aspects of these individuals' typical dream experiences. The frequencies of the yes-no responses to the question "DO you usually dream?" were 239 and 13 for the long-sleepers and 296 and

'Send requests for reprints to Robert A . Hicks, Department of Psychology, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192.

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40 for the short-sleepers. The difference between these distributions is significant ( X , 2 = 7.99, p

Dreaming and habitual sleep duration.

Perceptual and Motor Skilk, 1991, 72, 1281-1282. O Perceptual and Motor Skills 1991 DREAMING AND HABITUAL SLEEP DURATION ' ROBERT A. HICKS, KRISTY...
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