Friday, June 14, 2013

Ontogenetic Patterns in Female Dreams

Current reseach by Allyson Dale at Ottawa University exams the pattern of female dreams across their lifespan. This study has an N=375 from adolescence to old age. What would be the value of this study and what are the long-term implications of the findings?

57 comments:

  1. This study regarding the dreams of females across the lifespan would be valuable to research for a number of reasons. The study covers a wide range of ages and the sample size is quite large, both being good for generalization purposes. The findings from this study are essential because it allows us to compare and contrast gender differences between the dreams of males and females at all different ages. It also provides us with norms, and typical dreams that are commonly seen in females. In terms of clinical practice, with these norms therapists can tell the progress of their patients or detect any possible abnormalities. The research of female dreams only and differences found between the dreams of males and females, provides support for the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. Our dreams are a continuation of our waking life. The lives of males are often different from those of females, which would explain why there are gender differences amongst dreams e.g. women dream more of indoor settings due to their greater family responsibilities. Information specifically on the dreams of females will also contribute to stronger, more efficient theories regarding dream meanings. Current theories tend to be in general and cover all people; it would be interesting to have separate dream interpretation theories for just females and just males. Lastly, the results of this study are useful in understanding how the relationship between cultural and personal conceptions manifests itself in dreams (e.g. In general, why are women more affected by the consequences of nightmares than males are?)

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    1. This study would be valuable to research regarding female dreams across the lifespan. Like Lindsay Blain stated, the study has a large sample size and a huge age range, which leads to valid results and generalization to other populations. Since this study is done over the lifespan, it would be interesting as to how dream imagery changes over time. Research has shown that different dream imagery occurs throughout different milestones in an individual’s life. For instance, dream imagery of children or dream imagery of university students will all differ. Therefore, it would be a very valuable longitudinal study. In addition, since this study is solely focusing on female students researchers can also look at gender differences between dream imagery. Further research should be done with males to compare the findings.
      Also, like Lindsay Blain said, researchers will be able to detect typical dream themes of females over their lifespan, which can be useful in detecting abnormalities. Perhaps, researchers could pin point the start of the abnormal dream imagery since they are investigating over the lifespan. For instance, researchers may be able to understand if different situations in waking day life can onset certain problems. In addition, it would be interesting to see the cultural differences between females if that was included in the study.

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    2. Because there are many changes through development from adolescents and elderly women, dream imagery content will also have significant changes. This study would be a very valuable resource for researchers and even individuals interested in dream imagery in women. Like the previous two students mentioned, it would be also extremely valuable to have the same experiment ran with males, therefore they can do comparison studies or see the differences between the dream content of males and females.
      The sample size is large therefore the results will be valued and are able to be generalized.
      In the podcast, Teresa mentioned that cross culturally there are differences between dream imagery and content. It would be interesting to know if the participants in this study were all Canadians from Ottawa where the study was completed, or where there participants chosen from a large group of culturally different individuals.
      If we had this longitudinal study with all of the different dream contents through the life cycle of a female, then we would be able to look for abnormal dream content that could tell the dreamer important information.
      We have to still be careful about overgeneralizing the contents of dreams to every individual.

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    3. Samantha Baynton and Lindsay Blain make a good point by stating that the study’s large sample size incorporating many ages makes it extremely beneficial in terms of generalizing the findings across many populations. Furthermore, I completely agree with Samantha’s point that this study would be extremely useful for examining how a female’s dream imagery changes over their life span and at different milestones. This study would be valuable because the findings could be used to screen for mental or developmental illnesses. For example, this study would provide norms for female dream imagery across the lifespan. If a twenty-year-old was displaying dream imagery typical of an eight-year-old then this may be an indicator of underlying mental or developmental illnesses, which would be brought to light by these findings. The use of these findings in this way could have long-term implications in terms of how mental/developmental illnesses are diagnosed and treated. The results of this study are also valuable as they provide a very detailed examination of how female dream imagery changes with age and life stage. Furthermore, this study could be taken in a slightly different direction if future researchers examined the dreams of subjects beginning at childhood throughout their lifespan. Instead of using different subjects at different ages, researchers could use the same subjects as they aged and examine whether the attained results are the same for both studies.

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    4. As Linsay Blain mentioned about finding norms I agree that and this might be helpful to diagnose mental status of females' development abnormality (as Carly Barrett stated) throughout females' lifespan. Also, it would be interesting to see how traumatic events (if happened among the participants) would be different from the "norm" of other females' dreams in the study.

      These comments made me think another possible result from this study. I wonder if they can compare dreams of homosexual females and heterosexual females (if their participants were consisted of both characters). I wonder if homosexual females' dreams would be different from heterosexual females' whether homosexual females who have characteristics of male are more likely represent males' dreams or their dreams do not have any differences from the heterosexual females' dreams.

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    5. This research may be also applicable to validating theories in other fields such as human development, medicine, and anthropological studies. Traits that are considered stable by some developmentalists may not be as stable when analyzing dreams across the life span. The dreams may reflect a change in values, beliefs, experiences, and personality across the lifespan. Human development mysteries may be further elucidated by the content of dreams.
      A cohort analysis could be done as well to see the effects of historical periods on dream imagery. The effects of different environments on dream imagery. This research has endless possibilities.
      In medicine, the dreams may show a predisposition to a disease later in old age based on waking life activities. Gender identity issues, and psychiatric conditions can be better monitored and caught in the prodromal period before suicidal tendencies occur. This could be very helpful in the long-term to fill some of the gaps in human development, and patient care. However, I would be interested to see if the sample remains that large as continuing an interest for what seems a potentially 20-30 year study may be difficult. The funding for the study does seem limited as well because I believe the scientific community is more focused on theoretical approaches that will provide treatment (e.g. clinical trials) or to further understand mutations within the genome in complex diseases.

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    6. I think we all agree that understanding the female perceptions associated with dream imagery would be a good indicator of the thoughts, feelings and activities throughout a woman's lifespan. Especially, with such a large group, the research would allow for a better understanding of shared discoveries (or norms) and differences, and why this occurs. Aaron's point about the study of human development makes a good point. From this research, we may be able to discover which thought processes (as represented in the dreams) are innate to females and which are developed through experience.
      The results of this study may also help identify the effects of a changing society. Today, a ninety-year-old woman having lived through the Great Depression may not have the same perceptions as a twenty-year-old. Society, economy and a woman's place in it have changed drastically since then. We may be able to explore the effects of that change.

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    7. This study would prove to be interesting because you could use the dreams to analyse the changes and development in the females. I think it would be interesting to also study a group of males, and compare the two. You could see the difference in age where the individual began to mature through their dreams. Stephanie makes an interesting point of how we could use the dreams to see how events throughout history have affect individuals.

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  2. The study of female dreams across their lifespan has a great value on dream research. Firstly, as also stated by the above comments, there is a large sample size and range in age. This large scope will allow for little bias and more accurate results. These results will be more valid and reliable than will be with a smaller sample. The large age span allows for us to see difference in dreams among different age groups (adolescent compared to elderly). In the long-term, researchers and professionals will be able to distinguish abnormalities in female’s dream imagery and content to further aid women. This study can lead to future research in determining why females dream about the things they do, and to further compare these dreams to those of males.
    Prabhjot Dhaliwal

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    1. I agree with Prabhjot Dhaliwal on the possible visions of this research in the future. Definitely, this study would be more accurate and trustful because it included a large number of participants in different age groups.
      For the future researches, this study's protocol can be used not only different sexes (males vs. females) but also different psychological disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or anxiety disorders, to compare how their dreams are different from non-clinical participants' dreams in different ages.
      As I mentioned in my comment, this study would be helpful to predict their dreams in different ages in different situations. Hopefully, we can predict typical negative dreams in different age groups and find way to manipulate the dreams to minimize any negative effect from the dreams in the dreamers waking lives.

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  4. The value of this study would be the strong content analysis. For the collection of different ages (adolescent to old age) of 375 females' dreams would provide rich contents of emotions across their lifespan, which increases statistical significance from many collections of dreams from different ages of lifestyles. Their emotions/interests may different depending on their life whether they are in school, work, starting family, or growing children. For example, the dreams of females during university might be related to workload, friends, or boyfriend. For those females in age of after graduation of university, their dreams might represent work or ambiguous of their future for those ones who could not be able to decide their careers. Females' dreams who did not attend university may different than ones who attend university. I am also guessing, for those dreams in later years of females might relate to their families (for example, husband and children). There would be lots of categories to study and compare these dreams such as, charters, emotions, colours, places, and who were in their dreams in different ages, professions, and lifestyles. Finally, from this study we may be able to predict what females would dreams depend on their age, interests, profession, lifestyles, etc.

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  5. Ashleigh-Anne GureckasJune 14, 2013 at 12:03 PM

    This study is very interesting and beneficial for numerous reasons. With a large sample size, the research conclusions will be able to look at different aspects of people and compare and contrast their similarities and differences. One interesting benefit of this research study is looking at hormonal changes in woman and affected dream imagery. Understanding if our hormones play an important role in regulating our dreams and therefore our moods. Women go through so many hormonal changes throughout their lifespan that this is an interesting factor that this research study could look at.
    This research could also be contrasted with male ontogenetic dreaming patterns to understand similarities and differences in ages and development in connection with dream imagery.
    Overall this study of female ontogenetic dreams is very interesting and has a broad range of other research opportunities that can stem from this idea.

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  6. I agree with the group in that I believe this kind of study could provide very valuable information. I would be curious to know which type of measures (i.e. dream questionnaires) were used to obtain the data about the dreams of females. As others have mentioned, it would be interesting to do a comparison study with males to explore what differences could exist.
    In terms of what value this type of study provides, people have mentioned some very valid points. I was especially interested in the above comment re: how sexual orientation may affect dreams. I think this would be a very interesting subject to examine.
    In terms of long-term implications, I would think the data obtained could have a variety of implications, including approaches to therapy as well as dream analysis. The fact that different age ranges are included in the study is quite helpful as we can see changes in dreaming across the lifespan. These changes may be due to hormones, which Van de Castle references in "Our Dreaming Mind" i.e. dreams in pregnancy, dreams during menstruation, or due to developmental changes which we all may experience.

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  7. As other members of the group have already stated, the large sample size and age span is a great asset to this research as it makes the results more reliable and applicable to the greater female population.

    Ashleigh-Anne mentioned how studying dreaming across the female lifespan may provide more information about the effect and role of hormones in our bodies. This could be very useful in many different ways, but one way in particular could be using dream interpretation as an adjunct treatment for post-partum depression or to promote psychological wellbeing during menopause.

    Comparing these results to male data to see gender differences would be very interesting as well and perhaps enhance our understanding of the similarities and dissimilarities of either sex. Comparing dream content through content analysis throughout the female lifespan could confirm and enhance understanding of the developmental process through different life stages for females specifically(Ex. Erikson's Developmental Stages). Lindsay mentioned this sort of study could establish norms which could possibly be useful in detecting abnormal dream patterns for diagnosis and treatment purposed.

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  8. This study`s findings will be useful in identifying trends in dreams to target common problems women experience. By using a large sample size, it may be a closer representation of the whole population of women. It is cautioned however, research specifically focusing on women cannot be too generalized due to different lived experiences each women has. It would be interesting to investigate and differentiate different cultural groups because there could be some differences in dream imagery that would have different implications.

    The advantage of focusing specifically on women, allows us to interpret the common themes throughout a woman`s life and use that information to improve their lives. For example, with dreams we might be able to interpret problems that adolescent female teenagers face such as eating disorders, depression, anxiety, stress, self-esteem, and love or sexual relationships and monitor dreams to address these problems before they worsen or manifest. Application of dream imagery of middle aged women may be useful for monitoring health problems, marriage and children, or work stress to help them adjust to changes in their lives. With older women, we can monitor dream imagery of health problems, family, spousal relationships, loses, and eventually death and how these events specifically affect them. These examples of someone the main themes I predict Allyson Dale might find upon analyzing the pattern of dreams in women across the lifespan. We can use dream therapy for women to gain insight about problems when they begin to occur and give them more opportunity and time to seek help or guidance to correct these events in order to reduce psychological disorders and death from diseases and overall to increase awareness and appreciation and love for one`s self.

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  9. I agree Shirley in some way, however, sample size of 375 is not large enough to generalize the finding as a whole population. Focusing on female dreams across their lifespan can be very useful for every woman from cancer patient to military.

    One of the advantages of this study is that, women will use dreams as a solution to their problems. Although, women may not have the same meaning or emotion to their dreams however, this may provide women with treatment intervention to many health problems including mental health. Dream interpretation as it was discovered by Carl Jung, dream interpretation will show us what is happening in our wakening life. For instance, adolescent girls may find answers to their issues concerning day-to-day life through dreams interpretation. Whereas, older women may not have that much of advantage because dream decline in older years or age according to DiCicco.

    Eventually, medical professionals will use dreams interpretation to diagnose many diseases.

    The long-term implications of this study will be many people will dream about issues as imagery which can lead to psychological problems.

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  10. The value of this study is it allows for examination of dreams from a variety of age groups while additionally comparing how dreams may change throughout the lifespan of a female. Any differences or abnormalities can be detected through these comparisons and possible diagnoses and treatment for any disorders that may be detected through these abnormalities can take place. The dreams of participants that are extremely similar can be examined for other similarities in the waking day life to see if they account for the similarities in dreams. This could account for things like similar cultural backgrounds, family/ work life, etc. Furthermore a gender based study on dreams could be conducted in comparing these findings to that of male dreams throughout the lifespan, taking into account any age based differences and gender differences.

    As others have noted I think that the implications of this study is a small sample size and that replication of this study would need to be completed in order to verify the importance of any findings that were made about the dreams women experience from adolescence to old age. Furthermore the possibility that recall was not accurately reported would need to be examined to ensure that any differences reported on were also verified.

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  11. A longitudinal study, such as this one measuring the patterns of dreams along the lifespan could be very valuable. The progression of an illness that is chronic, such as diabetes, depression, or back pain (as examples) can be monitored by dreams. It could provide great insights for the clinician to view the progress of a patient and whether they may be prodromal phase of the illness or residual phase. For dream research it could be useful in determining how dreams change in females over the course of their life span. Certain dream imagery can be mapped to certain developmental periods in an individuals life. It could be also used to assess the validity of the continuity hypothesis and whether it reflects truly a continuation of waking day life characteristics throughout the life span. The expression of emotion across the life span, and the emotional components in the dream at different ages can be analyzed.
    The dreams of different females from different relationships, occupations, and communities can be compared for differences and their effects along the life span. The duration of recurrent dreams and their effects at different points across the life span. This study is quite helpful to both clinicians and researchers in elucidating both waking day life and dream imagery, as well as developmental processes and dream imagery.
    The long-term implications of this research can further provide different avenues of investigation in dream research based on the findings. It may be found that it is more plausible to study dreaming in an middle adulthood population rather than a university population. With the maturation of self-concepts (self-esteem, body image), do they effect dream imagery.

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  12. A longitudinal study which such a large sample size over such a long period of time would be extremely valuable in investigating patterns in the development of female dreams. With so many subject timelines to compare, patterns should emerge and be fairly evident. This is valuable because it may allow researchers to compare female dreams to male dreams, at every age. It will also allow researchers to see how dream change across the life span. This is helpful because it may help to identify what the main waking day life issues are of each age group, and this could help with therapy. Also, studying females with certain physiological, or psychological disorders, may help to improve therapy that is used today. By comparing how dreams change in subjects after different therapies, psychologists may be able to identify the most effective therapies for treating disorders.

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  13. I disagree with many of the above comments regarding the supposed 'large' sample size of this study. We really need to just consider the math briefly here. This is a very small number over a very large range of ages. Adolescence could be from age 12 up to elderly at 90+ years. This could mean a span of up to almost 80 years. As a generalization to prove a point, that could be a minimum of 5 people per year of age. That would mean that the average number of people in the study for any 1, ten year span (for example from ages 20-30) could be as little as 50 people. This would be a very small sample size to gain any valuable information. As well, once you are dealing with a small sample size you must look to the probability of getting that sample in a certain geographical area. In this case, given the large population of Ottawa, you could easily acquire this sample from the city of Ottawa alone. Therefore, for each individual age group, you could be trying to assess results from 50 people within Ottawa for every 10 year age range. This would make the results difficult to extend to other areas, or to even make any valid conclusions from. The study would be much more useful if it concentrated on getting larger numbers from a much smaller age range.

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  14. I would agree that the same size isn't overly large in contrast to some sample sizes.Interestingly no one has touched on the fact which was discussed at length in the text book about the variations in females dream cycles due to the various hormonal changes that occur monthly.

    I would think that by studying even a sample of this size, valuable data could be gathered to further support theories that females have different types of dreams surround different times in their monthly dream and physical cycles.

    Findings from this research would be valuable for emotion, psychical and psychological health in females of any age because it could lead to determining patterns that have yet to be discovered relating to periods when specific dream imagery begins to develop.

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  15. I would have to agree that that the large sample size and wide range of ages allows for the research done in this study to be rich in information and allow for patterns and generalizations to be more likely made and represent the larger population of women more effectively. I agree with many of the above posts in that this research would be very effective if it proves to show patterns of typical drams found in each ages range and look at the different hormonal cycles and stages in life. What a teenage female dreams of will likely be much different that what a 50 year old female dreams about as responsibilities and life experiences change and increase in number as one ages.
    I also agree that it would be beneficial to have an equivalent study done with males across the lifespan in order to have comparable research between the two sexes and to understand if there are, in fact, "norms" when it comes to dream content for both sexes at different age ranges. Perhaps by discovering what a "typical" dream is for a male or female at a certain age will help in aiding individuals in dream therapy to discover if their dreams are "out of the norm" and what kind of implications that may have for them, if any.

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  16. I would have to agree with Tracy in the obvious benefits associated with the effects of women’s hormones. By studying women in such a wide range of ages patterns can be drawn from both the development of dreams and hormonal cycles. Cross-examination could show correlations between dream intensity/content and point in hormonal cycle. Also there could be great discoveries made at the higher end of the age range when a woman’s monthly cycle ends completely and the effects on dreams. Due to the fact that woman experience more hormonal changes on regular basis then men this study could prove to be useful in distinguishing what type of dream content is due to waking day life and which content is directly linked to specific hormonal changes. For example, conclusions could be drawn that certain hormones secreted can cause high emotional intensity which can be reflected in dream content. However, because this hormone is only secreted at certain times it could show inconsistencies in dream interpretation. Over the lifespan of the women involved in this study researches can test for these specifics provide explanations and guides as to the effects certain hormones and certain periods of hormonal cycles have on dream content.

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    1. The value of the current study by Allyson Dale would be the accuracy of the dream results since the females are being observed from adolescence to old age. Also a large sample is high in validity and people usually do not remember past events and if they were asked about their past, they would not remember. Also with Dale's current study, she should be able to pick up long-term changes from using a longitudinal research design. By choosing this type of research design, Dale is able to assess the stability and continuity of several attributes of a sample by repeatedly observing the same participants. In addition, this type of design allows her to identify developmental trends among the subjects. For example, common attributes that the subjects share, or milestones at which these female undergo certain changes in their dreaming. Further, by focusing on one group of people over time,rather than comparing several different groups that represent different ages and generations, it avoids cohort effects.
      However the long term implications of the findings could be the validity of the actual research design. Practice effects may threaten the validity of a study, thus performance improvements are unrelated to the normal patterns of development. Also with this type of research design it takes a long time to father results, and participants may drop out along the way thus impacting the findings.

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    2. There are many values of studies such as this. One of the values present is the gender value of this study. It is not unknown that males and females have different types of dreams. For example, as stated above females dream more of the indoors than males do and females are more emotional in their dreams than males. Studies specifically on females are able to provide more specific data to the female population therefore, values and results will not be wavered by the differentiation from male dreams. Another value that is present is age. In this study, a variety of ages were include which can provide data of the differentiation of dreams among different ages of females. Finally, because it is a female study you can look directly at a specific female and see how their dreams have progressed through their lifetime. Long-term implications could be the difficulty of recall although this is a limitation in many research articles on dreaming. Another long-term implication could be the lack of different cultures. Generalizing women's dreams to one specific geographically area is an implication that could occur. Therefore, researcher may want to study other demographic areas as well. In addition, this group of women live in the city. There may be a possibility that city women and small town women have different dreams. Finally, this study is a longitudinal study and like most the risk of participants dropping out is always present which could possibly change results.

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    3. When looking into the value of the dream pattern over a long period of time, even an entire lifespan, the female pattern of dreaming is of particular interest because of the implications of the findings as suggested by the classmate above. Having a fairly large population size is particularly important when looking into a specific group of individuals such as the female population. I also like how the previous post talks about culture and the importance of taking culture into perspective when investigating the dream lifespan of females. When taking culture into account we are looking at the traditions and customs of the way of life of different societies and civilizations. These aspects may drastically alter the way the individual interprets the dream and describes the dream and the meaning of the dream to the researcher. The long-term implications of these findings could help psychologists and researchers alike to help the general population and anyone who may be suffering from negative dream imagery such as nightmares or poor sleep hygiene. Helping these individuals is an important implication of these finding and may be applied to the female population who are experiencing these dreams and may be a result of an enduring trauma which may be from PTSD or other ordeals which may be very stressing to the individual who is going through it. After all the purpose of investigating areas of study such as this, is to learn how to benefit the individual through research.

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    4. There is much value of this study, as mentioned distinguishing dream differences between males and females could be significant for clinical and research use. This study could create a norm for female dreams across a life span that could be cross referenced in a research setting to determine if there is differences between females' with physical or mental illnesses dreams. In clinical settings a females dreams could be then compared to the norm to predict if she has a physical or mental illness. Moreover, if a female is experiencing abnormal dream activity or different developmental activity, it could too be cross referenced against the norm to help diagnosis the problem.
      Long term implications could be, as mentioned, the cultural differences; whether the study controlled for different ethnicities or SES. These factors could greatly vary between the different groups.
      Take into account different generations of females. Though this won't be known without testing by patterns might change between large gaps of generations.

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    5. I find it very interesting that researchers have discovered how to determine if a dream is male or female. Reading the text, I found some dream imagery of females that I myself actually dream about. The value of the current study of female dreams is that it could be useful to see how dream imagery changes over the woman's lifespan. Like others have said, it would be interesting to see if female dreams of patients with disorders and female dreams of healthy people are different and if the differences could help predict illness and disorders. This could be a positive outcome for researching female dream imagery. Also, finding patterns in the dreams of females could also help with therapy in general for women. If there is certain imagery missing that is usually present in female dreams or if imagery is present that usually is not then this might tell the clinician that something is wrong.

      As for long term implications, I think this study only aids in the research of dreams. This study could help further research in female and male dreams. Other factors that influence female and male dreams, such as culture, SES, etc, should be studied further to determine if they impact dreams significantly. Although the study has 375 participants, I believe a study on a larger scale would further research as well as give better results. This is an interesting topic of dreams and I am excited to hear about new research!

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    6. This study is very valuable in the sense that there is a large sample size regarding women and their dreams. For some reason, that number seems to be low, if they say that we dream every night. The value of this study would be to determine how many dreams women are having compared to men. I feel that the content of the dream should be important because this could possibly determine how the female brain interprets and projects dreams compared to men. The long term implications would be that we could understand the female dream better and discover what causes someone to have a dream compared to men. In order for myself to determine better implications, the same study would need to be done with a group of male people.

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  17. I think it would be a very valuable tool to see the development of female dreams across the lifespan. I believe it would provide a more thorough insight into the psychological changes women undergo since their lives would be reflected in their dreams. I think it would also be interesting to see if dream content experienced by adolescents ever re-appears again with another age group. Examining content of only females would also be valuable if you were to study psychological issues that are primarily experienced by females. For instance body image and self-esteem issues have been a major area of study for psychologists recently, and it would be useful to see at what age themes of poor self-esteem were the highest. With this, eating disorders, female sexual abuse and other more severe mental issues could also be studied. Overall I think that observing similarities and differences within female dream content across the lifespan is an extremely valuable tool and would have a long term use in clinical practice.

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  18. The study would be quite valuable because of the diversity in the ages of the sample. Many physical and emotional events occur in females over the course from adolescence to old age. The study would be valuable in seeing what prominent themes emerge in dreams over the span of the different age groups. For instance, do females in adolescence have more dreams of dating, marriage, and having children in comparison to older females? This is likely apparent because these are often more common in the waking day events of younger females. Similarly, the study will not only allow researchers to gain insight into the differences between age groups, but also to examine dreams within certain age groups. Therefore, the study is valuable because it can allow for close examination of dreams in age groups, and diverse examination between age groups. As the study has a broad age group, long term implications from the findings will likely be more generalizable to the general female population.

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    1. A longitudinal study following females across their lifespan is great research that will have valuable use in clinical practice. There are many benefits to this gender specific study. Studying females separately than males can allow for an unbiased comparison of results to determine gender differences regarding frequency/intensity and content. Another benefit to this study is discovering changes in dreams related to changes in hormones (estrogen and progesterone). Changes in female hormones often mark various milestones such as menstrual cycle, pregnancy and menopause. Therefore, we can use dream analysis simultaneously to changes in hormone levels to evaluate the changes in dreaming during these important times in a female life. Long-term clinical implications for this study are to determine merit to content and changes in dreams by setting a norm/standard. Therefore psychologist can have a compared sample of 'normal' dreaming. Also, by conducting a longitudinal study across the lifespan it allows for a fuller development of a picture.

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  19. The value of this study would be found in the longitudinal nature, to see how dreams of female participants matured, and changed with age, life changes, hormonal changes (puberty, pregnancy and menopause).
    It would also be valuable if the dreams were then compared with the waking life occurrences of the participants, thus validating some of the theories we have learned about regarding prediction of health, illness, dreams of the dying etc.

    Implications of the findings could come from many future further studies expanding on these findings, including focusing in on certain age groups and comparing them cross-culturally, or against a longitudinal study of male participants. These findings could also help in clinical practice understanding the differences in thoughts and issues between males and females clients.



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  20. As Maureen mentioned, the value of this study is its ability to explain the relationship between developmental changes and dreaming. There may be commonalities between girls of specific ages related to their hormonal changes, but also to life events such as the start of high school, first child, retirement etc. By tracking dreaming through a longitudinal study we can group life events together and then look for dream similarities. In contrast, we could group common dream themes and then look for corresponding life events to better understand life transitions and thinking.

    Like Maureen suggested,using this study design to understand the dreams of girls cross-culturally would also be very interesting. Matching girls of similar ages to counterparts in other cultures could help us understand themes such as stress, problem solving, and cognition. The cultural component of this study could lead to new understanding about developmental milestones between cultures and how young girls are dealing with these.

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  21. The results of this study can be very helpful in examining the mind and maturation of women from adolscence to old age. As "Our dreaming Mind" has detailed women and men tend to have very different dream imagery in terms of interactions, colors, emotions and places. Women tend to have images of the indoors in a house, vivid colouring, and high emotional states. this study would further examine house this imagery changes over teh lifespan and possibly hint at specifically why and how this imagery changes. Are there certain chemical changes that occur at certain ages which would cause dreams to change? Is there particular role expectation at certain ages that cause the imagery to change? This study could help answer many of these questions and open up the door for other researchers to examine specific details and possible timelines of when teh dream imagery changes specifically.

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    1. Courtney FriedrichJune 16, 2013 at 7:25 PM

      I believe this study is very useful in the fact that it has such a large sample size. This makes any of the findings much more supported, and reliable. Like Holly discusses, this information can be used to study how the dream imagery of women will change through their lifetime. Holly discusses the possibility of chemical changes occurring and causing the changes of dream imagery. This is interesting because chemical or hormonal changes occur in the body at certain maturation points, generally around the same age in each individual. It could be looked into whether these body changes are connected in anyway to the changes of dream imagery in the womans lifetime. This could further research and possibly lead to extending research in the same respect on males.

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    2. I found your mention of 'chemical changes' and 'changes in role expectations' interesting. By focusing on one sex researchers could dedicate themselves to uncovering the 'why' and not just the 'who' or 'what.' Learning the 'why' of the female body could give researchers leads as to how they should begin their analysis of males in the future. Learning the 'why' could also help to develop dream therapies in a clinical setting.

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  22. I think this study is extremely interesting due to the vast sample size and age range of the women who participated. I think the results of this study could lead to further research into why and how dream imagery changes over a woman's life span. As stated by others, it would be interesting to be able to fully understand how things like pregnancy, suffering a trauma, illness, and etc. effect a woman's dreaming.

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    1. Just as everyone else has said, the sample size is quite large which will bring reliable results and results that can be generalized better to the population than a small sample size.
      The findings from this research would be useful in understanding how and why dreams change with age. It would also give answers as to how dreams can change the development process, if any.
      Dreams are an interesting way to look into the thoughts and feelings of a person's mind as it changes with age. Just as others have said, the findings of this research would be useful in comparing the dreams of males and females. Females go through things like pregnancy, menopause, motherhood, etc., while males do not and these are events that would be very interesting to look at through dreams.

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  23. Emily Reavie (0487529)June 16, 2013 at 8:56 PM

    Like many studies, larger sample sizes means that they are more reliable. I think that it is great that they recruited so many people for study and big age groups. As others have mentioned, it is important because we could study the dream imagery and how it can change throughout a woman’s life time. We could also start doing this with males. Hormonal changes happen with age and this could be reflected through dream imagery. Therefore, there could be a connection between dream imagery and hormonal/chemical changes. As noted above, the same study could be produced for males. Comparing these results among cultures would be very helpful to research.

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    1. As this is such a large sample size it allows researchers to easily generalize the results to the female population. I find that using the results from this study researchers have more knowledge about each stage of living through a females dreams. It would allow to collect data on the stages of dreaming through life and allow specific treatments to be applied in specific age groups. I also find that research like this should be done on both males and females. It allows insight into the dreaming concepts and advances that our minds make through the years and how our brains and dreams make continual changes based on our waking lives. I believe that it would also allow researchers to point the changes in lifespan such as hormonal and chemical changes. It would also be interesting to compare these results to different cultures to see if there are more similarities in some stages in life compared to others.

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  24. I'll echo what a lot of people have been saying by mentioning that this is a great study that has a lot of positive long-term implications. The large sample size and length of the study makes it easy to generalize to a larger population, making it a very valuable resource for future research. I think it would be interesting to compare and contrast the similarities and differences in dream content and themes of dreams from when the study began, to the way they are now. It would be interesting to see how different the problems of today that surface in dreams are from what they were when the study started. Not only could it give us information on how age changes this, but also on how popular culture changes the subconscious thoughts of women.

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  25. The value of this study would come from being able to track a woman's dreams across her lifespan, and seeing how her dreams change and develop as she ages. As others have mentioned, it would be interesting to observe changes in dream patterns during puberty, the childbearing years, and menopause to see whether changes in dream patterns correspond to physical and hormonal changes of the body. I think it is also important to observe how significant life events affect a woman's dreams. In terms of long-term applications, the results from this study could help provide clinicians with some general ideas of what to expect from the dreams of their female patients during various life stages. The results of this study could also be compared and contrasted with women from other regions and cultures as well as with males.

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  26. When I was conducting research for my final paper journal article after journal article stressed that females are more apt to dream and that their dreams contain more emotion/imagery than those of males. Research findings would be more abundant, as well as swifter to achieve, with a participant group who experienced regular and extensive dream imagery.

    That being said, it would be interesting to know whether the findings of the aforementioned journal articles were due to the sample of participants used in the study. For example, if the sample in a journal article that found females to experience more dream imagery than males consisted of undergraduate students it would be of interest to note whether that level of dream imagery was isolated within women in their early twenties. If future research assessed the pattern of male dreams across their lifespan then the data would be even more rewarding. It is possible that the height of dream imagery experienced by men is earlier or later in life.

    To assess patterns of dream imagery across the lifespan of either sex would prove invaluable. It would allow researchers and clinicians to assess the onset of changes in dream imagery prior to diagnosis of illnesses. Correlations could be made that could improve future diagnoses.

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  27. The value of a study focusing on the pattern of female dreams across the lifespan comes from the fact that it is so comprehensive. By looking at not just one age group, but examining the female lifespan as a whole, well-rounded conclusions can be drawn without the risk of bias that would occur if only a small age group were taken into consideration. For example, the results of a study that only included the dream patterns of adolescent girls could not be generalisable to females as a whole, as adolescent girls share similar biological, emotional, and social factors that contribute to the type of dreams they may experience. By looking at all age groups, such factors can be taken into consideration while also allowing for the possibility of shared characteristics across the lifespan for females.

    Similarly, such a study would allow for a close examination of how dreams transform across the lifespan - information that would prove to be highly useful in a clinical context, as clinicians would have a set of standard dream themes to use as a comparison with the dreams reported by their female patients. As a result, clinicians would be able to distinguish between typical and "abnormal" dreams in their female patients, which would be useful in the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of disorders. Overall, this study would be very valuable, as it would yield crucial data that would aid the scientific community in describing and defining the shared and unshared characteristics of female dreams - for use comparing them amongst each other, contrasting them with the dreams of males, and beyond.

    ~ Ellen Coombs

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  28. This study is beneficial because it allows for great insight to a female's mind. Being able to analyse somebody's dreams allows for the analysing of that individual's personality and life. It lets researchers witness the change that occurs in the mind during major developmental periods of a females life. There may be drastic changes in the complexity of the individual's dreams as they age. Adolescence is a time of great physical and psychological change, and the dreams of these women would have displayed that. Hormones play a large role during adolescence for females (and males), and large influxes of hormones occur during pregnancy as well. It would be fascinating to be able to study the content of a pregnant woman's dreams and how they might change during her progression, as well as after birthing.
    It would also be interesting to see what occurs during menopause. This study is very longitudinal and allows for studying many age groups. Because of the fair population size, what they find in the study may be generalizable.

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  29. I agree with the previous statements, this study would definitely be beneficial because it does allow great insight into the female mind. SInce dreams come from the unconscious mind it allows the researchers to gain a better understanding of a females most inner thoughts and emotions.Like mentioned above, it also would allow researchers to analyze a females personality as well as their life. By analyzing their life they would be able to see when a woman goes through major developmental changes as well as how long these changes take and the impact these changes can have on the female. I also think it would be fascinating to analyze the dreams of someone that is pregnant because it would be very interesting to see how their dreams change in terms of imagery and content throughout the duration of their pregnancy. I also think that it would be interesting to analyze a woman's dreams through menopause because like pregnancy this is a huge change for a female to go through and it would be interesting to see how their dream imagery and content changes throughout this change.

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  30. This is would be a very interesting study. Possibly values of the study could include examining how dreams change over the lifespan of females, from adolescence to old age. Also could investigate different aspects of dreaming such as pregnant women’s dreams compared to women going through menopause. However, I think the study would benefit more by exploring dreams of males from adolescence to old age, and then compare females and males. Moreover, long-term implications of this type of study would specifically be how dreams change over the lifespan of females.

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    1. The study conducted by Allyson Dale would prove very useful in determining emotions, fears, anxieties throughout a woman's lifespan. Given the varying ages of the women studied, it would be helpful to gain insight into similarities across the age groups as well as the differences. It would be interesting to see if there was an underlying theme across the generations, such as worry over others, particularly children. It would also be intersting to see how dreams relate to difference stages, adolescence, parenthood, menopause, old age etc. It may also be helpful for clinicians to understand the underlying concerns in women's lives at different ages and for women themselves to gain better insight into how their body may be responding to changes as well.

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    2. Angelica Palillo-BucknallJune 18, 2013 at 3:34 PM

      Long term studies could look at how dreams and dream imagery changes throughout the lifespan. This would give researchers an idea of what people are going through different stages of their lives. It would also highlight the events and emotions people are experiencing most throughout different stages of life which would be interesting in correlational studies exploring whether a relationship exists between stages in life and particular dream imagery. An example of this includes a woman going through a midlife crisis. When looking at dream imagery researchers may see a lot of anxiety when it comes to aging and may see the woman is experiencing a lot of anxiety about growing old.

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    3. This study would prove to be an influential and informative study, as it would have a big impact in clinical settings and the psychological science researches. With such a vast amount of participants the validity and reliability of the outcomes will be impressive.

      Since our dreams relates to our waking life, the assumption is that females experience various patterns of dream imagery at different stages of their life. It will be critical to scientific dream research to reveal what those patterns of dreams are for the different age groups. Additionally, the comparison with male patterns of dream imagery will be informational for the public. It will also be applicable in clinical settings, because clinicians can then start to take a different approach when dealing with females.

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  31. I think that the research conducted by Allyson Dale on the patterns of female dreams across a lifespan serves for great future clinical implications. Due to the fact observes the participants over a long duration of time, the reliability of the patterns would be much more accurate.

    In addition, having such a large sample size would allow the participants to be varied in age,culture and personal experiences. It would be interesting to see common patterns that occur among certain female age groups or cultures versus what patterns emerge among the group as a whole. From these specific patterns, researchers may be able to assess when females are going through significant changes in their waking life. This could vary from social/developmental changes to biological or psychological changes. Researchers could then examine if these dream patterns are emerging due to hormonal changes within the body.

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  32. The value of this study would be the it gives us very large insight into the types of dreams females have. Researchers would be able to correlate the dreams they are having to what stage they're at in their lives/what they're currently going through. Because the study follows them throughout their lives, too, there could be several things we could imply, including; some participants would likely drop out of the study and/or there could be incomplete information, participants may die before they reach old age, we would be able to examine their dreams when they're sick, injured, pregnant, etc.

    However, these implications could also be limitations to the study, and researchers should account for that.

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  33. I agree with Kerrii, That this study would be interesting to determine any correlations between females age and their life style, with regards to what they are dreaming. It would be interesting to see if there are any connections between age groups and what they are going through in life, showing up in their dreams. Looking at dream imagery could possible find indications of woman who are suffering from anxiety about growing old, having to deal with different changes in their life. The dreams they are experiencing could lead to better understand and perhaps new therapies for woman to cope with their age and changing status in the world. Furthermore the large sample size is a great indication of a concrete and valid results section for this study.

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  34. The implications of the findings regarding womens dreams across their life span can be very interesting. it can greatly help future research with a potential base line in regards to possible average dreams (since the sample size is so large). this base line can be used to analyze what is abnormal vs what is a normal dream sequence and determine whether a deeper investigation to the persons dreams are needed or not. this could have great value to dream research.

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  35. This would be important because it offers a look into females across different points I their lives. It is also a large participant base which is important. I would imagine the more participants the greater the statistical power?

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