Interest in Dream Interpretation: A Gender Difference Michael Schredl Central Institute of Mental Health Edgar Piel Institute for Demoscopy Although several studies reported a significant effect with regard to the gender difference in an interest in dreams, the generalizability of these studies is limited because mainly students were recruited as participants. In this study, gender differences with regard to interest in dream interpretation as an indicator of interest in dreams in general have been demonstrated in a representative sample. There was, however, a significant age���gender interac- tion, indicating that interest in dreams might not be a potent variable for explaining gender differences in dream recall. In future studies, the course of interest in dreams over the life span and any associated gender differences should be investigated using carefully designed scales. Keywords: dream interpretation, dream recall, gender difference Several large-scale studies (Giambra, Jung, & Grodsky, 1996 Schredl, 2002a Schredl & Piel, 2003) reported a gender difference in dream recall of medium to moderate effect size. That is, women tended to report dreams more often than men. It is surprising that only a few studies have investigated the factors that might explain this difference. To be a candidate for explaining the gender difference in dream recall fre- quency, two criteria have to be fulfilled. First, the variable should correlate in a significant way with dream recall frequency. For interest in dreams, for example, this has been demonstrated in several studies (Robbins & Tanck, 1988 Hill, Diemer, & Heaton, 1997). Even if some methodological issues have been stressed, for example, different correlations between interest in dreams and dream recall frequency measured retrospectively by questionnaire and prospectively via dream diary (Beaulieu-Prevost & Zadra, 2005), and even if many scales measuring interest in dreams or positive attitudes toward dreams are confounded with dream recall frequency (Schredl, Brenner, & Faul, 2002 Schredl, Ciric, Go ��tz, & Wittmann, 2003), a recent study (Schredl, Wittmann, Ciric, & Go ��tz, 2003) controlling for these problems found a small but significant relationship between interest in dreams and Michael Schredl, Sleep Laboratory, Central Institute of Mental Health, Manheim, Germany Edgar Piel, Institute for Demoscopy, Allensbach, Germany. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michael Schredl, Sleep Laboratory, Central Institute of Mental Health, P.O. Box 12 21 20, Mannheim, Germany 68072. E-mail: Michael.Schredl@zi-mannheim.de 11 Dreaming Copyright 2008 by the American Psychological Association 2008, Vol. 18, No. 1, 11���15 1053-0797/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1053-0797.18.1.11

dream recall frequency. Second, the variable itself should exhibit a gender differ- ence. Two studies (Schredl, 2000 Schredl, 2002���2003) have selected variables with well-documented gender differences and equally well-documented relationships to dream recall frequency. Although the estimated meaningfulness of dreams and the occurrence of problem-solving dreams had an effect on the gender���dream recall relationship (a significant reduction of the correlation coefficient by partialing out these variables), the gender difference in dream recall frequency was still significant (Schredl, 2002���2003). That is, these variables were not able to fully explain the gender difference in dream recall frequency. In a second study, the gender effect was not affected by including sleep variables (e.g., subjective sleep quality, number of nocturnal awakenings for gender differences in these variables see, e.g., Zhang & Wing, 2006), but it was affected by entering a variable that took into account how often persons thought about their dreams during the day (Schredl, 2000). One might speculate that a positive interest in dreams can explain the gender difference in dream recall. It is, however, difficult to assume causality because a positive interest in dreams can motivate the person to focus on dreams, which often increases dream recall (e.g., Redfering & Keller, 1974 Halliday, 1992). This is true especially in low dream recallers (Schredl, 2002b). On the other hand, high recall can stimulate the interest in dreams, for example, by the occurrence of problem- solving dreams or other dreams arousing the curiosity of the dreamer. Although several studies (Domino, 1982 Robbins & Tanck, 1988 Schredl, Nu ��rnberg, & Weiler, 1996 Schredl, 2000, 2004) reported a significant gender effect regarding the gender difference in the interest in dreams, the generalizability of these studies is limited because mainly students were recruited as participants. The present study in which a representative sample of the German population was studied fills this gap. METHOD Measurement Instrument The participants received a list of topics and were told, ���We have listed here different topics. Which topic do you think is worth looking at or pursuing?��� The 22 themes that were presented comprised topics such as meditation/yoga, dream interpretation, astrology, Eastern religions, and so forth. For the present study, the positive answers to the dream interpretation item were analyzed. Participants and Procedure Studies by the Allensbach Institute of Demoscopy were carried out with quota samples that were representative of the German population. The quota criteria were gender, age (18���29, 30���44, 45���59, 60 years of age and older), marital status (married, single, widowed/divorced), household size (one person, two persons, three persons, four persons, five or more persons), education (primary education, secondary education), occupation (worker, farmer, employees, officials, self-em- 12 Schredl and Piel