Assessing dreams through self-report questionnaires: Relations with past research and personality.

A questionnaire approach to investigating dream content was developed and compared to personality ratings of the Five Factor Model (FFM). The themes and overall character of self-reported dreams were examined to determine whether they differed markedly from the dream norms obtained by Hall and Van De Castle (1966). Findings were mostly consistent with past norms obtained from dream diary reports and laboratory reports. Some significant correlates between personality and dream content were found. For example, agreeable subjects reported more dream characters, while subjects who were open to experience reported more unfamiliar dream characters. The findings offer preliminary support for the use of retrospective, self-report questionnaires as measures of dream content.