DOES EARLY-NIGHT REM DREAM CONTENT RELIABLY REFLECT PRESLEEP STATE OFMIND

In a small-scale study, Rados and Cartwright (1982) found that preslee p thought samples, but not postsleep-elicited significant concerns, co uld be matched with a night's REM dream content on a cross-participant basis. We collected either presleep thought samples or significant co ncerns for later blind judge matching with 8 participants' mentation r eports from the night's first REM period over 8 nonconsecutive nights each. Although some persons' first-REM dreams were successfully identi fied by judges from presleep ideation, both vs. presleep ideation from the same person on other nights and vs. presleep ideation from other persons on the same night, there was no overall group pattern suggesti ng continuity of dream content with presleep ideation. We also did not replicate the claimed superiority of thought samples vis a vis signif icant concerns. Reliable content analysis showed a different proportio nal distribution of life experiences in waking and dream ideation.