PUBLICATION PATTERNS IN DREAM RESEARCH - TRENDS IN THE MEDICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURES

The annual rate of journal publications is a pertinent index of a scie ntific field's prosperity. In the present study, annual publication ra tes were calculated for the field of dream research using both medical (Index Medicus, MEDLINE) and psychological (PsychINFO) reference data bases. A composite profile from the medical database spanning III year s revealed very similar changes in publishing levels following the rel ease of Freud's (1958/1900) The Interpretation of Dreams and the publi cation in Science of Aserinsky and Kleitman's (1953) article on dreami ng and ''rapid, jerky eye movements. '' In both cases, the peak year o ccurred about 15 years after release of the work, and the peak was fol lowed by a precipitous 3-year drop and then a slow and yet variable de cline. In the more recent case, the peak level (reached in 1969) dropp ed (during 1970-1972) by about half and has continued a slow decline t o the present day As is the case with basic sleep research, this level of activity does not keep pace with either (1) global growth in scien tific publishing or (2) growth in related sleep disciplines, particula rly, sleep disorders and chronobiology. The psychological database con firms many features of the medical database profile-but is advanced by I year, i.e., a publishing peak in 1968, a drop Jj om 1969-1971, and a slow decline until 1980 In this case, however, 1981 marks the beginn ing of a period of renewed growth that has endured to the present. Thi s divergence between the two publishing profiles may reflect the field 's shift from psychophysiological to cognitive and dream analytic appr oaches since the early 1980s.