Changing beliefs and memories through dream interpretation

Autobiographical memory is malleable, but how much can we change people's b eliefs and memories about the past? We approached this question with a meth od designed to supply subjects with a highly personalized suggestion about what probably happened in their childhood. In the current study, one group of subjects (the 'Dream' subjects) had their dreams interpreted to indicate that they had experienced a critical childhood event (e.g. being harassed by a bully) before the age of 3. Relative to control subjects who did not r eceive personalized suggestion, the Dream subjects were more likely to incr ease their belief that they had the critical experience, and approximately half of these also produced concrete memory reports. These findings are dis cussed in terms of their implications for autobiographical memory, and also for psychotherapy practice. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.