Slumbering manifestations of cultural influence

I remember many years ago being absorbed in a psychology class as the professor explained Carl Jung’s idea of the “collective unconscious” as well as his use of dreams to support this assertion. I recalled this notion when I read a paper published last year by psychotherapist Hisae Konakawa and five collaborators at Kyoto University. Their work suggests a kind of “cultural unconscious” – at least in terms of dream structure.  

(If you’d like, before reading further, briefly jot down a dream you had recently that left a strong impression on you.)

Konakawa and her colleagues administered an online questionnaire to 220 American men and 257 Japanese men that included, among other items – you guessed it – a request for them to describe an impressive recent dream. The average ages of the cultural groups were similar: roughly 36 years old for the Americans and 40 yeas old for the Japanese. The dreams were then categorized according to the five structural patterns of the Structural Dream Analysis framework developed by the Jungian analyst Christian Roesler:

1. no dream-ego present: the dreamer views the dream as an observer

2. the dream-ego is threatened: the dreamer is under attack, often trying to escape a bad situation

3. the dream-ego is confronted by a performance requirement: taking a test, etc.

4. mobility dream; the dreamer is traveling somewhere, either a specific place or somewhere indeterminate

5. social interaction dream: the dreamer is trying to contact or communicate with someone

The patterns were also divided up into sub-patterns. Some of the participants’ dreams were slotted into two patterns if the content of the dreams shifted partway through, as dreams sometimes do.

There were several interesting differences in the dreams of the two cultural groups. Pattern 5, making contact with others, was the most common structure for the recalled impressive dream for both groups, with about half of the Americans’ dreams and 37% of the Japanese dreams falling into this category. But analysis of the sub-classifications revealed an intriguing divergence: in 61% of the Americans’ dreams of this type, the dream-ego attained its goal of making the hoped-for contact, but only roughly a third – 21% – of the Japanese Pattern 5 dreams attained this objective. On the other hand, in a broad flip, 63% of this category of Japanese dreams included elements of the sub-classification “positive behavior of others to the dream-ego”, while slightly less than a third of the Americans’ Pattern 5 dreams, 14%, did.  

About 26% of the Americans’ dreams fell into each of the categories of Pattern 2 (the dream-ego is threatened) and Pattern 4 (the dream-ego is moving toward a specified or unclear destination). (Remember, the dreams could be slotted into more than one pattern, so the percentage won’t add up to 100.) For each of these patterns, the Japanese frequencies were slightly lower, at 18% and 17%. However, Pattern 3 (the dream-ego is faced with a performance requirement) was higher for the Japanese respondents. Twenty-one percent of their dreams were slotted into this category, compared to a much lower 13% for the Americans. For all of these three patterns the same sub-classification was highest for both groups: for Pattern 2, being threatened by human beings (as opposed to animals, forces of nature, etc.); for Pattern 3, having to find something, get something, or produce something; and for Pattern 4, moving towards and reaching the desired destination.  

In terms of percentages, Pattern 1 (no dream-ego) was not a main structure for either group. Nevertheless, it represented a fairly large divergence between the cultural groups. Among the Americans, in only one of the 220 dreams (0.5%) was the dreamer just an onlooker. But for the Japanese, this was not so unusual: 8% of the recent impressive dreams (20 out of 257) were of this type. Japanese dreams of this sort included, “A marine beast was flying through the sky.”

What do these differences mean? Konakawa and her colleagues link these findings to the notion of self-construal —that is, how people consider themselves as “selves”—and how culture might play a role in this self-construal. Previous research has suggested that Americans have a greater sense of the self as an independent agent, while the Japanese sense of self is interdependent. The structures of the dreams submitted by the respondents appear to adhere to this purported bifurcation.

In the majority of the American Pattern 5 dreams, the dream-ego often set out to make contact and was successful in their effort. The majority of the Pattern 5 Japanese dreamers, on the other hand, experienced helpful behavior of others in the midst of their attempt. In particular, the researchers note that much of the desired contact in the Americans’ dreams was related to gaining approbation or prestige. For example, one American’s dream was of running successfully for President. This kind of theme was rarer in the Japanese dreams who instead were the recipients of the constructive actions of others, like a “strange friend” giving them a car.

In the same way, the significantly higher frequency of Pattern 3 performance requirement dreams on the part of the Japanese respondents suggests a greater preoccupation with acting in accordance with social or work obligations to others. And only one of the Americans recalled an impressive Pattern 1 dream in which the dream-ego was simply an observer, although this pattern wasn’t so unusual among the Japanese.

This simply confirms what I’ve always maintained: culture is the stuff of which dreams are made.

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