To sleep, perchance to dream:

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To sleep, perchance to dream

• The Relationship Between Dreams and Creativity
• Kristi Helmkamp
• Angie Miller

2
Current dream research

• Cognitive model dreams as recombination of
  memories (Stickgold et al., 2001)
• Links to other realms of research relationship
  between dream recall frequency and Openness
  (Blagrove Akehurst, 2000)

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Influences of dreams

• Qualitative study of American artists found
  dreams can be influential in the creative
  process, both directly and indirectly (Gaines
  Price-Williams (1990)
• Suggested that dreams model the free association
  that is part of creative process (DeAngelis, 2003)

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Creativity

• Divergent thinking model outside bounds of
  normal functional thinking (Baer, 1993)
• Relationships found between creativity and
• Openness (Taggar Simon, 2002)
• Dream recall frequency (Wolcott Strapp, 2002)
• Dream detail (Wolcott Strapp, 2002)
• Positive attitudes about dreams (Domino, 1982)

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Underlying Theoretical Assumptions

• Creativity is something in which individuals
  actively engage
• Creativity is defined as divergent thought
  processes
• There are multiple expressions of creativity,
  such as visual and verbal
• Some of these expressions are considered
  conscious
• Other expressions of creativity may be considered
  nonconscious, for example, dreams

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Hypothesis

• Individuals high in creativity, understood as
  divergent thinking in the visual and verbal
  domains, will have dreams high in creativity.

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Participants

• 16 participants completed all measures
• 14 Intro. Psych classes (given extra credit)
• 2 Volunteers
• 4 male, 12 female
• Ranging in age from 18 to 22

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Methods

• Dream journal
• Unusual uses test
• Collage-making task (Baer, 1993)

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Dream Journal

• Methodologically better for examination of
  content (Blagrove Akehurst, 2000)
• 10 days, at least 3 dreams
• Randomly selecting one dream from each participant

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Coding Manual

• of bizarre elements
• of references to speaking

• of settings
• of people
• of vivid details
• of colors referenced
• of animals
• of inanimate objects

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Sample Dream Coding Worksheet
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Coding Manual Reliability

• Used dreams not included in the final analysis to
  establish reliability of coding manual
• Used objective coder from Research Methods class
  to test coding manual
• Slight modifications were made, such as
  clarifications about ambiguous plurals
• Then tested a second round of practice dreams
  with revised coding manual
• Each element had reliability of alpha at .95 or
  above

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Unusual Uses Test

• 4 minutes
• Participants asked to generate as many responses
  as possible to question
• What can you do with an object?
• Table knife, alarm clock, newspaper, and cup
• Measures divergent thinking

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Coding of Unusual Uses Test

• IDEATIONAL FLUENCY
• Counted number of responses for all four objects
• IDEATIONAL FLEXIBILITY
• Table knife was the object randomly selected for
  coding
• Established categories of use for responses

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Sample Unusual Uses Coding Worksheet

• Ideational Fluency Score ___6__ ( of responses
  generated)
• Ideational Flexibility Categories (add/fill in as
  necessary)
• Category 1 Eating
• Spread butter
• Cut bread
• Spread jelly

• Ideational Flexibility Score __2__ ( of
  categories generated)
• Category 2 Handling
• Pass it
• Borrow it
• Wash it

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Reliability of Unusual Uses Test

• 3 independent raters to establish flexibility
• Correlations
• rater 1 2 r.79, p
• rater 2 3 r.73, p
• rater 1 3 r.76, p
• Fluency and flexibility
• r.79, p

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Collage-making Task

• Adapted from Baer (1993)
• Participants given colored construction paper,
  scissors, glue sticks
• 30 minutes to make an interesting design

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Rating of Collages

• Basic Design class (art course focused on using
  various materials to construct an effective
  design of piece) agreed to rate collages- 15
  student raters
• Given instructions to rate on creativity
• Reliability measures
• Raters alpha .88
• Collages alpha .83

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Results

• Original hypothesis was weakly supported
• Some findings approaching significance
• Ideational fluency Vivid detail
• r.47, p.07

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Further Findings

• Significant correlations
• of Settings Ideational Fluency Score
• r.52, p
• of Settings Ideational Flexibility Score
• r.58, p
• of People Ideational Fluency Score
• r.50, p

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Findings between creativity measures

• Ideas linking different domains of creativity
  were also weakly supported
• Collage Ideational flexibility
• r.44, p.09

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Discussion

• The trend of our results suggests a positive
  relationship between divergent thinking in the
  verbal domain and the content of dreams as
  represented through vivid detail

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Discussion cont.

• Although we chose vivid detail as a main
  representation of creative dreams, the
  relationships between the elemental aspects of
  setting and people with ideational fluency and
  flexibility suggest that dreams containing a wide
  variety of elements reflect creativity in the
  sense of divergent thinking.

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Discussion cont.

• Collage and ideational flexibility approaching
  significance, which shows link between visual and
  verbal divergent thinking
• Liberal arts campus
• This is a movement towards supporting our
  theoretical assumptions of creativity as having
  multiple expressions in which individuals
  actively engage.

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Limitations

• Small N only 16 participants
• Only including one dream may not be
  representative
• Need to explore appropriate measures for dream
  output visual vs. written verbal

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Future Research

• Use established coding manual to investigate
  inherent differences, such as age and gender, in
  a larger, more diverse sample
• Develop method to align collection of data from
  the visual to the verbally written
• A more comprehensive measure of creativity in
  dreams

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Questions?
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References

• Baer, J. (1993). Creativity and divergent
  thinking A task-specific approach. Hillsdale,
  New Jersey L. Earlbaum Associates.
• Blagrove, M. Akehurst, L. (2000). Personality
  and dream recall frequency Further negative
  findings. Dreaming, 10(3), 139-148.
• DeAngelis, T. (2003). The dream canvas. Monitor
  on Psychology, 34(10), 44-46.
• Domino, G. (1982). Attitudes towards dreams, sex
  differences, and creativity. Journal of Creative
  Behavior, 16(2), 112-122.
• Gaines, R., Price-Williams, D. (1990). Dreams
  and imaginative processes in American and
  Balinese artists. Psychiatry Journal of the
  University of Ottawa, 15(2), 107-110.
• Stickgold, R., Hobson, J.A., Fosse, R., Fosse,
  M. (2001). Sleep, learning, and dreams Off-line
  memory processing. Science, 294(5544).
• Taggar, S. (2002). Individual creativity and
  group ability to utilize individual creative
  resources A multi-level model. Academy of
  Management Journal, 45(2).
• Wolcott, S., Strapp, C. (2002). Dream recall
  frequency and dream detail as mediated by
  personality, behavior, and attitude. Dreaming,
  12(1), 27-44).