Women Have Nightmares, Men Dream of Sex

Women have more nightmares than men, a British researcher says, but men are more likely to dream about sex.

Psychologist Jennie Parker of the University of the West of England asked 100 women and 93 men between the ages of 18 and 25 to fill out dream diaries, priming participants before dreams occurred to record them. The research was part of her doctoral dissertation.

"My most significant finding is that women in general do experience more nightmares than men," she said. "An early study into dreams led to my discovering that normative research procedures into dream research often considered the structure of dreams, but that there is a gaping hole in terms of academic study that investigates emotional significance in the analysis of dreams."

Women's nightmares can be broadly divided into three categories: fearful dreams (being chased or life threatened), losing a loved one or confused dreams, Parker said.

Parker corroborated participants' dreams with actual life experiences and found that the anxieties about past occurrences reoccur many times as "emblem" dreams.

"It is these emblem dreams that are particularly significant," Parker said. "If women are asked to report the most significant dream they ever had, they are more likely than men to report a very disturbing nightmare. Women reported more nightmares and their nightmares were more emotionally intense than men's."

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