Bjo Ashwill, counselor, educator, performer, writer and dream worker for over 20 years created the computer dream text analysis software package "DreamSpinner". Bjo's collection of dreams spans 25 years and has inspired her plays, poems and other writings. For any comments or feedback on this article, please Email Bjo Ashwill.

Computer content analysis of dream narratives have advantages (speed, organization) and disadvantages (no critical thinking, judging skills) in comparison with manual tracking and coding used traditionally with dream content analysis. This paper focuses on how the computer dream text analysis software "DreamSpinner" is used to define, search and quantify specific dream sets accurately. The Barbara Sanders long term dream series will be used to examine "nightmares" and "bad dreams" over time.

Because the content analysis is based on searches of specific or combinations of specific words in the dream narrative, it is critical to be able to comprehensively and accurately create a set of dreams that contain all the dreams of that set you are examining and only those dreams. Often people do not say in the narrative "This is a nightmare or this is a bad dream." What categories and criteria must be set up to capture the correct dreams, no more, no less? What distinctions must be made to differentiate between a "nightmare" and a "bad dream"?

Four different search techniques will be examined, yielding some very specific information of the patterns unique to one long term dreamer's nightmares and bad dreams over time.

1. The simplest way is to choose a word such as "Terror". This will give you the patterns of the categories (Emotions, Social Interactions, Objects, and so on) in those dreams.

2. A more complex search can be done with more than one word or condition using built in Boolean search logic. Example: You can call up all dreams with "Terror" AND the category "High Intensity". Other "Boolean" search options are available too. You can find dreams that have one word OR another. Example: Either "Terror" OR "Fear" are in the dreams selected. Or you can search for dreams that do NOT have a particular word or category in them. Example: All "Terror" dreams, but NOT "wake up" dreams.

3. Another search method is to look for indirect evidence of a nightmare. Using the Boolean search logic mentioned above, selective and specific groups would be created.

For example:

4. DreamSpinner has a feature called "Find Related". It generates a list of dreams where the text matches are counted in descending order of most to least frequent.

This paper will examine the accurate content analysis capabilities of a computer program and will generate a detailed report of nightmares in one dreamer's life over time.

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Introduction

Computers do precisely what you tell them to do, no more and no less. In any research, whether done manually or with computers, perimeters must be set. The objectives of the research must be thought out carefully. When DreamSpinner was created, the research on nightmares and Bad Dreams was not the objective. Having a complete general category system was the priority. Therefore, the dreams were linked to those generalized categories. If the linking had occurred for the specific purpose of researching patterns in nightmares and Bad Dreams, some specific categories would have been created that would have made the research data much more accurate. Even so, with the non specific categories already set up, I feel DreamSpinner did a good job at narrowing the entire dream set (1208 linked dreams) to specific sets where many, but not all of the nightmare dreams were isolated. Where DreamSpinner excelled was in showing the specific frequency count patterns (FCP's) in the specific dream sets generated.

The main question this paper addresses is "Can computer analysis of dreams differentiate between nightmares and Bad Dreams?" I think my struggles trying to answer that question will give useful information to people working with nightmares.

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Methodology

According to research on nightmares already done, the nightmare is defined as: "a disturbing dream in which the unpleasant visual imagery and/or emotions awaken the sleeper. A bad dream is a disturbing dream which, though being unpleasant, does not cause the dreamer to wake up." (http://www.crhsc.umontreal.ca/dreams/index.htmlBack to Dream and Nightmare Lab) The authors of this website also indicated that the research evidence does not conclusively prove that nightmares always wake up the dreamer.

I decided to use the following criteria for differentiating between nightmares and bad dreams in the Barbara Sanders dream series.

I also created a control to determine if I had gotten all the nightmare dreams using the computer program DreamSpinner. The Barbara Sanders dream series is both in the DreamSpinner database and in a Word document. I used the Word search capabilities to search out any dream with the word "nightmare" in it's body, title or DreamWork notes. These are dreams that are self labeled "nightmare" by the dreamer. There are 24 of them.

Barbara Sanders is a 57 year old woman who measures 294 on the Ernest Hartmann Boundary Questionaire. This indicates she has thin boundries. She has not had specific traumas related to the times of her nightmares. She does not exhibit any specific mental disorders or pathology.

A few words about how DreamSpinner creates a dream set. DreamSpinner treats the dream narrative as a linguistic unit. Each word written in the narrative has a link to the root word dictionary (where each different definition or meaning of a word is given a separate ID number) In addition, during the DreamLinking process each word is linked or matched to an ID number that is housed in one or more categories.

Example:

So, the individual word in a dream has one link pointing to the specific meaning of that word in this dream, and another link to the one or more categories this word belongs to.

The program then tabulates and automatically updates how many links are made. These tabulations are then called up when the user defines the dream set.(Searching all dreams that contain a particular word or category.)

DreamSpinner then lists all the categories and how many links were made to each specific category or sub category, creating a FCP (Frequency Count Pattern) list. From that list, DreamSpinner churns out a detailed listing of all categories found linked in that dream set.

That is then measured against the norming list which is all dreams in that database.

"HP" is a statistical notation of the significance of a percentage. First, the exact number or "hits" of a particular word or category is counted. Then the category it is in is divided by it's parent category to give a percentage. This percentage is measured against the same calculation in the norming dream set. The difference between these two percentages is calculated to offset the problem generated by the fact that percentages in the very low and high ranges of the scale (0-100) have stronger significance. The "HP" number then indicates the relative significance of these percentages at a .05 level of significance.

A Word Or Two on The Significance Of The Size Of The Dream Set

DreamSpinner accurately shows the patterns based on the exact dream set the user creates. If it is a partial or random sampling of the full set, the patterns do not always extrapolate out. If it is a complete set of all the dreams in that areana, then the work and statistics clearly show the patterns. No matter how small the set. If you wish to extrapolate from a smaller subset of the dreams and then predict that the patterns are accurate, it will not work. Although Bill Domhoff suggests that a dream set of 75 to 100 seems to correlate well with establishing patterns.

Because DreamSpinner works not only with the larger categories but with individual words, smaller dream sets are often the norm. I did the word frequency counts for 7 nightmare dreams from the base set of 1180 linked dreams. I then added the remaining nightmares culled from the complete unlinked document of 3727 dreams of Barbara Sanders bringing the total of the linked base set to 1208 and the total of all nightmares to 24.

Out of 238 statistically significant categories:

18 (equals) and 17 (increase in positive HP) and 10 (increase in negative HP) or 29% of the patterns held it's original pattern accurately. The remaining 71% shifted in significance. 41% of those patterns weren't even found in the smaller dream set.

Clearly, if the smaller dream sets are random samples, the patterns will not be accurate and follow through as you add more dreams to that set. If the small dream set is all the dreams available, then the patterns are accurate.

The larger the dream set, the fewer statistically significant patterns occur. Conversely, the smaller the dream set, the higher the numbers of statistically significant patterns are seen.

The dream set "Apprehensions" is a full one third of the base norm set and only a few categories show any significant changes.

The table column labeled "All Dream Hits" is the specific number of links to that category found in the norming set "All Dreams"

The table column labeled Apprehension Hits is the specific number of links to that category found in the smaller dream set of Apprehensions.

The table column labeled Apprehension HP is the result of comparing the All Dream Norming set with the smaller dream set, Apprehensions.

A blank cell would indicate an equivalent percentage of usage to the norming set. The numbers with a minus sign indicate fewer occurrences than the norming set. The remaining positive numbers indicate there were more occurrences in that category than the norming set.

In fact, the expected outcome of creating a dream set with all Apprehension words would of course cause a high significant increase in Apprehensions, and of course, the parent category, "State of Mind Negative." So DreamSpinner is doing what it is designed to do. The only unexpected outcome was the verb "To Be" shown as less than normal in its appearance in Apprehension dreams. I speculate that action verbs were used more in these dreams to indicate the higher intensity experienced.

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Summary of Results

did not all pan out as accurate indicators of "nightmares" as opposed to "bad dreams." Specifically, the notion that a "nightmare" is differentiated from "bad dreams" by the waking up of the dreamer was not proven. In fact, quite the opposite. My findings indicate that a number of dreams that were not self-labeled as "nightmares" by the dreamer woke the dreamer, including dreams of positive emotion as well as negative emotion. In addition, some of the dreams self-labeled "nightmare" did not wake the dreamer, or it was not indicated as such by the dreamer.

The category of "Apprehensions" was too broad. The words linked to this category ranged from very mild, uncomfortable feelings to strong words like "terror" and "Horror". When I broke that category down into "Mild Apprehensions" sub category and "Strong Apprehensions" sub category, the "High Intensity" category increased with the "Strong" set.

A revamping of the "High Intensity" category is needed. It is not currently broken down into "Positive" and "negative" intensities. Even so, it measured pretty accurately. Example: The "nightmare" dream set of 24 dreams had "High Intensity" links in 23 out of the 24 dreams. Unfortunately, it also was equally accurate in single word dream sets like "Horror" and "Terror". The "Horror" dream set has 13 dreams in it, 12 of them also linked to the "High Intensity" category. The "Terror" dream set has 19 dreams in it and 18 of them had "High Intensity" links as well. So, "High Intensity" helps identify a dream, but does not differentiate between "nightmares" and "bad dreams." I believe the stipulation that a "nightmare" must wake the dreamer up, is not a useful criteria in labeling a "nightmare" versus a "bad dream". I see the "Apprehension" dreams as on a continuum from very mild to extreme. In addition, they are very subjective. One person's nightmare is another person's bad dream, or even just a dream. I find the patterns found in a dream, be it a nightmare or a "bad dream" more important information than just labeling the dream. Keeping that in mind, much of the ensuing discussion will share what specifically" goes"Bump in the night" in Barbara Sanders "bad dreams"/"nightmares."

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Single Word Searches

Obviously, searching with the entire Category "Apprehensions" does not yield much helpful information. The reason, aside from the fact that is a very large dream set and will therefore more closely match the norming set, is that the Category "Apprehensions" is made up of 701 different words, ranging from Uncomfortable to Terror. The exact list follows:

Out of 1208 linked dreams, 434 dreams have at least one "Apprehension" word in it. There are a total of 701 "Apprehension" hits.
Afraid2 65
Worry 43
Scare 41
Concern5 39
Fear 36
Concern4 34
Upset 30
Nervous 27
Nightmare 24
Uncomfortable 22
Shyly 21
Hesitant 16
Desperately 16
Terror 16
Scary 14
Potential apprehensions 13
Suspicious 12
Frantically 11
Horror 11
Jealous 10
Reluctantly 10
Awful 8
Cling 8
Happy 8
Frightening 7
Paralyzed 7
Careful 6
Trouble 6
Uneasy 6
Alone2 6
Anxious 5
Fearful 5
Panic 5
Trust 5
Watch 5
Agitate 4
Anxiety 4
Apologetic 4
Bother 4
Cautious 4
Distraught 4
Distressed 4
Restless 4
Sinister 4
Doom 3
Gingerly 3
Tentatively 3
Terrify 3
Apprehensive 2
Desperation 2
Devastated 2
Distrustful 2
Horrify 2
Ominous 2
Paranoid 2
Queasy 2
Resign 2
Sheepish 2
Squeamish 2
Temper 2
Timid 2
Uneasiness 2
Unprotected 2
Wary 2

One hit only: Aghast, attack, bother, butterfly, chagrined, cower, dismay, disturbing, guard11, hideous, hysterical, nervousness, safe, shake, sink, tense, throw8, tight, unnerved, whimpery, whiningly

I made a separate dream set of most of the individual words in the Apprehension category to find that each unique word dream set gave unique patterns to that dream set. I was expecting to see more similarity of patterns. That is not the case. According to the dictionary, the word "scary" is simply an adjective related to the feeling of being scared. Yet the patterns of frequency in the "scared" dreams and the "scary" dreams are different. I believe that each individual dreamer has their own vocabulary of subtle meanings they give to each word.

Barbara Sanders' "Horror" dream set (all linked dreams containing the word "horror") are not, in general, nightmares (as self-labeled by the dreamer). In fact, most of her "horror" dreams were seemingly non-scary dreams ("Ordinary" dreams if such a term can be used for a dream) with a strong single visual element which created a feeling Barbara labeled "horror". These same images may or may not create the same feeling in another dreamer. Then, that other dreamer may choose another word to describe the feeling.

I concluded from examining the unique patterns each word dream set generated that there are no universals about the words used to describe a sense of apprehension. These words are linguistic choices that have different emotional meaning to different dreamers. This will not be helpful in finding the difference between "nightmares" and "bad dreams". I also concluded that the objects and feelings and actions are not good indicaters of whether a dream is a nightmare or a bad dream. That also is unique to the individual dreamer. See the following tables of these individual word dream sets to see what I mean in the Things That Go Bump In The Night Section.

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Using Boolean Search Logic

I used the "AND", "OR" and "NOT" Boolean Search logic to create dream sets that came closer to differentiating between "nightmares" and "bad dreams". These searches used categories, as well as single word searches. Keeping in mind the three components of the definition of a nightmare (there is some unpleasant emotion, high intensity and the dream awakens the dreamer.), I ran some FCP's. I tried a number of combinations.

Apprehensions(434 dreams) "AND" High Intensity(270 dreams) "AND" Sleep/Wake (29 dreams)A promising start. As there are 24 self labeled "nightmares". However, the list of dream titles showed there were only 7 dreams labeled "nightmares."
Nightmares (24 dreams) "AND" Afraid. Only three dreams.
Nightmares (24 dreams) "AND" Terror. Five dreams.
Nightmares (24 dreams) "AND" Fear. (Five dreams) "AND" Terror (2 dreams.)

Strong Apprehensions then "NOT" which shows only dreams without Strong Apprehensions in it. Then "AND" Mild Apprehensions. This gives all Mild Apprehension dreams without any Strong Apprehension words in it.

None of these boolean searches accurately differentiated between "nightmares" and "bad dreams".

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CreatingSpecialized Categories

Revising The "Apprehensions" Category

I broke the "Apprehensions" category into two sub categories.Mild Apprehensions and Strong Apprehensions.
This is the list of the words found in the "Mild Apprehensions" sub category.

alone2
apologetic
bother
bug
butterfly
careful
cautious
chagrined
cling
concern4
concern5
constraint
cravenly
deviled4
dismay
distressed
distrustful
exasperation
flustered
gall
gingerly
guard11
happy
harried
hesitant
insecurity
jealous
jeopradize
leery
live
nervous
nervousness
reluctance
reluctantly
repugnance
resign
resignedly
restless
safe
self-conscious
shake
sheepish
shyly
sink
sit
squeamish
suspicious
swamp
temper
tentatively
throw8
tight
timid
trouble
trust
uncomfortable
uneasiness
uneasy
unprotected
upset
wary
watch
whimpery
whinningly
wimpy
worry

This is the list of words found in the "Strong Apprehensions" sub category.

Afraid2
Aghast
Agitate
Agitated
Alarm2
Anxiety
Anxious
Appalled
Apprehension
Apprehensive
Attack
Awful
Desperately
Desperation
Devastated
Distraught
Disturbing
Doom
Dread
Fear
Fearful
Frantically
Frightening
Hideous
Horrify
Horror
Hysterical
Nightmare
Ominous
Panic
Panicky
Paralized
Paranoid
Queasy
Repugnance
Scare
Scary
Sinister
Spook
Squeamish
Terrify
Terror
Unbearable
Unnerved

I used the Boolean Search operators "AND" and "NOT" to create four dream sets. All Mild Apprehensions (with any Strong Apprehnsions also found in those dreams), Mild Apprehensions Only (All dreams with Strong Apprehensions removed), All Strong Apprehensions (with any mild Apprehensions found in the dreams), Strong Apprehensions Only (All Mild Apprehension dreams removed.)

As you will see with the following table, these dream sets clearly measure different patterns. The Mild Only follows more closely the patterns of the Mild (with Strong included), and the Strong Only follows more closely with the Strong (With Mild included).

Significant Patterns In "Mild Apprehensions and Strong Apprehensions" Dream Sets

Revising The High Intensity Category

The following list is all words linked to the High Intensity category:

awash
away
awesome
awful
awfulness
belt
blast
boom
bright
brilliant
busy
certain
crazy
deep
desperately
doom
drastic
ecstatic
elated
emotionally
energetic
ensure
enthusiastically
escalating
extremely
fatal
feisty
ferocious
fierce
firm
flaunt
forceful
frantically
frazzled
frenetic
frenzied
furious
great
hard
harried
have18
have24
heavy
hectic
high
horror
hot
incredible
insistant
intense
intensive
irresistible
jazzy
jiving
keen
loom
loud
manic
must
nightmare
nightmarish
overdo
overstimulate
overwhelm
paralyzed
potential high intensity
pretty
quite
rage
really
roust
serious
sharp
sinister
source
strong
tense
terrible
terror
tight
traumatic
turbulent
urgency
violent
volatile
voracious
wave
well9
wild

Clearly, the negative high intensities are interspersed with the positive ones. Some of these words could be either negative or positive. When this list was run in a Boolean Search, with "Strong Apprehensions" and Mild Apprehensions", there was an increase of percentage of High Intensity with the Strong Apprehensions.

Strong (With Mild Apprehensions in the set)Apprehensions Category "AND" High Intensity showed of 1208 linked dreams, 159 dreams out of 214(74%) have High Intensity links in them.

Strong (Only) Apprehensions (143 dreams)have 103 dreams (72%) of High Intensity links in them.

Mild (With Strong Apprehensions in the set)Apprehensions(284 dreams)have 163 dreams (57%)with High Intensity hits in them.

Mild (Only) Apprehensions (213 dreams) have 107 Dreams (50%)with High Intensity in them.

Although I would have expected the "Strong (Only) Apprehensions dream set to have the highest percentage of High Intensity, (and it was a few percentage points lower than the "Strong (With Mild Apprehensions in the set) Apprehensions" dream set), the direction is clear. The "Strong Apprehensions" dream set has a higher representation of the High Intensity Category.

A modification of the High Intensity category is needed to further refine this as a more accurate search for "nightmares" and "bad dreams". I believe it shows an accurate continum on a scale from mild to strong apprehensions.

If I had set this database up with the High Intensity already broken out into negative and positive, I would have that information for you. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I would have to relink these dreams to get that accurate recount. It would be highly recommended that if a new database of dreams are looked at, that the category of High Intensity be modified to reflect the Negative and the Positive aspects.

So, I went through the High Intensity list and created a category labeled High Intensity Negative. It ignores the words that could be either positive or negative or positive only. Although the current list of High Intensity Negative is not a complete list, the results were sharply different.

The High Intensity Negative category includes the following words:

awful
awfulness
belt
blast
crazy
deep
desperately
doom
drastic
fatal
feisty
ferocious
fierce
forceful
frantically
frazzled
frenetic
frenzied
furious
harried
horror
intense
loom
loud
must
nightmare
nightmarish
overdo
overstimulate
overwhelm
paralyzed
rage
roust
serious
sharp
sinister
strong
tense
terrible
terror
traumatic
turbulent
urgency
violent
volatile
voracious
wild

Strong Apprehensions (With Mild Apprehensions included).(214 dreams). 105(49%)have High Intensity Negative elements in them.

Strong Apprehension Only dreams (143 dreams), only 69(48%) of them have High Intensity Negative elements in them.

Mild (With Strong Apprehensions included)(284 dreams, only 53(19%) have High Intensity Negative elements.

Mild Apprehensions Only (213 dreams) have 17 (8%)High Intensity Negative elements.

Clearly, making the High Intensity Category more accurate in terms of negativity made the patterns more congruent. However, half of the dreams in "Strong Apprehensions" did not have a High Intensity Negative link. I find that interesting.

However, when the High Intensity Negative category was used on the dream set "nightmares" 100% of the 24 nightmares had High Intensity Negative elements in them.17 of 19 "Terror" dreams had High Intensity Negative elements. 11 of the 13 "horror" dreams had High Intensity Negative elements in them. More work needs to be done on creating the right tools to correctly differentiate between "nightmares" and "bad dreams".

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DreamerWakes Criteria

Doing a Single word search for the word "wake" (waking, woke, awakened, etc)called up 112 dreams. I discovered that there are many situations where the word "wake" is used in a dream. Following is a list of all the ways this word was used in Barbara Sanders dreams. However, the part of interest in this discussion of nightmares and "bad dreams" is Sections, "B", "C", and "D".

1) Trying to wake up in dream. (5)

2) Wake in dream. (42)

3) Wake from nightmare in dream (1)

4) Someone wakes or might wake in dream (7)

5) Someone or dreamer don't wake up in dream (4)

6) Discussing waking up in dream (3)

7) "Wake" to reality in dream or be mentally awake. (4)

8) Not ready or willing to wake. (2)

1) Nightmare mentioned in narrative (8)

2) No nightmare mentioned in narrative. (10)

1) Wake with feelings of amazement (2)

2) Wake sad or grieving. (3)

3) Wake with relief (2)

4) Wake unsettled or disgusted. (1)

5) Wake feeling touched and loved or happy (4)

6) Wake up feeling slightly uncomfortable (1)

7) Wake up from sexual feelings (1)

8) Wake up agitated (1)

1) Resume dream, asleep. (7)

2) Finish dream awake. (4)

For this one dreamer, Barbara Sanders, using the criteria of the dream waking the dreamer does not accurately catch all "nightmares".

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Using Social Interactions As A Marker

Social Interactions like being chased or physical harm, of rape and being trapped do not accurately differentiate "nightmares" and "bad dreams".

There are 172 A6 - Chased, Captured, Confined dreams, 14.2% of 1208 dream set. 13 of them were nightmares. Which is a smidge (high tech term) more than ½ the nightmare set. Not only do these Social Interactions NOT occur in every nightmare, they occur in many other kinds of dreams as well. Again, helpful information for the individual dreamer, but not a way to accurately differentiate dream sets.

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Things That Go Bump In The Night

So, even though DreamSpinner as it is presently set up can not accurately differentiate between "nightmares" and "bad dreams", it can certainly narrow down the dreams to be examined manually. I think the other researchers are going in the right direction in terms of basic elements found in "nightmares.", with the exception of the Wake The Dreamer criteria.

What DreamSpinner does do well, and accurately, is show the specific patterns found in dream sets. What specific things "go bump in the night" in Barbara Sander's nightmares? I pulled up three dream sets. "Nightmares" "Horror" and "Terror" The three sets are shown below. In addition, I have a table where the common patterns of all three sets are displayed.

Significant Patterns In "Horror" Dream Set

There were a total of 13 "Horror" dreams in the Barbara Sanders' Dream series. I showed only the top ten significant patterns in this table. There were plenty more. Using excerpts from the different dream sets, I explore different patterns.

Thermal Positive Category Dreams in Horror Set

1964 "The red devil monster"

A red faced devil comes to me and is trying to hurt me very badly. I beg him to stop but he persists. I agonized with the pain and agonized that I don't want to hurt him. but I must. I force his head into an oven where the devil face gets redder and more inflamed with pain and heat. He screams with agony. I feel sick to my stomach with the horror of it all.

1/1/75

I was chewing a huge sticky grainy wad of gum and 5 or 6 teeth fell out into the wad of gum. I was horrified. I peeled the sticky mess out of my mouth and remarked that my teeth must be rotten and pointed to the huge spaces with a part of one remaining, showing how it was rotten. Fade. I had to burn my dulcimer and fiddle to be warm. It was an important decision. I didn't want to.

4/5/89

...Then my husband releases the son, who goes outside and I watch in a growing horror as my husband prepares and then dies. He uses a white wire coat hanger, with the hook cut off, to stab himself in the forehead. I wonder how he can stand the pain. Then he pours gasoline on the wire hanger and lights it. I realize he's going to burn himself to death. The flame slowly goes up the hanger and catches to his hair. I wonder at his taking such a slow painful death. Surely there are easier ways! Finally he is consumed in flames and falls over stiff and charred. I go to him and feel the stiffness of his arms. Then I succumb to intense sadness and mourning...

4/12/95

...I turn to the right and see the bed, a double bed and 2 fireplaces and a gas stove like thing in between. There are fires burning in them and I am again surprised and upset with myself. This has been untended for months. It could have burned the house down. I wonder how it kept going so well so long and decide they are gas fireplaces. I see a control box and try to read the instructions so I can turn off the fires. I wonder if I should let them continue to burn, because it must help heat up the house...

4/27/99

I, the dreamer is observing myself in this dream. I am standing in the back yard of my house. Which is the front yard of a man like T.B. I am staring in horror at the flames spreading from the next door apartment I was living in to the house my kids and I live in. As I am watching, I slowly realize that I am simply standing there, watching the fire grow and spread. I suddenly remember C. is upstairs in the bedroom close to the outside wall next to the flaming apartment. I run into the house and upstairs calling frantically for C. As I rush into the house, I stop and see firemen coming to put out the fire in the apartment...

Almost 1/3 of the dreams that contain the word "horror" in it, deal with fire and heat. These dreams were not labeled by the dreamer as nightmares, although a few of them were dreams that woke the dreamer. Let's look at another single word search. The word Terror.

Significant Patterns In "Terror" Dream Set

Velocity Positive Category In Terror Set

3/4/89 Struggling Journey And Terror

...The water is moving so fast, it's almost solid like taffy. I stand in one of the waves and push and work it with my hands to keep from drowning. Then suddenly the water dries up and I look forward and see a dried up small creek bed with 2 old crazed men sitting on the bank. I feel terror.

4/11/89 If I Could Only Say What I Could Say

...I hold my breath in fear they will find me out. This man nearly does but I luck out. They go away. I then run as fast as I can back toward my home (a castle many miles up the mountain, I remind myself to walk on rocks and hard places as often as I can so I don't leave trails. I pass houses and beautiful Alpine meadows. Now a young man is with me, perhaps a brother we come to his castle. He says you wait here, I'll go in and talk with my sister to get us help. I close a big thick book I'm holding and say "I will go with you. Why didn't you want me to go with you?" I am suspicious. We go in, now finally I am in my home castle. The evil man is coming for me. He's at the gates and hurling insults and threats as well as arrows and spears. My brother succumbs and starts to open the gates to him. I bellow in fear and fury "NO!" and rush to the castle walls to cut the rope releasing the boiling oil that I had placed there secretly....

8/12/92 Danger Near A Cliff

...I walk down an steep embankment through a crowd of people gathered to watch some event or construction job. I see ropes on the ground and ask what they are for. I see men working down the hill with the ropes. I move fast and wonder if I might have been better off taking the more gentle slope further on, but I make it and find the rows of bikes at the "bike pool" (like a motor pool) P.D. is a bike driver and I decide to get a ride with her back to the main terminal. I look at the pink bike and say but where do I sit? .... I wonder if I know how to relax and keep balance. We chat. She tells me of her mother having another relationship with this kind of man who beats her or something bad. I say oh yes, people repeat their patterns. I'm not surprised, then P. turns off the road toward a snow field and a large bump she plows on ahead and just as we crest the top of the bump, I look down and see we are about to plunge off the precipice into a grand canyon like drop off. We are dead and in terror, we turn desperately and by some miracle, we actually avoid falling. We are stunned and shocked and hurriedly move away back to the road. We would have been killed. I said. Someone wants us alive, meaning God. Thank you, we pray fervently. We vow to look and be more careful from now on. We are so grateful and humbled by the experience. P. says "I'll bet this one goes in the dreambook!" ....

11/17/94 No Man's Land And Hiding In Storage

...Now I am being chased by him and other people. I run for my life. They are gaining on me and then I am backed up to a huge barb wire fence. I turn and fight hard, without guilt. It is simply necessary to defend myself. I box kick and do karate moves. I force the fence into a man's throat, so the barbed wire is poking his throat. I demand they open the gate. it slides open enough and I dart across "no man's land" a railroad yard, tracks and mud. A "living" box car is trying to run me over as I try to race across the land and over the tracks it moves like a cartoon creature out to get me. I cross the other fence on the other side and run like hell. The landscape is dismal and frightening. I turn left and am in a hall like place like the storage unit place. I duck into a storage unit where green plastic upholstered dining chairs from a 1950's style, are stored. I sit in one and slide the door partially shut and tremble in terror.

Potential Death Category in Terror Dream Set

Three of these dreams involve a man (Self Masculine side or Left Brain style of processing) threatening dreamer.

Two of these dreams involve the dreamer sacrificing self to help others.

Two other dreams involve accidents that the dreamer survives.

The characters in these dreams are strangers except two known individuals, who are acquaintances in the dreamer's waking life.

3/2/81 Trapped Finishing The Sequence

....I feel danger. A woman "sister" and several other persons are near by. He says firmly everyone get back into the "ship" at once. If you don't come at once, you'll be dead. Something has set a device to blow up. The sister turns to pull a switch. It was to be the last little "straightening up" or finishing of her work and then she'd join us. But she gets a look of confusion and terror on her face because now she has to finish a sequence. She can't let go and it will be too late. She smiles weakly and tells us to go on. I don't want to abandon her. I encourage her and the others to drop what they are doing at once. One other does. She can't. She's trapped in this sequence. We get in ship and back away from danger.

9/22/86 Life And Death: Carnival Ride Ain't Fun

An uncle is going to end it all by blowing himself up. I feel sad and then nonchalantly decide to do it myself and set the bomb for 12:00. At about 8 minutes before it's to blow up, I am quite calm but decide to not die. I am talking to my "mother-in-law" on the phone and leave her mid-sentence to stop the timer. Now I am safe. I go to see my uncle to convince him to live. He (now my Cousin Alan) agrees and says he'll move in with me. I am delighted although even as I'm saying there is plenty of room, I see all the beds full. Now I'm on a huge carnival ride on the top of a tall building. I am terrified. It slings me about as I cling as hard as I can. I feel sick with fear and think if this is adventure and fun, I don't want it.

4/11/89 If I could Say What I Must Say

I am being hunted down by L...He put me into the back of something like a pick-up and I realize he intends to run it over the cliff and to kill me. At the last second as it is going over the cliff, I hurl myself out and claw my way back on land. He didn't see, so I crawl into a garbage area at this little roadside counter. I fall asleep from exhaustion, hoping I'd made the right choice of staying so near. I hoped he'd think I was dead over the cliff, and baring that, that I'd run far away in terror. I wake suddenly realizing he and his men were there. A man stands right next to where I am. I hold my breath in fear they will find me out. This man nearly does but I luck out....

2/21/92 Nightmares and Tennis Ball Eyes On Aliens

I am shocked to realize that the nice girl who was babysitting the children for only an hour ate the children. She is also an alien, with eyes that look like tennis balls. She changes into that shape all of a sudden terrifying me and she roars an awful sound. If you are touched by her, you turn into one too. I am now taking care of a woman who sits meekly in a rocking chair. Suddenly, as I am leaning over her to help her, I drool and grin and the alien head pops on and I roar. Now I am trapped and must stay in the small cabin I try to lock the doors to keep people out. I don't know who is alien and who isn't. I realize I must kill myself and so must the other woman to save everyone else. I don't want to die but I must. There is no other way. A woman named Mary stands outside calling to me. She says see, you don't have to kill yourself. I was an alien and now I'm ok. I don't quite believe her and hesitate. What should I do?

8/12/92 Danger Near A Cliff

....then she turns off the road toward a snow field and a large bump she plows on ahead and just as we crest the top of the bump, I look down and see we are about to plunge off the precipice into a grand canyon like drop off. We are dead and in terror, we turn desperately and by some miracle, we actually avoid falling. We are stunned and shocked and hurriedly move away back to the road. We would have been killed. I said. Someone wants us alive, meaning God. Thank you, we pray fervently. We vow to look and be more careful from now on. We are so grateful and humbled by the experience. P. says "I'll bet this one goes in the dreambook!"

3/3/93 The Plant Nightmare

I am in a basement and there are 2 men around and somehow they are letting in this plant which if it touches me will envelope me and I will die. It comes for me. I back away, perhaps screaming and saying NO NO NO. It wraps around me and is sucking me dry. I wake up in terror and don't want to go back to sleep.

6/5/96 Terror From Invisible Man Nightmare

I am a woman who is being terrorized by a man who takes a medicine and is invisible. He grabs the steering wheel of the car I'm driving and tries to crash us and so on. I flee. Now I am a man and the same invisible man is after me. It is a life and death situation. I suspect my psychiatrist. I go into his office to see if I can find evidence. He comes in and I hide in his closet. a roomy coat closet. He comes in and I hide behind coats. He says to me I can smell you. I know you're here. He tries to feel me but barely misses me. He leaves. Now I've driven up to my own cabin or house. I sing opera and a rock group wants me to sing with their band. Blending the two forms of music. The invisible man comes and there are lots of people in the room and I fire my pistol into the invisible man many times. Everyone thinks I've gone crazy and I ask them to leave. The supposedly dead invisible man lays under my pool table I feel for a pulse and he is still alive and I shoot many more bullets into him. Finally he is dead. Then a second invisible man is after me. I fight him too. It is terrorizing a nightmare.

How about the dream series "nightmare" where the dreamer has self identified a dream as a nightmare by including the word in either the title, body or dreamwork related to a dream? Is it any different than the "horror" or "terror" dream sets? Take a look.

Significant Patterns In "Nightmare" Dream Set

Animal, Groups Category In Nightmare Set

The category "Animal, Groups" has 5 hits, or specific words linked to the category. These links are found in three dreams (out of 24 nightmares). There were giant bugs, ants in a sleeping bag; cats being locked out of the house during a terrifying experience, zombies coming at the dreamer; and organisms in a lake that killed. All of these experiences were about being surrounded by non thinking automated survivalists (insects and so on.) The one exception were the cats, who were sent away as the "zombies" came in. One could speculate that these creatures could be metaphors for automated beliefs that are "killing" the dreamer and are powerfully causing difficulties in the waking life of the dreamer. Or these creatures could be body cells. A wake up call to paying attention to the needs of the body and health.

A8 - Others To Others

(This category is about causing death, not involving the dreamer.) It is interesting to note that although there are 20 hits, they are all in 5 dreams. (5 Dreams out of 24 nightmares is 1/5th of all nightmares).

All five dreams are about aliens or organisms with one exception, a dream about a "Killing Boy". None of these five dreams involve any personal information from waking life. No known characters or settings. They are stories of "killing machines". The aliens, the boy and the organisms kill indiscriminately. Are these foreign parts of the dreamer talking about health issues? Is something killing off cells? Or is some aspect of the dreamer automatically killing off ideas that could be helpful?

2/21/92

"Nightmares and tennis ball eyes on aliens" I am shocked to realize that the nice girl who was babysitting the children for only an hour ate the children. She is also an alien, with eyes that look like tennis balls. She changes into that shape all of a sudden terrifying me and she roars an awful sound. If you are touched by her, you turn into one too. I am now taking care of a woman who sits meekly in a rocking chair. Suddenly, as I am leaning over her to help her, I drool and grin and the alien head pops on and I roar. Now I am trapped and must stay in the small cabin. I try to lock the doors to keep people out. I don't know who is alien and who isn't. I realize I must kill myself and so must the other woman to save everyone else. I don't want to die but I must. There is no other way. A woman named Mary stands outside calling to me. She says see, you don't have to kill yourself. I was an alien and now I'm ok. I don't quite believe her and hesitate. What should I do?

:2/15/94

....Now I'm walking across a porch where small open boxes are displaying segments of a mystery story. I'd been curious to know how this story went. so I walk and look in each box which depicts a scene. The battery. I say. It was a foreshadowing at the beginning. Now I understand why. My man is being attacked by horrible round organisms that are just a circle of color. They voraciously eat everything. and if he stops emitting this high pitched noise like a scream, they will close in on him and eat him alive. me too. I am swimming in a lake and they are under the surface coming at me. I scream and scream. this is an endless struggle. Finally his noise emitting thing's battery runs out and he is trying to get a new one in. In the seconds while it's changing, they eat him up. I keep screaming and screaming. finally I am exhausted and simply give up. they decide I shall die slowly and painfully and I see myself bruised and battered and exhausted, waiting only for the agony to end with death.

6/3/96

I am afraid of this young boy, young teen, maybe 12. He is going to hurt people, me included. I run from him, trying to block his route behind me. I am now in a house, with some other people, a woman, a girl child and a nice man. I call the police. The boy is systematically eliminating each person. I dial 911 and calmly, but scared, I tell them my name and address and this boy is killing everyone and he's after me. They must come at once. He's eliminated the woman, then the girl and now he's got the man. I am still on the phone saying if you don't come now, it will be too late. He turns off the TV and is approaching me. I bolt for the door even though I know my best chance is to stay in the house until the police get there, but now it seems my only chance is to get away from him. I run. I am now at a lake or river, murky water. I am in the water and there is a fence to my left, dividing the water. I grab it with my hand. It is an electric fence and sharp jags of electricity play on it and jolt me. Then I (the dreamer) decide that no one would put an electrified fence over water. It would be too dangerous. I see the raft the boy made. It is a single log, tied at both ends with rope and the two other ends of the ropes are tied together at a docking like of thing. This makes a triangular shape of the log and the ropes. He yells at me angrily "No girl can touch my boat." He comes for me. He dives into the murky water and I use the log as a pole to keep him from me and then as he bites my toe, attempting to bite it off, I use the pole to beat at him, trying to kill him before he gets me. I am afraid. He's got me and is gnawing through my toe. The pain is excruciating. I am screaming Help Help, to get the police to know this is where I am....I wake up.

6/3/96

The same young man finally commits suicide rather than continue to put me into danger from his desperate need. Since he can't stop himself, he must kill himself.

12/4/2000 Aliens Kill Nightmare

I/a woman is entering an airplane. The dream ego is watching from behind her. I see her feet stepping into the raised carpeted stairs in the aisle as she steps down each step like in a raked seating situation. She walks to the front. She turns to the right and pulls out a black pistol and fires into the chest of a passenger, male. A man stands up and also pulls out a gun and begins to kill passengers. Between the two they kill every passenger. Then they throw the bodies out the windows on one side. They are aliens. Another I (the dream ego) is in another airplane, in the cockpit. The Captain tensely says to his crew to lock the door. I see people falling out of the other airplane. The crew member nearest the door is afraid and fumbles as he tries to lock the door. The lock turns and holds. They know it's aliens and they are next. I wake up afraid.

Bed Category In Nightmare Dreams

There are 11 hits (individual words linked to the Bed Category) in 9 dreams in the nightmare dream set. That is over 1/3 of all the nightmare dreams.

Beds in Barbara Sanders' nightmares harbor fear, guilt, possible incest, and unpleasant sexual encounters. The two pleasant references to relationships were followed by danger and death.

Nightmare about (ex-husband). He's in bed with me and drooling at the mouth, etc.

11/16/80

(First dream of night). Fear on bed, in bedroom, rising up the curtain like in an elevator, but I'm not. As I'm going down I get more fearful. There is a hole in the curtain and outside the hole is a cage, but my fear of it is like its a Nazi concentration camp. I scream because I'm going to be pushed out of the window into the cage. I push myself backwards. It was a weak push but I fall back hard, fall across the room, move furniture as I fall so I won't get hurt and land on floor at foot of bed.2 children in the bedroom, a little boy and a little girl. A pouch with a banana is handed to me. I get sexually excited, aggressively, powerfully so. I grin and pull 2 legs out of the pouch and the banana turns into a penis. I want it bad. I kick the little girl out of the way. I place the penis in me and can feel it, real. I hold the man tight and the closer I get to orgasm, the fiercer I am. Then I see a "picture" of our faces. I'm smiling, really into it. He's smiling because it gives him joy to see me feel so good (fierce intense smiles). As I start to have orgasm, a little boy was screaming, "Daddy. Daddy, don't" 2 policemen came in. I can't talk. I try to but can't. Want to finish. Can hear the screams. (wake up, feeling like it was a nightmare.)

3/6/81

I'm in my house,... It's late at night and I'm alone. I lock all the doors. I put the cats out. I have a feeling of deep foreboding. I feel afraid. I got to my bedroom. And step outside to look. There is an airport across the way. A county airport. I see a plane coming in for a landing. It crashes into something or explodes. I feel sick because I am witnessing an awful thing. I see it explode and see the flames. I said oh no! It crashes into places and buildings and people on the airport ground. I run into my bedroom. Now I'm asleep in my bed and feeling the fear of what I had witnessed. I'm trying to wake up. I have to wake up because the awfulness of the crash has affected the girls/women at the airport.... A weak light shines. I try to get up and I fall out of bed. I know something is very wrong. I get back in bed. I get out of bed. I look out the window. I must call the police. I get the phone. It's a wall phone. It's dead. I look and the women are swarming all around me. Like zombies or crazies. They moan and cry out. Don't let the police catch you. A policeman comes to the door. He picks me up to take me over to the airport. I am paralyzed with fear. I don't know who to trust. Then I hit out at the policeman. I knock his head off. It doesn't matter. He's carrying me away. Then I'm trying to wake up and write the dream down. I see myself writing the dream down. [It was hard to wake up. It's an awful feeling.]

9/9/81

....Please help me. He did not respond to me other than to weakly smile at me to acknowledge that he heard me. I grabbed my cousin who before I had seen as weak and silly and cling to him, hugging him hard, hanging on like he was my anchor to that room. Then a fat lady, mostly naked is dancing at a party. Her husband picks her up off the floor and makes love to her. He is detached, fully clothed, his back to me. She is fully exposed. I see her vagina. I see her face clearly. A prim blonde woman sits rigidly beside them. I am shocked. This is on TV. After he's done, the man sticks a fat piece of paper in the blonde woman's mouth. She is disgusted. It's a symbol of a large penis. Her red lipstick forms an "o" around it. Then I am upstairs in my bedroom. I wake up from a nightmare. I run downstairs, crying, "The little men are inside my stomach" I'm crying. My uncle or grandfather soothes me. He says no, It isn't possible. I've been barricading the stairs for you all night. I am not comforted. I go back upstairs. I sit on the bed and hug my nanny. An old square robot, not very sophisticated. I ask it why aren't there any nice men for me. It says look,there are and shows me two of them. (on a screen on its chest) and I say but If I take them, what will be left for my brother! Nanny laughs and shows me many women for my brother. I am still worried. Then I'm at a dance, watching the musicians. One can't find his banjo. Then he finds it and sees that something has eroded the outside. I realize that what ever "they" touch corroded like that and that "they" are there. I turn and the man is standing there, smiling. He said, "It's so close. We almost had you. I try to resist.

7/16/88

The Drapes Nightmare. My middle daughter kept bothering me. She came into my house and wasn't thinking. Just kept being in the way or annoying me. I tried to get her to leave me alone. I wanted to go to bed. I got into a small thin brass bed but the covers and pillows wouldn't stay put. It was uncomfortable. I was very angry..... Now I'm in my room and sort of on a boat in a closed up space. A horrible dog/boy creature is attacking me and it bites savagely. A man behind me says "I'll help. Let me do that." I say nothing but continue to take the attack. It is very painful. Constant and scary. My middle daughter is also attacking. I throw it away and it lunges back at me. I scream in agony and frustration. The man can't take it anymore. He grabs the horrible attacking thing and throws it into a garbage disposal. I scream no! because and hear the grinding up of its body and can't bare the thought of its pain or death. I don't want to cause anyone else pain. Then I look again in renewed horror because the thing is now 4 times larger, an ugly large boy and he's crawling out of the garbage disposal to get me even worse. I run to escape. I go into a room, like a living room or a captain's bedroom of a boat. I go to the tall windows and try to climb up, pulling myself hand over hand up the drapes. Each drape I try to climb up falls and is replaced by another drape. This happens over and over and over. I know now I'm trapped. I panic, sobbing. I pick up objects off the dresser to heave it at the window to break it open and it just bounces off like it was mylar plastic windows. Nothing I do helps. I am condemned to this hell for eternity.

2/15/94

A man is attracted to me and is trying to get my attention by hanging from a light fixture over a stairwell by his hands and doing tricks. I try to ignore him .... but he is irresistible and I join him up there. We drop down in an embrace and I look up and say just in time as the square metal box was pulled apart and holding by one screw. We now go up to my apartment. He has moved his things in and a huge black and white bed takes up the entire room with maybe a dozen pillows across it. he turns down the comforter and we get in. He also has maybe 4 teen age boys, one wants to sleep with us. .... We cuddle up lovingly in the bed. .... Now I'm walking across a porch where small open boxes are displaying segments of a mystery story. I'd been curious to know how this story went. so I walk and look in each box which depicts a scene. The battery. I say. It was a foreshadowing at the beginning. Now I understand why. My man is being attacked by horrible round organisms that are just a circle of color. They voraciously eat everything. and if he stops emitting this high pitched noise like a scream, they will close in on him and eat him alive. me too. I am swimming in a lake and they are under the surface coming at me. I scream and scream. this is an endless struggle. Finally his noise emitting thing's battery runs out and he is trying to get a new one in. In the seconds while it's changing, they eat him up. I keep screaming and screaming. finally I am exhausted and simply give up. they decide I shall die slowly and painfully and I see myself bruised and battered and exhausted, waiting only for the agony to end with death.

4/21/96

My grand daughter is laying on a bed, she's perhaps been overstimulated, maybe by me, or maybe by her mother. Grand daughter suddenly goes into a grand Mal seizure. She vomits and starts to choke on it. I feel horror. I am waiting passively for her mother to do CPR. I want her mother to do it and am aware that I should do it, but it would be messy and stinky so I don't. Then my grand daughter dies. I am grief stricken and sob and feel terrible guilt for not taking action quickly which could have saved her.

8/27/96 Bloody Man Nightmare

I am with some people. The men are selfish and rude. They get ahead of me and create a wooden sidewalk to where they want to go and it blocks my access. I ask them, what about me. They pay no attention. Now they are pushy and hurtful. I go into a house and find a man on a bed with blood all over him. He is very badly injured. I ask him if he needs me to call 911. He can't speak because of the pain, but nods his head yes. I try to find a phone. Finally, I have had enough. Those harassing men are after me. I had been trying to be accommodating, but now I just want them away from me. I'm tired of them hurting me. I yell at them. Get into the boat! Get into the boat! I shove them off and then see they have taken my purse. I demand they return it, saying I suppose you've taken all my money and credit cards. They arrogantly toss the purse at me. I am angry.

12/20/98 Was There Incest??

I am sleeping all night on a closed toilet. It is very uncomfortable. I wake up and I see Uncle standing in a far corner of the room, watching. My cousin is asleep on a day bed. She is having a nightmare. She tosses and turns, saying "Ouch," "Don't" She is obviously fending off someone in her dreams. Then she suddenly does a sort of somersault over the end rail of the bed and lands on her face on the floor. It must have hurt, but she doesn't wake up. I am worried about her and also aware this might be proof she was incested. I decide to write down what I saw. I get up. It's time to pack and leave. I walk downstairs. I see Aunt in a room. .... I follow her out the room saying, Please tell me. I need to know. She doesn't answer. It's time for me to catch the train.

Significant Patterns In "Horror, Terror And Nightmare" Dream Sets

The findings from this table indicates there are some common categories in these three specific dream sets. Since some dreams are in more than one set, (a nightmare dream with the word "Horror" in it, for example.) that would make sense.

If you indeed made it this far and have any comments or feedback on this article, please Email Bjo Ashwill. I would love to hear from you.

These frequency counts generated by the software package "DreamSpinner V1.0 Advanced."

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