A protocol for eliciting dream associations oriented to the recognition of episodic dream sources

The use of associations with dream reports, although being diffused and greatly useful in psychotherapy, has so far played a limited role in dream research not directly finalized to therapy. On the other hand, it is difficult to investigate a basic property of dreaming, that of establishing connections, without searching for information beyond the dream report: indeed, the simplest and likely most effective way of obtaining this information consists in asking the dreamer for associations. Well-defined and rigorous methods are however necessary for research approaches which aim to achieve a better understanding of how the dreaming mind operates by processing and combining the dreamer's memory sources: we propose an experimental protocol aiming to give a contribution in this direction. This protocol consists in asking the dreamer to complete a form which has been implemented so as to make it easier to recognize the sources of single dreams and to describe the link patterns among the sources; this form has been oriented to the identification of episodic sources, definite in space and time. To be more effective, the method takes advantage of the presence of a researcher while the dreamer is completing the form: the terms of the interaction between dreamer and researcher are subjected to marked restrictions and rigorously defined. The protocol was applied to a homogeneous group of participants; the observed link patterns presented interesting phenomena, whose occurrence was characterized by high statistical significance.