Theories of Dreaming

Ninety-five percent or more of dreams are populated by the dreamer who interacts with two to four other characters, most of whom can be recognized as familiar characters in the dreamer’s immediate social network. Friendly interactions (typically verbal conversations) are found in about 40 percent of dreams, while aggressive social interactions occur in about 45 percent of dreams. In addition, mind-reading or inferring the mental states of others, particularly those characters the dreamer interacts with, occurs in over 80 percent of dreams. Finally, people who are most important in the dreamer’s waking network regularly appear in that dreamer’s dreams. Thus, existing data from dream content studies is certainly consistent with SST.