Men and women dream differently
Robin Turner, Western Mail

MEN may be from Mars and women from Venus but when both are in the land
of Nod they're still worlds apart.

A Welsh dream expert has confirmed what many already suspected that the
differences between the sexes continue even while asleep.
Dr Mark Blagrove, a reader in psychology at Swansea University, has
studied 100,000 people's dream experiences as part of a nationwide
survey. It showed that a typical married couple sleeping side by side
would have completely different types of dream, often at the same time.

The research shows that women's dreams:
Are increasingly about work;
Have more emotion in them;
Are likely to last longer;
Are more often based on the home, and
Involve more characters, especially family members
Men's dreams:
Have more strangers;
More often involve cars, roads and violence;
Feature more sex with unknown partners, and
Are more often about work, concerning redundancy and financial security.

Psychologist and author of several books on dreams, Veronica Tonay, says
the Swansea research confirms long-held suspicions that men and women
dream differently.
She said,
"Most of us have heard that women are more comfortable with their
emotional life than are men. There is actually an emotional problem
called male Alexithymia which describes how difficult it is for many men
to express their feelings in words. Women are raised in the world of
emotion, and if self-esteem for them comes from relationships, then
being able to express feelings is very important.
"But at work, expressing feelings can actually block success. These
differences find their way into our dreams, where women experience more
feelings than do men."

The concept of "his'n'hers" dreams comes as a new survey shows that more
than a fifth of people in the UK have bad dreams at least once a week.
And the survey, commissioned by the Travelodge hotel chain, found jobs
could be linked to bad dreams with nurses, accountants and IT workers
more likely to have nightmares than anyone else.
The survey of 2,000 people using Travelodges found the most common dream
was being chased or teeth dropping out, with falling being trapped or
being injured also frequent themes.
Dreams have an infinite variety with one respondent recalling being
chased by singer Cliff Richard in the street, a number dreamt of
Catherine Zeta-Jones and one had a dream about being shouted at by TV
presenter Davina McCall.

Psychological theorists speculate that dreams deal with immediate
concerns in our lives, such as unfinished business from the day or
concerns we are incapable of handling when awake.
Whatever their purpose, continuing research at Dr Blagrove's "sleep
laboratory" at Swansea University shows negative dreams are far more
common than positive ones. But he added, "Even happy people have more
negative dreams than positive ones."

What do your dreams mean?
Although most dream researchers caution that dream interpretations are
specific to the individual, there are common themes.
Falling in a dream can be a sign of insecurity.
Being chased can symbolise running away from a problem.
Losing teeth may reflect concerns about appearance.
Running and getting nowhere is a sign of overwork.
Flying is a symbol of being in control.
Being naked suggests a desire to communicate, as taking off clothes is
akin to removing barriers.
Dreaming about celebrities, and particularly dreaming you are friends
with one, can symbolise an idealised version of a person you already
know.

Are you a psychic dreamer?
Do you own a cat, suffer from back pain, or have a scar on your knee?
If you answer "yes" to all three, you probably believe that your dreams
predict the future.
Swansea University's Dr Mark Blagrove has a theory that people who
believe their dreams can predict the future is down to their
personality. To test the theory the "cat" "back pain" and "scratch"
questions were constructed by psychologists to test for differences
between people who believe that their dreams foretell events and those
who don't.

Dr Blagrove  asked hundreds of people these questions, which appear
objective but in fact test whether people just want to agree with the
questioner.
People saying "yes" to the questions may count an old scar on the leg as
being on the knee and he said the more "yes" answers people gave, the
more likely they were to believe that their dreams could foretell the
future.
He said such people are more accommodating types who see links between
what happens in their dreams and future events. In that way,
coincidences become predictions.  

What men and women dream about
Women dream about .. homes, families, work worries and emotions.
Men dream about ... Cars, violence, money, sex with new people.