Gender Differences in Dream Recall

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doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2869.2008.00626.x

Gender differences in dream recall: a meta-analysis

M I C H A E L S C H R E D L and I R I S R E I N H A R DCentral Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany

Accepted in revised form 23 October 2007; received 20 July 2007

S U M M A R Y Many studies have reported gender differences in dream recall. Data from 175

independent studies have been included in the analyses. Overall, estimated effect sizes in

five age groups of healthy persons differed significantly from zero. Variables like

measurement method and publication year did not affect the gender difference but age

groups showed different effect sizes. The smallest effect size was found for children

(0.097), the largest for adolescents (0.364), whereas the three adult groups ranged from

0.242 to 0.270. The findings suggest that the age-dependent gender differences in dream

recall might be explained by gender-specific dream socialization. Longitudinal studiesin this area, however, are still lacking.

keyword s dream recall, gender differences, meta-analysis

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Dreaming, defined as mental activity during sleep, is presumed

to occur every night in every person. This presumption is based

on the high recall rates following REM awakenings and even

NREM awakenings in the sleep laboratory (Nielsen, 2000).

Despite this universality, dream recall varies considerably

between individuals and within one person from night to night.Over the decades, many factors have been studied which might

explain this variation (Schredl, 2007). Personality dimensions,

like openness to experience or related measures (boundary

thinness and absorption), creativity and the frequency of

nocturnal awakenings showed small but significant correla-

tions with dream recall frequency (DRF; e.g. Schredl et al.,

2003b). Other factors like trait repression, extraversion, sleep

duration and visual memory have yielded mixed results (for an

extensive review, see Schredl and Montasser, 199697).

In several large-scale studies (Borbely, 1984; Giambra et al.,

1996; Pagel et al., 1995; Schredl, 2002b; Schredl and Piel, 2003;

Wynaendts-Francken, 1907) with sample sizes ranging from

265 to 2328 persons, gender was related to DRF. I.e., on

average, women tend to recall their dreams more often than

men, although effect sizes vary from 0.15 (Borbely, 1984) to

0.55 (Nielsen et al., 2000). A recent representative study

(Stepansky et al., 1998) including 1000 participants, however,

reported no gender difference in DRF. Two factors might

explain this discrepancy. First, Giambra et al. (1996) found

that gender differences were more pronounced in the 25- to 55-

year age range, whereas for young persons as well as for elderly

persons DRF does not differ substantially between men and

women. Stepansky et al. (1998) did not analyze the data forthe different age groups they studied.

Secondly, the studies applied different methods for measur-

ing DRF. The most often used measurement approaches are

questionnaire scales, dream diaries and awakenings in the sleep

laboratory. The correlation coefficients between different types

of questionnaire scales, scales with absolute categories and

scales with relative categories (r = 0.647; N = 444; Schredl,

2004a) and different measurement types (diary questionnaire

scale: r = 0.69; N = 338; Cohen, 1979) are quite high. DRF

measured by awakenings in the sleep laboratory is even related

to home dream recall: with high dream recallers (more than

three dreams per week), Goodenough et al. (1959) obtained a

recall rate of 93% for REM awakenings, whereas in only 46%

of the REM awakenings were low dream recallers (less than

once a month) able to report a dream. The retest reliability of

the questionnaire scales is satisfactory if absolute answering

categories have been applied (e.g. several times a week, once a

week, about twice a month, about once a month, less than

once a month; r = 0.85; N = 198; Schredl, 2004b). Scales

with relative categories like never, rarely, sometimes, often,

very often yielded lower retest reliability coefficients (r = 0.59;

N = 106; Bernstein and Belicki, 199596). A two-week dream

Correspondence: Michael Schredl, PhD, Sleep laboratory, Central

Institute of Mental Health, PO Box 12 21 20, 68072 Mannheim,

Germany. Tel.: +49 621 1703 1782; fax: +49 621 1703 1785; e-mail:

[email protected]

Please contact the author for a complete list of references regarding the

studies included in this meta-analysis.

J. Sleep Res. (2008) 17, 125131 Dreaming

2008 European Sleep Research Society 125


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diary showed sufficient reliability (internal consistency:

r = 0.818; N = 196; Schredl and Fulda, 2005) and retest

reliability: r = 0.67; N = 106 (Bernstein and Belicki, 1995

96). Stability coefficients for the REM awakening technique

have not been reported in the literature, possibly due to the

expense of this measurement technique (cf. Schredl, 2007).

Other measures for dream recall were applied less often: (1)

eliciting once whether or not a dream was recalled last night

(e.g. Botman and Crovitz, 198990); (2) determining whetheror not the person is able to report a most recent dream (e.g.

Winget et al., 1972); and (3) determining whether or not the

person remembers specific dream themes (e.g. Schredl and Piel,

2003).

The present meta-analysis was carried out to determine

whether there is a substantial gender difference in dream recall

if the studies are aggregated numerically. Secondly, whether

different measurement methods might explain differences in

the findings was tested. Lastly, the effect of age on the gender

difference in dream recall was studied.

M E T H O D

Literature search

A literature review of the PubMed, PsycInf and Psyndex

databases with the search terms dream recall was carried out

on 18 April 2006. The number of hits was 641. The broad

search term was applied because searching sex differences and

dream recall yielded only 36 studies supporting the impres-

sion that the key words of the papers rarely included the

finding regarding gender difference in dream recall. In addi-

tion, all the studies cited in the literature reviews of Gooden-

ough (1978), Belicki (1986), Schredl and Montasser (199697)

and Schredl (1999, 2007) were included. Reference lists of thepapers were also checked for appropriate studies. Further-

more, non-published studies of the author (N = 7 samples

with healthy persons, N = 8 patient samples) were included.

Overall, over 1000 publications were inspected and included

if dream recall was reported for men and women separately

and the data were sufficient for computing effect sizes.

Additional information was obtained from Colace (1998,

2006), Colace and Violani (1993), Colace et al. (1997), Strauch

and Meier (2004), Levin et al. (2003), Blagrove et al. (2003)

and Hartmann (1989). In addition, Art Funkhouser provided

an unpublished data set (N = 1019). The data of own studies

were reanalyzed if gender differences were not presented in the

original publication.

To maximize overall sample size of the meta-analyses, three

different sets of studies were analyzed. Overall, 175 indepen-

dent samples reporting gender differences in dream recall have

been identified. Of these studies, 147 studies included healthy

persons and 28 studies included different patient groups. The

patient samples were categorized into four groups: psychiatric

patients [N = 12 studies; different disorders not specified

(N = 3), depression (N = 3), psychotherapy patients

(N = 3), attention deficithyperactivity disorder (N = 2),

panic disorder (N = 1)], somatic patients [N = 5 studies;

asthma (N = 2), brain lesions (N = 1), patients who under-

went EEG diagnosis in a somatic clinic (N = 1), patients with

myasthenia gravis (N = 1)] and sleep-disordered patients

[N = 9 studies; sleep apnea syndrome (N = 3), insomnia

(N = 2), restless legs syndrome (N = 1), Pavor noctur-

nussleepwalking (N = 1), hypersomnia (N = 1), narcolepsy

(N = 1)]. The two studies including blind persons were

subsumed under patients because the sleepwake patternmight differ from seeing persons. The rationale of this

categorization is derived from findings indicating that depres-

sive mood is related to reduced dream recall (cf. Schredl, 2007),

whereas sleep disorders, especially insomnia and narcolepsy,

are associated with heightened DRF (Schredl, 1998; Schredl

et al., 1998a). This general shifts in levels of dream recall might

affect the gender difference in this variable. For somatic

patients and blind persons, differences in DRF in comparison

with healthy controls have not been studied systematically (cf.

Schredl, 2007).

For analyzing each measurement method separately, the

overall number of studies including healthy controls increased

to 169 because several studies applied more than one

measurement method. I.e., for each measurement method,

the analyses are still based on independent effect sizes.

If several measures were applied in one study, the measure

with the highest expenditure was selected: first REM awak-

enings, then the dream diary and lastly the questionnaire scale.

Dream diaries included checklists with eliciting only dream

recall and diaries with explicit recording of dream content if

recalled. If more than one questionnaire scale was included,

the most reliable method was chosen (absolute categories or

longer measurement interval). This selection procedure was

chosen to maximize sample sizes for the high expenditure

methods.Similarly, several studies included data for different age

groups, so that a separate analysis regarding age group could

be performed with a sample of 163 studies (healthy controls)

by including the effect sizes of each age group. Again, in the

overall analysis with independent samples only the effect size

of the total sample was included.

Coding

The following variables were extracted from the studies:

publication year, total sample size, number of men, number

of women, mean age of the total sample, measurement method

(questionnaire scale, dream diary, REM awakenings, able to

report most recent dream, dream recall of the previous night,

able to report general dream themes) and group (healthy

persons, psychiatric patients, sleep-disordered patients, so-

matic patients and blind persons). For the questionnaire scales

only, it was determined whether the scale included absolute

categories such as several times a week, once a week, etc. or

relative categories like never, rarely, sometimes and often.

In addition, it was coded whether the study was conducted by

the author to estimate whether including a large number of

126 M. Schredl and I. Reinhard

2008 European Sleep Research Society, J. Sleep Res., 17, 125131


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published and unpublished studies by the author might have

affected the overall results.

According to the mean ages of the samples, studies were

grouped into five age groups: children (10 years), Adolescents

(10 < x < 18 years), young adults (18 x < 30 years), mid-

dle-aged adults (30 x < 60 years) and elder adults

(60 years). In a few studies, mean values of age were missing,

but it was reported that the participants were students. As

almost all mean ages of student samples ranged between 18and 25 years, these studies were categorized under the young

adults group.

Meta-analytical Procedure

Study-level effect sizes

The effect sizes of studies applying questionnaire scales and

dream diaries were computed or reconstructed by the author

using the formula given by Rustenbach (2003) for Hedges g

(see also Rosenthal, 1994). The other measurement methods

yielded differences in percentages (e.g. REM awakening

technique, dream recall of the last night and recall of a most

recent dream). Rustenbach (2003) provided a formula for

computing effect sizes of this difference divided by the pooled

variance; so, this value is comparable to Hedges g.

Aggregate effect sizes

First, the Q-statistics of Cochran (e.g. Hardy and Thompson,

1998) were computed to test for homogeneity of the different

sets of effect sizes. As most of the tests yielded significant

results and thus indicated a substantial interstudy variance, the

random effects approach was selected to test whether the effect

sizes differed from zero. A mixed model was computed to

determine common effects of different factors (fixed effects)

and check for interstudy variation (random factor). For these

models, the Satterthwaite approximation was applied to

compute degrees of freedom. Furthermore, a bivariate

approach developed by Van Houwelingen et al. (2002) was

applied for comparing effect sizes stemming from studies with

questionnaire scales and dream diaries to account for possiblecorrelation in the 16 studies which included both measures.

The analyses were carried out using sas 9.1.3 (SAS Institute

Inc., Cary, NC, USA).

R E S U L T S

The meta-analysis is based on 175 independent samples,

including 147 samples consisting of healthy persons and 28

patient samples (12 psychiatric patients, nine sleep-disordered

patients, five somatic patients and two samples with blind

persons).

In Table 1, the estimated effect sizes for the five age groups

(healthy persons only) are depicted. The total number of

studies is 163 because for several studies two or more effect

sizes specifically computed for the age groups have been

included. The results (independent analyses for each age

group) indicate that substantial gender difference was present

in all five age groups, although the effect size for children is the

smallest.

The estimated effect sizes for the six measurement methods

are depicted in Table 2. Studies were only included if healthy

persons were investigated. The number of studies (169) exceeds

147 because quite a lot of studies used more than one

Table 1 Effect sizes for different age groups (healthy persons)

Age group Studies Sample size Women men

Estimated

effect size

Confidence interval

(95%) Q

Children (10 years) 15 4834 2332 2502 0.097 0.0350.159 6.02

Adolescents (10 < x < 18 years) 18 5725 3133 2592 0.364 0.2720.456 33.91**

Young adults (18 x < 30 years) 81 15 781 9238 6543 0.242 0.1940.289 121.32**

Middle-aged adults (30 x < 60 years) 36 16 250 9139 7111 0.270 0.2060.334 86.03***

Older adults (60 years) 13 1795 1028 767 0.243 0.1250.362 22.80*

Q-statistics: *P 0.05; **P 0.01; ***P 0.001.

Table 2 Effect sizes for different measurement methods (healthy persons)

Method Studies Sample size Women men

Estimated

effect size

Confidence interval

(95%) Q

Questionnaire scales 93 32 995 18 691 14 304 0.246 0.1860.306 294.96***

Dream diary 46 4548 2947 1601 0.309 0.2110.406 81.49***

REM awakenings 11 535 269 266 0.164 )0.0370.365 5.63

Most recent dream (yes no) 9 2115 1278 837 0.237 0.0760.398 16.12*

Recalled dream previous night 5 991 560 431 0.123 )0.0590.305 7.53

Dream themes (yes no) 5 6346 3367 2979 0.223 0.1530.293 4.74

Q-statistics: *P 0.05; ***P 0.001.

Gender and dream recall 127



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measurement technique. Gender differences measured with

questionnaire scales, dream diaries, a question concerning the

most recent dream or dream themes were significantly different

from zero. Although the effect sizes for REM awakenings and

the question about dream recall last night were positive, the

confidence intervals include zero and, thus, were not signifi-

cantly different from zero.

For the patient groups, estimated effect sizes are presented in

Table 3. The sleep-disordered patients also showed a sub-stantial gender difference similar to that of healthy persons.

The confidence intervals of the other two groups were large

and, thus, the tests were non-significant, even though the effect

sizes were positive. For the two studies including blind

persons, a random model analysis could not be performed.

The study effect sizes are g = 0.439 and g = 0.122.

A mixed model was computed to test the common effects of

age group, measurement method, publication year and

whether the study was carried out by the author (Table 4).

Solely, the age group variable yielded a significant effect. A

post hoc analysis revealed that children differed significantly

from the three pooled adult groups (F = 4.61, d.f. = 1, 146,

P = 0.0335) and adolescents (F = 15.90, d.f. = 1, 71.8,

P = 0.0002). In addition, adolescents differed from the three

pooled adult groups (F = 4.74, d.f. = 1, 147, P = 0.0310).

The other variables (publication year, measurement method

and whether the study was carried out by the author) did not

affect the gender difference in dream recall.

A bivariate mixed model including 16 studies using both

measures (diaries and questionnaires) did not reveal significant

differences between the effect sizes obtained by questionnaire

scales and the effect sizes of dream diary studies (N = 123

studies; estimated difference in effect sizes: 0.063, CI )0.046 to

0.173, t = 1.14, P = 0.2562). A subsequent analysis using 80

independent studies using two types of scale format [absolute

answering categories (N = 55) and relative answering catego-

ries (N = 25)] also yielded a non-significant finding [estimated

difference in effect sizes: 0.074 (CI )0.080 to 0.227), t = 0.98,

P = 0.3333].

Lastly, the difference between healthy persons (N = 147studies) and the patient groups (N = 28) was not significant

(estimated difference in effect sizes: )0.058, CI )0.160 to 0.043,

t = )1.13, P = 0.2597). However, the comparison of the 12

psychiatric patient groups with the healthy persons yielded a

significant finding (estimated difference in effect sizes: )0.175;

CI )0.338 to )0.011, t = )2.11, P = 0.0361).

D I S C U S S I O N

Overall, the meta-analysis indicates that there is a small but

substantial gender difference in dream recall; i.e. women tend

to recall their dreams more often than men.

The measurement method did not affect the gender differ-

ence (mixed model analysis for healthy persons) and, thus, it is

unlikely that different algorithms for determining study effect

sizes due to different measurement levels (nominal, ordinal and

interval) might have biased the results (Table 2). However, for

two measurement methods (REM awakenings and recalling

dreams from the previous night) the effect sizes were positive

but not significantly different from zero. Several factors might

explain this result. First, the sample sizes are smaller than

Table 3 Effect sizes for different patient groups

Method Studies Sample size Women menEstimatedeffect size

Confidence interval(95%) Q

Psychiatric patients 12 888 539 349 0.088 )0.0650.242 8.46

Somatic patients 5 283 143 140 0.252 )0.2320.736 9.63*

Sleep disordered patients 9 1853 729 1124 0.242 0.1050.379 11.03

Q-statistics: *P 0.05. Due to the small sample size, a random effects model could not be computed for the two studies with blind persons.

Table 4 Mixed model for testing effects of covariates (healthy persons)

Factor F-value

Degrees of

freedom P-value

Age group:children (15), adolescents (14), young adults (76),

middle-aged adults (34), elder adults (8)

4.17 (4, 92.4) 0.0038

Measurement method:

questionnaire (77), dream diary (45),

REM awakenings (11), most recent

dream last night dream themes (14)

0.41 (3, 135) 0.7442

Study conducted by the author:

yes (45), no (102)

0.51 (1, 95.7) 0.4753

Publication year 1.88 (1, 66.6) 0.1753

N = 147 independent study effect sizes; Ntotal = 44 460, Nwomen = 24 916, Nmen = 19 544.




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those for the other methods which might be explained by the

considerable expense of sleep laboratory research. Secondly,

the reliability, e.g. retest reliability, is not known for these two

methods, whereas questionnaire scales showed high retest

reliability indices (Schredl, 2004b) and dream diaries have high

interitem consistency (Schredl and Fulda, 2005). A third factor

which might play a role in explaining the smaller gender

difference in the percentage of recall after REM awakenings is

addressed by Strauch and Meier (2004). To obtain as manydream reports as possible, the researchers often select high

dream recallers for participating in sleep laboratory studies.

However, one should keep in mind that the effect sizes did not

differ significantly from the overall effect size and an analysis

including more participants might have yielded a significant

result, even if the effect sizes are smaller than those of the other

methods.

A separate analysis was carried out for the difference

between questionnaire scales and dream diaries because a

number of larger studies included both measures. In contrast

to Beaulieu-Prevost and Zadra (2007) who, in their meta-

analysis, found a significant effect of measurement method on

the correlation coefficients between DRF and several person-

ality measures, the present findings did not support the idea

that methodological biases, e.g. memory biases for the

retrospective measures, affect the findings. Despite the weak-

nesses each measurement method possesses (cf. Schredl, 2007),

the present meta-analysis indicates that all methods yielded

comparable effect sizes for the gender difference in dream

recall.

Similarly, publication year and the over-representation of

studies conducted by the first author [due to availability of

gender-specific information and seven unpublished studies

(healthy persons)] did not affect the effect sizes, demonstrating

again the robustness of the gender difference in dream recall.The meta-analysis revealed a significant effect of age on the

gender differences in dream recall, while controlling for other

possibly confounding effects (publication year, measurement

method, only studies with healthy persons were included). The

similar effect sizes in the adult groups contradict the findings of

Giambra et al. (1996) who reported a marked gender differ-

ence between 25 and 55 years of age but not for young adults

and older adults (N = 2328) but are in line with the

insignificant age gender interaction (analysis depicted in

Schredl and Piel, 2005) in four large representative surveys

reported by Schredl and Piel (2003). The significant effects

found in all age groups are also not in accordance with the

findings of Stepansky et al. (1998). Why they did not find a

substantial gender difference in their representative sample

cannot explained by the present meta-analytic results. Schredl

et al. (1996a) reported stability for DRF over adulthood by

eliciting current DRF and retrospectively asking for DRF

experienced in the participants early twenties. However,

longitudinal studies are completely lacking; so, the stability

of DRF has to be supported by future studies.

The significant smaller gender difference in dream recall in

children compared with adults has not yet been reported in the

literature, mainly because the sizes of children samples have

been quite small and, therefore, do not allow generalizations.

One might speculate, that there may be a gender-specific

dream socialization with a peak in adolescence, e.g. it might

be possible that girls are encouraged more often by their

caregivers or peers to talk about their dreams which, in turn,

increases DRF by focusing on dreams (cf. Schredl, 2007).

Schredl and Sartorius (2006) were able to demonstrate a small

but significant correlation between DRF in children and theirmothers, indicating that the dream topic might be more

present in families with adults who recall their dreams more

often. That seems to support the idea of a dream socialization

process, but whether this is gender specific has to be demon-

strated. It is not very likely that genetic effects might explain

this association because twin studies (Cohen, 1973a; Gedda

and Brenci, 1979) did not find any significant differences in

concordance rates between monozygotic and dizygotic twin

pairs. But then again longitudinal studies starting in early

childhood with larger samples to support the idea of gender-

specific dream socialization are lacking.

Patients with sleep disorders and somatic disorders showed

practically the same effect sizes regarding the gender difference

in dream recall as healthy persons. This indicated that sleep

variables might not be able to explain the gender difference in

dream recall (see discussion below). Psychiatric patients,

however, did not show a significant gender difference and

their estimated effect size was significantly lower than the effect

sizes of healthy persons. One might speculate that reduced

dream recall, which is often related to depressive mood and is a

major symptom in many psychiatric disorders (e.g. Schredl,

1995; Schredl and Engelhardt, 2001), might cover up the

gender difference in dream recall normally found in healthy

persons.

Given the substantial and robust finding of gender differ-ences in dream recall, the question of what factors might

explain this difference arises. Possible factors have to meet two

criteria: first, they should show a stable gender difference and,

secondly, they should correlate substantially with DRF. With

regard to the first criteria, there are a variety of factors which

might be related to dream recall and show stable gender

differences like verbal intelligence (Halpern, 2000; Hyde and

Linn, 1988), verbal memory (Chipman and Kimura, 1998),

frequency of talking about emotional matters (Kring and

Gordon, 1998), recall of emotional experiences (Seidlitz and

Diener, 1998), sleep quality (Schredl et al., 1998b), prevalence

of insomnia (Zhang and Wing, 2006) and interest in dreams

(Schredl, 2000). Most of these studies showed small-to-

moderate effect sizes indicating that women do better in verbal

intelligence and verbal memory talks, talk more often about

emotional matters and showed higher recall of emotional

experiences. Regarding sleep, women tend to wake up more

often at night, and sleep quality is reduced. The empirical data

linking these variables to DRF, however, yielded mixed

findings. Tonay (1993), for example, reported no significant

relationship between verbal intelligence and dream recall.

Similarly, Armitage et al. (1987), Schredl et al. (1996a) and




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Blagrove and Akehurst (2000) did not find an effect of verbal

memory capacity on DRF. The findings that heightened DRF

is associated with a better recall of autobiographical episodes

from childhood (Robbins and Tanck, 1978; Schredl et al.,

1996b) might indicate that the capacity of recalling emotional

experiences might be associated with DRF. But specific

experiments eliciting recall of emotional relevant stimuli like

those carried out by Seidlitz and Diener (1998) have not

included a DRF measure. Similarly, no empirical datum isavailable for the relationship between the frequency of talking

about emotional matters and DRF. On the other hand, several

studies (cf. Schredl et al., 1997, 1998a, 2003b) indicate that low

sleep quality, frequency of nocturnal awakenings and the

diagnosis of insomnia are related to heightened dream recall.

The meta-analysis of Beaulieu-Prevost and Zadra (2007)

showed that interest in dreams is correlated with DRF.

To date, only two studies (Schredl, 2000, 200203) investi-

gated the direct effect of possible explanatory factors on the

gender difference in dream recall by applying statistical

methods like regression analyses and partial correlations.

Schredl (2000) was not able to find a significant reduction in

the gender difference in dream recall by introducing sleep

quality, frequency of nocturnal awakening (questionnaire

measure) into the regression analysis. When the engagement

in dreams variable, which showed a marked gender difference

(d = 0.71; N = 722), was additionally included, the gender

difference was no longer significant. Although the findings

suggest that the gender difference in interest in dreams

explains the gender difference in DRF, it is difficult to

determine a causal chain. On the one hand, it seems plausible

that only persons who recall their dreams develop an interest

in them; and, on the other hand, it has been demonstrated that

persons who are interested in their dreams and focus on

dreams can increase their dream recall markedly (cf. Schredl,2007). Including what has been written above, the two

variables, dream recall and engagement or interest in dreams,

might be affected by socialization which, in turn, might be

gender specific. Therefore, interest in dreams should also be

measured in longitudinal studies to determine possible causal

links.

Exploratory analyses of other factors explaining the gender

difference in dream recall, such as emotional intensity of

dreams, emotional tone of dreams, time of getting up in the

morning and nightmare frequency, failed to produce signif-

icant results (Schredl, 200203). The score of a rating scale

measuring subjective meaning of dreams, however, did have an

effect and reduced the gender difference in DRF if it was

statistically controlled (Schredl, 200203), again pointing to

the relationship between interest in dreams and dream recall.

In addition to these two studies (Schredl, 2000, 200203), it

would be interesting to study the effect of the above-listed

factors such as verbal intelligence, verbal memory, recall of

emotional experience and frequency of talking about emo-

tional matters on the gender difference in dream recall by

applying suitable statistical methods such as those reported

above.

Another factor which might explain the gender difference in

dream recall might be sex role orientation, i.e. the hypothesis

would be that feminine persons tend to recall their dreams

more often than masculine persons and, thus, this dimension

might explain why women differ from men with regard to

dream recall. Although several studies (Cohen, 1973b; Porach,

1971; Waterman et al., 1988; Wood et al., 1988) investigated

the effect of sex role orientation on dream content, no research

has been published on the relationship between the masculinefeminine dimension and dream recall. I.e. future studies should

test whether there is a substantial correlation between sex role

orientation and dream recall and if sex role orientation

explains the reported gender difference in dream recall.

To summarize, the meta-analysis including a considerable

number of studies was able to demonstrate a small but

substantial gender difference in dream recall which is indepen-

dent of methodological factors, e.g. different measurement

methods. The smaller gender difference in childhood might

indicate that there is a gender-specific dream socialization.

However, longitudinal studies in this field are lacking and are

necessary to support the conclusion derived from the meta-

analytic findings.

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