Geneviève Robert and Antonio Zadra, researchers from the University of Montreal, asked more than 550 subjects to keep daily "dream journals" which resulted in a total of 9796 dream records. The researchers then analyzed the dreams, finding that of the almost 10,000 dreams, there were 431 bad dreams—which cause some unpleasant feelings—and 253 nightmares, which include an emotion so disagreeable that it wakes people from sleep. Subjects said that nightmares felt more “emotionally intense” than bad dreams.
“[N]ightmares were more bizarre and contained substantially more aggressions, failures, and unfortunate endings,” the study says. Only 331 of the participants experienced unpleasant dreams. They found that 35 percent of nightmares and 55 percent of bad dreams involved emotions other than fear.
After looking at the nightmares for general content, the researchers looked at more specific themes and found the stuff of nightmares varied by gender. Women had nightmares that focused on interpersonal strife—a fight with a partner, a disagreement with a mother-in-law, a conflict with a willful child. The emotions involved in those nightmares included feelings of humiliation, inadequacy, and frustration.
Men, on the other hand, tended to have nightmares about natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, fires and volcanoes), chases, and bugs. The women’s nightmares frequently involved a friend or family member trying to navigate the scary situation with them, while the men worked alone in their nightmares. On average, they found that women experienced more nightmares than men.
“The results have important implications on how nightmares are conceptualized and defined," the researchers wrote, "and support the view that, when compared to bad dreams, nightmares represent a somewhat rarer—and more severe—expression of the same basic phenomenon.”
Depending on how character-centric you believe LOST was, can the raw data from this dream study shed any light on the series or character motivations?
Men tend to work alone with issues involving intense problems like natural disasters, chases and insects. On the island, the intense problem was the survival after the plane crash. The main male characters did seem to try to solve their personal issues alone. Jin went off fishing to provide food for Sun and himself. Jack wandered off into the jungle to tend to his own wounds. Sawyer went scavenging to hoard supplies to make his survival more comfortable. Locke went assassin commando to go boar hunting alone in the jungle.
Women tend to try to work through personal strife like discord with friends and family members which include feelings of humiliation, inadequacy and frustration. Women tend to try to work through problems with another person, a navigator, to find a solution. Sun confided in Kate about her marital problems and then her miracle pregnancy. Alex confided in her boyfriend Karl about running away from Ben's control. Juliet confided with her sister about her mixed up emotions of a failed relationship with her boss, and the pitfalls of her pregnancy research. Kate told Jack about her darkest secret (being a fugitive), to which Jack remarked that everyone had been given a second chance on the island.
The dreams and nightmares of individuals may be shaped by the cultural cues of the person's upbringing and society. Men still tend to believe that they are the hunters and gatherers, the protectors of the clan. Locke embodied that role early on as the provider of food. Women tend to be defined by domestic roles, such as cooking, cleaning and running the household. Rose was seen tending to the chores at the beach camp with other female survivors. Men tend to be protective; women tend to be supportive.
Except that those roles can change inside the dream state. Kate was probably on the most missions and "jungle chases" in the series. She was out of the traditional woman role battling the Others, Widmore, Flocke and dangers of jungle. Likewise, Hurley was more timid on the island. He was a follower who rarely made any decisions (the prime exception was driving the VW bus through the Others to rescue his captured friends).
If LOST was a dream scape, then the themes of men and women's nightmares make sense. But those same traits are cultural icons to standard operating behavior.
