J. Sleep Res.

(2008) 17, 125131

doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2869.2008.00626.x

Dreaming

Gender dierences 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 D
Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany

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

SUMMARY

Many studies have reported gender dierences in dream recall. Data from 175 independent studies have been included in the analyses. Overall, estimated eect sizes in ve age groups of healthy persons diered signicantly from zero. Variables like measurement method and publication year did not aect the gender dierence but age groups showed dierent eect sizes. The smallest eect 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 ndings suggest that the age-dependent gender dierences in dream recall might be explained by gender-specic dream socialization. Longitudinal studies in this area, however, are still lacking. keywords dream recall, gender dierences, meta-analysis
0.55 (Nielsen et al., 2000). A recent representative study (Stepansky et al., 1998) including 1000 participants, however, reported no gender dierence in DRF. Two factors might explain this discrepancy. First, Giambra et al. (1996) found that gender dierences were more pronounced in the 25- to 55year age range, whereas for young persons as well as for elderly persons DRF does not dier substantially between men and women. Stepansky et al. (1998) did not analyze the data for the dierent age groups they studied. Secondly, the studies applied dierent methods for measuring DRF. The most often used measurement approaches are questionnaire scales, dream diaries and awakenings in the sleep laboratory. The correlation coecients between dierent types of questionnaire scales, scales with absolute categories and scales with relative categories (r = 0.647; N = 444; Schredl, 2004a) and dierent 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 coecients (r = 0.59; N = 106; Bernstein and Belicki, 199596). A two-week dream

INTRODUCTION Dreaming, dened 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 signicant correlations 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 eect sizes vary from 0.15 (Borbely, 1984) to
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: michael.schredl@zi-mannheim.de Please contact the author for a complete list of references regarding the studies included in this meta-analysis. 2008 European Sleep Research Society

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panic disorder (N = 1)], somatic patients [N = 5 studies; asthma (N = 2), brain lesions (N = 1), patients who underwent 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 nocturnus sleepwalking (N = 1), hypersomnia (N = 1), narcolepsy (N = 1)]. The two studies including blind persons were subsumed under patients because the sleep wake pattern might dier from seeing persons. The rationale of this categorization is derived from ndings indicating that depressive 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 aect the gender dierence in this variable. For somatic patients and blind persons, dierences 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 eect sizes. If several measures were applied in one study, the measure with the highest expenditure was selected: rst REM awakenings, 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 dierent age groups, so that a separate analysis regarding age group could be performed with a sample of 163 studies (healthy controls) by including the eect sizes of each age group. Again, in the overall analysis with independent samples only the eect 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, somatic 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
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diary showed sucient 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 coecients 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 whether or 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 specic dream themes (e.g. Schredl and Piel, 2003). The present meta-analysis was carried out to determine whether there is a substantial gender dierence in dream recall if the studies are aggregated numerically. Secondly, whether dierent measurement methods might explain dierences in the ndings was tested. Lastly, the eect of age on the gender dierence in dream recall was studied.

METHOD 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 dierences and dream recall yielded only 36 studies supporting the impression that the key words of the papers rarely included the nding regarding gender dierence in dream recall. In addition, all the studies cited in the literature reviews of Goodenough (1978), Belicki (1986), Schredl and Montasser (199697) and Schredl (1999, 2007) were included. Reference lists of the papers were also checked for appropriate studies. Furthermore, 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 sucient for computing eect 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 dierences were not presented in the original publication. To maximize overall sample size of the meta-analyses, three dierent sets of studies were analyzed. Overall, 175 independent samples reporting gender dierences in dream recall have been identied. Of these studies, 147 studies included healthy persons and 28 studies included dierent patient groups. The patient samples were categorized into four groups: psychiatric patients [N = 12 studies; dierent disorders not specied (N = 3), depression (N = 3), psychotherapy patients (N = 3), attention decit hyperactivity disorder (N = 2),

Gender and dream recall

published and unpublished studies by the author might have aected the overall results. According to the mean ages of the samples, studies were grouped into ve age groups: children (10 years), Adolescents (10 < x < 18 years), young adults (18 x < 30 years), middle-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 18 and 25 years, these studies were categorized under the young adults group.

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random eects approach was selected to test whether the eect sizes diered from zero. A mixed model was computed to determine common eects of dierent factors (xed eects) 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 eect sizes stemming from studies with questionnaire scales and dream diaries to account for possible correlation in the 16 studies which included both measures. The analyses were carried out using sas 9.1.3 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA). RESULTS 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, ve somatic patients and two samples with blind persons). In Table 1, the estimated eect sizes for the ve age groups (healthy persons only) are depicted. The total number of studies is 163 because for several studies two or more eect sizes specically computed for the age groups have been included. The results (independent analyses for each age group) indicate that substantial gender dierence was present in all ve age groups, although the eect size for children is the smallest. The estimated eect 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

Meta-analytical Procedure Study-level eect sizes The eect 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 dierences 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 eect sizes of this dierence divided by the pooled variance; so, this value is comparable to Hedges g. Aggregate eect sizes First, the Q-statistics of Cochran (e.g. Hardy and Thompson, 1998) were computed to test for homogeneity of the dierent sets of eect sizes. As most of the tests yielded signicant results and thus indicated a substantial interstudy variance, the

Table 1 Eect sizes for dierent age groups (healthy persons) Age group Children (10 years) Adolescents (10 < x < 18 years) Young adults (18 x < 30 years) Middle-aged adults (30 x < 60 years) Older adults (60 years) Studies 15 18 81 36 13 Sample size 4834 5725 15 781 16 250 1795 Women men 2332 2502 3133 2592 9238 6543 9139 7111 1028 767 Estimated eect size 0.097 0.364 0.242 0.270 0.243 Condence interval (95%) 0.0350.159 0.2720.456 0.1940.289 0.2060.334 0.1250.362 Q 6.02 33.91** 121.32** 86.03*** 22.80*

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

Table 2 Eect sizes for dierent measurement methods (healthy persons) Method Questionnaire scales Dream diary REM awakenings Most recent dream (yes no) Recalled dream previous night Dream themes (yes no) Q-statistics: *P 0.05; ***P 0.001. Studies 93 46 11 9 5 5 Sample size 32 995 4548 535 2115 991 6346 Women men 18 691 14 304 2947 1601 269 266 1278 837 560 431 3367 2979 Estimated eect size 0.246 0.309 0.164 0.237 0.123 0.223 Condence interval (95%) 0.1860.306 0.2110.406 )0.0370.365 0.0760.398 )0.0590.305 0.1530.293 Q 294.96*** 81.49*** 5.63 16.12* 7.53 4.74

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scales and the eect sizes of dream diary studies (N = 123 studies; estimated dierence in eect 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 categories (N = 25)] also yielded a non-signicant nding [estimated dierence in eect sizes: 0.074 (CI )0.080 to 0.227), t = 0.98, P = 0.3333]. Lastly, the dierence between healthy persons (N = 147 studies) and the patient groups (N = 28) was not signicant (estimated dierence in eect 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 signicant nding (estimated dierence in eect sizes: )0.175; CI )0.338 to )0.011, t = )2.11, P = 0.0361). DISCUSSION Overall, the meta-analysis indicates that there is a small but substantial gender dierence in dream recall; i.e. women tend to recall their dreams more often than men. The measurement method did not aect the gender dierence (mixed model analysis for healthy persons) and, thus, it is unlikely that dierent algorithms for determining study eect sizes due to dierent 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 eect sizes were positive but not signicantly dierent from zero. Several factors might explain this result. First, the sample sizes are smaller than

measurement technique. Gender dierences measured with questionnaire scales, dream diaries, a question concerning the most recent dream or dream themes were signicantly dierent from zero. Although the eect sizes for REM awakenings and the question about dream recall last night were positive, the condence intervals include zero and, thus, were not signicantly dierent from zero. For the patient groups, estimated eect sizes are presented in Table 3. The sleep-disordered patients also showed a substantial gender dierence similar to that of healthy persons. The condence intervals of the other two groups were large and, thus, the tests were non-signicant, even though the eect sizes were positive. For the two studies including blind persons, a random model analysis could not be performed. The study eect sizes are g = 0.439 and g = 0.122. A mixed model was computed to test the common eects 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 signicant eect. A post hoc analysis revealed that children diered signicantly 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 diered 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 aect the gender dierence in dream recall. A bivariate mixed model including 16 studies using both measures (diaries and questionnaires) did not reveal signicant dierences between the eect sizes obtained by questionnaire

Table 3 Eect sizes for dierent patient groups Method Psychiatric patients Somatic patients Sleep disordered patients Studies 12 5 9 Sample size 888 283 1853 Women men 539 349 143 140 729 1124 Estimated eect size 0.088 0.252 0.242 Condence interval (95%) )0.0650.242 )0.2320.736 0.1050.379 Q 8.46 9.63* 11.03

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

Table 4 Mixed model for testing eects of covariates (healthy persons) Factor Age group: children (15), adolescents (14), young adults (76), middle-aged adults (34), elder adults (8) Measurement method: questionnaire (77), dream diary (45), REM awakenings (11), most recent dream last night dream themes (14) Study conducted by the author: yes (45), no (102) Publication year F-value 4.17 Degrees of freedom (4, 92.4) P-value 0.0038

0.41

(3, 135)

0.7442

0.51 1.88

(1, 95.7) (1, 66.6)

0.4753 0.1753

N = 147 independent study eect 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 dierence in the percentage of recall after REM awakenings is addressed by Strauch and Meier (2004). To obtain as many dream reports as possible, the researchers often select high dream recallers for participating in sleep laboratory studies. However, one should keep in mind that the eect sizes did not dier signicantly from the overall eect size and an analysis including more participants might have yielded a signicant result, even if the eect sizes are smaller than those of the other methods. A separate analysis was carried out for the dierence 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 metaanalysis, found a signicant eect of measurement method on the correlation coecients between DRF and several personality measures, the present ndings did not support the idea that methodological biases, e.g. memory biases for the retrospective measures, aect the ndings. Despite the weaknesses each measurement method possesses (cf. Schredl, 2007), the present meta-analysis indicates that all methods yielded comparable eect sizes for the gender dierence in dream recall. Similarly, publication year and the over-representation of studies conducted by the rst author [due to availability of gender-specic information and seven unpublished studies (healthy persons)] did not aect the eect sizes, demonstrating again the robustness of the gender dierence in dream recall. The meta-analysis revealed a signicant eect of age on the gender dierences in dream recall, while controlling for other possibly confounding eects (publication year, measurement method, only studies with healthy persons were included). The similar eect sizes in the adult groups contradict the ndings of Giambra et al. (1996) who reported a marked gender dierence between 25 and 55 years of age but not for young adults and older adults (N = 2328) but are in line with the insignicant age gender interaction (analysis depicted in Schredl and Piel, 2005) in four large representative surveys reported by Schredl and Piel (2003). The signicant eects found in all age groups are also not in accordance with the ndings of Stepansky et al. (1998). Why they did not nd a substantial gender dierence 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 signicant smaller gender dierence in dream recall in children compared with adults has not yet been reported in the
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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-specic 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 signicant correlation between DRF in children and their mothers, 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 specic has to be demonstrated. It is not very likely that genetic eects might explain this association because twin studies (Cohen, 1973a; Gedda and Brenci, 1979) did not nd any signicant dierences 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 genderspecic dream socialization are lacking. Patients with sleep disorders and somatic disorders showed practically the same eect sizes regarding the gender dierence in dream recall as healthy persons. This indicated that sleep variables might not be able to explain the gender dierence in dream recall (see discussion below). Psychiatric patients, however, did not show a signicant gender dierence and their estimated eect size was signicantly lower than the eect 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 dierence in dream recall normally found in healthy persons. Given the substantial and robust nding of gender dierences in dream recall, the question of what factors might explain this dierence arises. Possible factors have to meet two criteria: rst, they should show a stable gender dierence and, secondly, they should correlate substantially with DRF. With regard to the rst criteria, there are a variety of factors which might be related to dream recall and show stable gender dierences 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-tomoderate eect 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 ndings. Tonay (1993), for example, reported no signicant relationship between verbal intelligence and dream recall. Similarly, Armitage et al. (1987), Schredl et al. (1996a) and

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Another factor which might explain the gender dierence 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 dier from men with regard to dream recall. Although several studies (Cohen, 1973b; Porach, 1971; Waterman et al., 1988; Wood et al., 1988) investigated the eect of sex role orientation on dream content, no research has been published on the relationship between the masculine feminine 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 dierence in dream recall. To summarize, the meta-analysis including a considerable number of studies was able to demonstrate a small but substantial gender dierence in dream recall which is independent of methodological factors, e.g. dierent measurement methods. The smaller gender dierence in childhood might indicate that there is a gender-specic dream socialization. However, longitudinal studies in this eld are lacking and are necessary to support the conclusion derived from the metaanalytic ndings. REFERENCES
Armitage, R., Stelmack, R. M. and McCarry, P. Individual dierences in event-related potentials and recognition memory for words with manipulation of instructional set. Psychophysiology, 1987, 24: 576 577. Beaulieu-Prevost, D. and Zadra, A. Absorption, psychological boundaries and attitude towards dreams as correlates of dream recall: two decades of research seen through a meta-analysis. J. Sleep Res., 2007, 16: 5159. Belicki, K. Recalling dreams: an examination of daily variation and individual dierences. In: J. Gackenbach (Ed.) Sleep and Dreams: A Sourcebook. Garland, New York, 1986: 187206. Bernstein, D. M. and Belicki, K. On the psychometric properties of retrospective dream content questionnaires. Imagin. Cogn. Pers., 199596, 15: 351364. Blagrove, M. and Akehurst, L. Personality and dream recall frequency: further negative ndings. Dreaming, 2000, 10: 139148. Blagrove, M. T., Button, L. and Bradshaw, C. Dream recall frequency is associated with openness to experience but not sleep length. Sleep Suppl., 2003, 26: A91A92. Borbely, A. Schlafgewohnheiten, Schlafqualita t und Schlafmittelkonsum der Schweizer Bevo lkerung: Ergebnisse einer Repra sentativumfrage. Schweiz Arzteztg, 1984, 65: 16061613. Botman, H. I. and Crovitz, H. F. Dream reports and autobiographical memory. Imagin. Cogn. Pers., 198990, 9: 213224. Chipman, K. and Kimura, D. An investigation of sex dierences on incidental memory for verbal and pictorial material. Learn. Individ. Differ., 1998, 10: 259272. Cohen, D. B. A comparison of genetic and social contributions to dream recall frequency. J. Abnorm. Psychol., 1973a, 82: 368371. Cohen, D. B. Sex role orientation and dream recall. J. Abnorm. Psychol., 1973b, 82: 246252. Cohen, D. B. Remembering and forgetting dreams. In: J. F. Kihlstrom and F. J. Evans (Eds) Functional Disorders of Memory. Wiley, New York, 1979: 239274. Colace, C. Sulla valutazione delle credibilita dei sogni raccontati dai bambini: uno studio preliminare. Psichiatria dell infanzia e dell adolescenza, 1998, 65: 518. 2008 European Sleep Research Society, J. Sleep Res., 17, 125131

Blagrove and Akehurst (2000) did not nd an eect of verbal memory capacity on DRF. The ndings 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 specic 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 is available 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) investigated the direct eect of possible explanatory factors on the gender dierence in dream recall by applying statistical methods like regression analyses and partial correlations. Schredl (2000) was not able to nd a signicant reduction in the gender dierence 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 dierence (d = 0.71; N = 722), was additionally included, the gender dierence was no longer signicant. Although the ndings suggest that the gender dierence in interest in dreams explains the gender dierence in DRF, it is dicult 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 aected by socialization which, in turn, might be gender specic. Therefore, interest in dreams should also be measured in longitudinal studies to determine possible causal links. Exploratory analyses of other factors explaining the gender dierence 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 significant results (Schredl, 200203). The score of a rating scale measuring subjective meaning of dreams, however, did have an eect and reduced the gender dierence 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 eect of the above-listed factors such as verbal intelligence, verbal memory, recall of emotional experience and frequency of talking about emotional matters on the gender dierence in dream recall by applying suitable statistical methods such as those reported above.

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