I am director of the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb), a digital archive and search engine devoted to empirical dream research. My Ph.D. is in religion and psychological studies, from the University of Chicago Divinity School. I serve on the editorial boards of the journals Dreaming and Pastoral Psychology, and I have written and edited several books, including Dreaming in the World's Religions (2008), Big Dreams (2016), the second revised edition of An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming (2017), and the forthcoming Lucrecia the Dreamer: Prophecy, Cognitive Science, and the Spanish Inquisition (2018).
This article examines the specific features of dreaming found in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderl... more This article examines the specific features of dreaming found in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, using current dream research as a guide. These features include falling, magical animals, metamorphoses, wordplay, bizarreness, memory distortions, moral ambiguities, metacognition, curiosity, empathy, existential questioning, and freedom. When Carroll’s stories are viewed through the lens of the current dream research, it becomes clear that he has provided a surprisingly accurate and comprehensive accounting of human dream experience. Drawing on historical and biographical evidence, this article goes on to argue that Carroll intentionally made dreams a central part of the stories because he wanted to give his young readers a tool for resisting the oppressive normality of adulthood in Victorian England, at the peak of the British empire. By subtly teaching his young listeners about the true nature of dreaming, Carroll was cultivating their critical capa...
This paper reports the findings of an analysis of an online survey of a large, demographically di... more This paper reports the findings of an analysis of an online survey of a large, demographically diverse group of American adults answering questions about their attitudes towards dreaming (N=5,255), with the goal of exploring factors like dream recall, age, gender, ethnicity, education, and religious orientation in relation to people’s positive and negative attitudes towards dreaming. In addition to confirming or disconfirming previous research regarding the effects of dream recall, age, and gender, this study examines three demographic variables that have not been previously considered in detail—ethnicity, education, and religious orientation—for possible connections with people’s attitudes towards dreaming. The results of the analysis confirm earlier findings that people with high dream recall tend to have more positive attitudes towards dreaming than people with low dream recall; women tend to have more positive attitudes towards dreaming than men; and younger people tend to have ...
This article presents evidence in support of the theory that dreaming is imaginative play in slee... more This article presents evidence in support of the theory that dreaming is imaginative play in sleep. Both play and dreaming are innate behaviors of our species that have the adaptive, survival-enhancing effect of stretching our minds beyond what is to imagine what might be. To explain why dreaming can best be conceived as a kind of play, the article draws upon research in evolutionary biology, neuroscience, developmental psychology, anthropology, religious studies, and therapeutic practices. The play theory of dreaming is capable of integrating these various sources of evidence into a clear conceptual framework that can account for many aspects of dreaming, including its connections with the biology of sleep, its overlap with the default network, the variability of dream recall, bizarreness, social content, threat simulations, post-traumatic stress disorder, and cultural and religious innovation.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Jan 15, 2017
Where do our dreams originate from, and what do they tell us? Is there a universal set of symbols... more Where do our dreams originate from, and what do they tell us? Is there a universal set of symbols that are common to all dreams, regardless of a person's ethnicity or culture? What does dreaming reveal about the unconscious? Why do some dreams remain etched in our memories, whereas others are almost instantly forgotten? Some scientists have adopted the position that dreams are little more than noise in the brain, without any substantive purpose or function. Yet, such a stance seemingly runs counter to the experience of many people who reflect upon and even analyze their dreams, often in search of clues to their daily lives or insights into their deeper selves. Similarly, in virtually all wisdom traditions, dreams are invoked as an important source of revelation or prophecy. Steve Paulson, executive producer and host of To the Best of Our Knowledge, moderated a discussion that included psychologist Deirdre Barrett, dream researcher Kelly Bulkeley, and psychologist and sleep/dream...
... He wants to revise Freud's understanding of Dora's dream in accordance with... more ... He wants to revise Freud's understanding of Dora's dream in accordance with his own sense of dream-messages-from-above. Freud, he says, has missed an" existen-... Now, does this mean I claim to have discovered the one true and correct meaning of Dora's dream? No. ...
We present a theory of the creativity of dreams as well as psychopathology of religious delusions... more We present a theory of the creativity of dreams as well as psychopathology of religious delusions with respect to production of fundamental forms of religious cognition-specifically supernatural agent (SA) cognitions. We suggest that dream cognitions are particularly efficient at producing highly memorable and impactful experiences with SAs because dreams involve three processes that are prerequisites for the generation of god concepts: (1) mental simulations of alternative realities, (2) theory of mind attributions to the extra-natural dream characters and divine beings, and (3) attribution of ultimate value (exemplified by 'good spirit beings'), and dis-value (exemplified by demonic monsters) to the supernatural dream characters. Because prefrontal cortex is deactivated during rapid eye movements (REM) sleep agentic impulses and internally generated ideas are not reliably attributed to Self or dreamer. Instead an exaggerated degree of agency is attributed to these supernat...
This article examines the specific features of dreaming found in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderl... more This article examines the specific features of dreaming found in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, using current dream research as a guide. These features include falling, magical animals, metamorphoses, wordplay, bizarreness, memory distortions, moral ambiguities, metacognition, curiosity, empathy, existential questioning, and freedom. When Carroll’s stories are viewed through the lens of the current dream research, it becomes clear that he has provided a surprisingly accurate and comprehensive accounting of human dream experience. Drawing on historical and biographical evidence, this article goes on to argue that Carroll intentionally made dreams a central part of the stories because he wanted to give his young readers a tool for resisting the oppressive normality of adulthood in Victorian England, at the peak of the British empire. By subtly teaching his young listeners about the true nature of dreaming, Carroll was cultivating their critical capa...
This paper reports the findings of an analysis of an online survey of a large, demographically di... more This paper reports the findings of an analysis of an online survey of a large, demographically diverse group of American adults answering questions about their attitudes towards dreaming (N=5,255), with the goal of exploring factors like dream recall, age, gender, ethnicity, education, and religious orientation in relation to people’s positive and negative attitudes towards dreaming. In addition to confirming or disconfirming previous research regarding the effects of dream recall, age, and gender, this study examines three demographic variables that have not been previously considered in detail—ethnicity, education, and religious orientation—for possible connections with people’s attitudes towards dreaming. The results of the analysis confirm earlier findings that people with high dream recall tend to have more positive attitudes towards dreaming than people with low dream recall; women tend to have more positive attitudes towards dreaming than men; and younger people tend to have ...
This article presents evidence in support of the theory that dreaming is imaginative play in slee... more This article presents evidence in support of the theory that dreaming is imaginative play in sleep. Both play and dreaming are innate behaviors of our species that have the adaptive, survival-enhancing effect of stretching our minds beyond what is to imagine what might be. To explain why dreaming can best be conceived as a kind of play, the article draws upon research in evolutionary biology, neuroscience, developmental psychology, anthropology, religious studies, and therapeutic practices. The play theory of dreaming is capable of integrating these various sources of evidence into a clear conceptual framework that can account for many aspects of dreaming, including its connections with the biology of sleep, its overlap with the default network, the variability of dream recall, bizarreness, social content, threat simulations, post-traumatic stress disorder, and cultural and religious innovation.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Jan 15, 2017
Where do our dreams originate from, and what do they tell us? Is there a universal set of symbols... more Where do our dreams originate from, and what do they tell us? Is there a universal set of symbols that are common to all dreams, regardless of a person's ethnicity or culture? What does dreaming reveal about the unconscious? Why do some dreams remain etched in our memories, whereas others are almost instantly forgotten? Some scientists have adopted the position that dreams are little more than noise in the brain, without any substantive purpose or function. Yet, such a stance seemingly runs counter to the experience of many people who reflect upon and even analyze their dreams, often in search of clues to their daily lives or insights into their deeper selves. Similarly, in virtually all wisdom traditions, dreams are invoked as an important source of revelation or prophecy. Steve Paulson, executive producer and host of To the Best of Our Knowledge, moderated a discussion that included psychologist Deirdre Barrett, dream researcher Kelly Bulkeley, and psychologist and sleep/dream...
... He wants to revise Freud's understanding of Dora's dream in accordance with... more ... He wants to revise Freud's understanding of Dora's dream in accordance with his own sense of dream-messages-from-above. Freud, he says, has missed an" existen-... Now, does this mean I claim to have discovered the one true and correct meaning of Dora's dream? No. ...
We present a theory of the creativity of dreams as well as psychopathology of religious delusions... more We present a theory of the creativity of dreams as well as psychopathology of religious delusions with respect to production of fundamental forms of religious cognition-specifically supernatural agent (SA) cognitions. We suggest that dream cognitions are particularly efficient at producing highly memorable and impactful experiences with SAs because dreams involve three processes that are prerequisites for the generation of god concepts: (1) mental simulations of alternative realities, (2) theory of mind attributions to the extra-natural dream characters and divine beings, and (3) attribution of ultimate value (exemplified by 'good spirit beings'), and dis-value (exemplified by demonic monsters) to the supernatural dream characters. Because prefrontal cortex is deactivated during rapid eye movements (REM) sleep agentic impulses and internally generated ideas are not reliably attributed to Self or dreamer. Instead an exaggerated degree of agency is attributed to these supernat...
These data accompany the paper "A Blind Text Analysis of a Woman's 2,500 Dreams from 32 Years of ... more These data accompany the paper "A Blind Text Analysis of a Woman's 2,500 Dreams from 32 Years of Journaling." The spreadsheet presents three subsets (total N=537) of the dreams of "Brianna" (a pseudonym), with the results of analyzing the dreams according to the forty categories of the 2.0 word search template in the Sleep and Dream Database. Also included are the results of the 2.0 word search template for the SDDb Female Baselines, a collection of 3,095 most recent dreams that provide a basis for comparison with the results from Brianna's dreams.
A series of the author’s own dreams recorded over 1,001 consecutive nights offers insights into t... more A series of the author’s own dreams recorded over 1,001 consecutive nights offers insights into the meaningful patterns of dream content and their relations to waking life. The topics discussed include: methods of remembering and recording dreams; areas of continuity between dreaming and waking life, especially personal relationships; religious and spiritual themes in dreaming; and the similarities and differences between dreams of varying lengths. The analysis of this series of dreams suggests a number of working hypotheses that can help to provide some initial orientation and methodological guidance when studying a new dream series. This spreadsheet provides the raw results of the word search analysis.
An appendix to SDDb Research Papers #4, "A Blind Analysis of a Blind Dreamer: A Conference Presen... more An appendix to SDDb Research Papers #4, "A Blind Analysis of a Blind Dreamer: A Conference Presentation."
This presentation demonstrates the use of a digital word search method to study 800 dreams record... more This presentation demonstrates the use of a digital word search method to study 800 dreams recorded in a personal journal over a period of several years by a female participant. A “blind” analysis, focusing exclusively on the frequencies of word usage in her dreams, enabled several accurate predictions about her waking life, including the fact that she has been sight-impaired since early childhood.
In 2016 I gave a conference presentation in which I analyzed a long series of dreams from an unkn... more In 2016 I gave a conference presentation in which I analyzed a long series of dreams from an unknown person and made predictions about their waking life. After I was done, the individual stood up in the audience and graded the accuracy of my inferences. This was data-driven dream interpretation as a high-wire act without a net. The setting was the thirty-third annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, in Kerkrade, the Netherlands. Because I knew the dreamer (pseudonym " Brianna ") was present somewhere in the audience and was going to respond as soon as I finished, I anxiously tried to prepare myself for a very public belly-flop if my analysis turned out to be completely wrong. The text of the presentation is below, which I somehow delivered despite being in a fugue-like state of jet lag.
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Papers by Kelly Bulkeley