Religious Holidays:
Religious significance in Father X's diary was also examined as a function of dreams/experiences around religious holidays. A couple of groups examined this perspective as well as the first author, who did it from the perspective of a quantitative analysis of type of experience.
One of the Freudian groups looked at his dreams around three holidays (Easter, Christmas, and Thanksgiving) to see if there was an increase in aggressive content associated with the holiday months relative to non-holiday (February, June, August, and September) portions of the diary. These holidays were chosen because there were several references in the diary to his father's uncontrollable drinking around the months of Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas/New Year's. It can be seen in this next graph that in a chi square analysis of holiday/nonholiday versus type of sleep experience (OBE, lucid/OBE, lucid dream, nonlucid dream) for all but nonlucid dreams there was a higher average incidence per month during the nonholiday than during the holiday months (X2(7) = 32.48, p<.0001). the reverse was true of nonlucid dreams.
Moreover this group found that of the sleep experiences which did occur as a function of holiday, there were considerably more aggressive dreams in the holiday months (mean = 4.11/month) than in the non-holiday months (mean = 1.38/month). This group argued that the increase in aggression was due to the abusive alcohol consumption by his father in his family of origin as a child. Holidays for Father X were reminders of the worst times thus his primary coping mechanism (OBE/lucid experiences) were less frequent in these months and his aggression was more evident. Consistent with this interpretation is this excerpt from his psychological assessment:
He suffers from tension as a result of sitting on negative feelings trying to suppress them. A relatively high degree of self-focus was noted, aggression is readily perceived in others. He generally expects hostility from the environment and feels quite vulnerable.
This focus on aggression and its relationship to alcohol consumption is evident in the following dream segment:
An attractive lady of about 40 who was acting as bartender came over and I told her to give me the biggest drink in the house, because I was "totally pissed off" . . . While she was gone I started mouthing off in a loud voice calling all dream creatures "nothing but a bunch of assholes," and if they thought they were going to intimidate me they better start thinking again.
Another group looked at changes in dreams as a function of one holiday, Easter, for each of the six years of diary entries. They used the Hall and Van de Castle (1966) system of content analysis. Although there were no obvious references to Easter in these dreams, several scales showed higher incidences before Easter; aggressive interactions, friendly interactions, negative words, while after Easter increases were shown in these scales; characters, sexual interactions, activities, color, large and small size, negative linearity and positive intensity, negative evaluations, time references. Clearly there were more increases in dream elements as a function of Easter than decreases.
The increase in characters, most of which were in the group category, may simply reflect groups of church attendees not ordinarily in Father X's world. The drop in aggression after Easter may be due to the religious overtones of the holiday, the resurrection of Christ and the forgiveness of sins it implies, or due to family of origin memories that drinking was higher at holidays so that when the holiday is over there is relief. These interpretations, however, do not fit with the decrease in friendly interactions after Easter. The increase in sexual interactions after Easter may have religious overtones with the image of rebirth of the Christ and sex as central to conception and birth.
Activities doubled from before (n=12) to after (n=27) Easter. Central among activities is the increase in movement which could be seen as the dreamer controlling his movements more thus he is affected by Easter in a positive manner in that he feels less helpless. This richness of appreciation is also apparent with the big increase in references to color and several other positively tinged descriptive elements. Easter seemed to have a positive influence on Father X which may be due both to the relief at seeing the end of the holiday and the memories it elicits regarding an alcoholic father and to the Christian concept of rebirth through the resurrection of Christ.
In sum all the types of analysis around religious services and holiday showed an effect. Interpretation of this effect is a combination of religious practice and family of origin problems.
Go to: Content Analyses Across Time