Consistency and Change in Long Dream Series

Abstract

The previous chapters have established the potential of our coding system in terms of its reliability and its ability to yield findings compatible with common understandings of age, gender, and cultural differences. We are not surprised by the ways children’s dream reports differ from those of adults, or men’s from women’s, nor by the cultural differences in some content categories. In a certain sense we are not enlightened by these findings, for they tell us nothing new about children, gender differences, or cross-cultural psychology. Such findings give us confidence, however, that our coding system is picking up psychologically relevant findings and therefore may lead to new and interesting findings in future studies.