Examining the Storytelling Method of Dream Interpretation with Canadian Soldiers

Abstract

The current study extended previous research on the content of the dreams of Canadian soldiers to the discovery obtained from the dreams. Participants included 25 Canadian male soldiers with operational experience in Afghanistan as well as an age and gender matched control group of 25 Canadian male civilians. Each participant filled out The Storytelling Method worksheet, and discovery passages were coded following Hall and Van de Castle content analysis guidelines. Many significant relationships were found among discovery categories for soldiers. Categories of discovery from the dream were significantly different between soldiers and civilians and support the continuity hypothesis, as was found in previous research with dream imagery. As expected, soldiers had discovery relating to specific events from tours overseas as well as much more discovery about the past when compared to civilians. Years of service in the military was also correlated with relevant discovery categories for soldiers. Limitations as well as future directions for dream interpretation techniques with soldiers are discussed.