Unlocking Empathy: Swansea University Pioneers the Social Science of Dream Sharing

Swansea, UK – For centuries, dreams have been a source of fascination, mystery, and personal introspection. From ancient shamans to Freudian analysts, the nocturnal narratives of our minds have been primarily understood as deeply individual experiences, reflections of our inner worlds, fears, and desires. However, groundbreaking research emerging from Swansea University in the United Kingdom is challenging this long-held perspective, revealing that the act of sharing and discussing dreams extends far beyond personal insight, fostering profound social benefits, particularly in enhancing empathy.

A dedicated research group, spearheaded by Dr. Mark Blagrove and Dr. Julia Lockhart, has published a series of pivotal papers over the past few years, systematically exploring the personal and social dividends of dream sharing. Their findings not only validate the therapeutic potential of dream discussions for individual self-understanding but also introduce a compelling "empathy theory of dreaming," suggesting that our dreams possess an inherent social function, capable of strengthening bonds and deepening mutual understanding between people. This paradigm shift positions dreams not merely as solitary mental events, but as potential conduits for interpersonal connection and emotional resonance.

The Genesis of Insight: Personal Unfoldings Through Dream Discussion

The initial focus of the Swansea research centered on the individual gains derived from discussing dreams. While various methods of dream interpretation exist, the Swansea team rigorously employed and advocated for the Ullman Dream Technique in their studies. This method, renowned for its non-interpretive and collaborative approach, empowers the dreamer to be the ultimate authority on their dream’s meaning, while a group offers reflective insights and questions.

Understanding the Ullman Dream Technique:
The Ullman method, developed by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Montague Ullman, diverges significantly from traditional expert-led interpretation. Its core principles are built on creating a safe, respectful space where the dreamer feels heard and supported without being told what their dream "means." The process typically unfolds in several key stages:

Dreamer Shares the Dream: The individual recounts their dream as fully and vividly as possible, focusing on details, emotions, and sensory experiences.
Group Asks Clarifying Questions: Listeners pose questions designed to elicit more detail and understanding, such as "Who was there?", "What was the setting like?", "What did you feel at that moment?" These questions are strictly for clarification, not interpretation.
Group Members Share "If It Were My Dream": This is the cornerstone of the Ullman method. Each group member takes turns reflecting on the dream as if it were their own, offering personal associations, feelings, and potential meanings that the dream evokes for them. This crucial step avoids imposing an interpretation on the dreamer, instead offering a range of perspectives and possibilities. For example, a group member might say, "If it were my dream, the red color might signify anger or passion," or "If I were walking alone in that landscape, I might feel a sense of vulnerability."
Dreamer Reflects and Connects: The dreamer listens to these "if it were my dream" projections without comment. After the group has shared, the dreamer then reflects on what resonated with them, what felt insightful, or what sparked new thoughts about their own waking life experiences. The dreamer always retains the ultimate authority over the meaning of their dream.
No Direct Interpretation: The group’s role is to provide a mirror, offering potential reflections and associations, but never to tell the dreamer what their dream definitively signifies.

This methodical approach ensures that the dream remains the property of the dreamer, fostering self-discovery rather than external pronouncements.

Empirical Validation of Personal Insight

In a significant study published in 2019, participants underwent an Ullman dream discussion facilitated by two experimenters. Following the discussion, participants completed the "Gains From Dream Interpretation" questionnaire, designed to quantify the depth of personal insight achieved. To provide a robust comparison, the study included a control condition where participants discussed a recent daydream instead of a dream.

The results were clear and compelling: dreams were consistently associated with higher gains in insight compared to daydreams. These insights encompassed a range of self-discoveries, including statements such as, "I learned what the dream (or daydream) meant for me personally," "I learned about issues in my waking life," and "I learned things that I would not have thought of on my own." This finding provided strong empirical evidence for the long-held belief that engaging with dreams can be a powerful tool for self-understanding, offering unique perspectives on one’s personal circumstances and subconscious processes that might otherwise remain hidden. It underscored the specific richness and symbolic depth inherent in dream narratives that differentiate them from conscious thought processes like daydreams.

The Social Nature of Dreams: A Correlation with Trait Empathy

Moving beyond individual gains, the Swansea team began to explore the social dimensions of dream sharing. A subsequent paper, also published in 2019, posed a crucial initial question: Is there a relationship between an individual’s innate level of empathy (known as "trait empathy") and their habits of engaging with dreams?

In a survey involving 160 participants, a significant correlation emerged. Researchers found a clear link between higher levels of trait empathy and the frequency with which individuals engaged in dream-related activities – specifically, recalling dreams, telling dreams to others, and listening to others’ dreams. Essentially, those individuals who demonstrated a greater natural capacity for empathy in their daily lives were also more likely to be active participants in the social world of dreams. This finding raised intriguing questions about causality: Do more empathetic people naturally gravitate towards sharing and listening to dreams, or does the very act of engaging with dreams cultivate and strengthen empathetic tendencies over time? The subsequent studies would delve deeper into this dynamic.

Cultivating Connection: Dream Sharing and State Empathy

To investigate the causal link between dream sharing and empathy more directly, the same 2019 paper reported on a second, more controlled study. This experiment recruited 27 pairs of participants who were instructed to share and discuss dreams with each other over a defined period. Crucially, participants were asked to rate their "state" empathy – the amount of empathy they felt at a given moment – both before and after each dream discussion session.

The results offered a profound insight into the immediate impact of dream sharing on interpersonal connection. It was specifically found that the person listening to and discussing their partner’s dream experienced a measurable increase in empathy towards the dream sharer as a direct result of the discussion. This enhanced empathy manifested as increased agreement with statements such as, "I can relate to what my friend or partner is going through" and "I can feel my partner’s emotions."

This finding was a significant breakthrough. It demonstrated that dream sharing is not merely a passive exchange of stories but an active process that can emotionally bridge individuals. By providing a window into another person’s subconscious landscape, dreams offer a unique and intimate pathway to understanding their experiences, vulnerabilities, and emotional states, thereby fostering a deeper sense of connection and compassion. This immediate, measurable increase in state empathy highlighted the potential of dream sharing as a powerful tool for strengthening relationships and improving interpersonal understanding.

Sustained Empathy Development: Insights from Longitudinal Research

Building on these foundational findings, more recent research published in 2021 further solidified the transformative potential of dream sharing, particularly for individuals who might benefit most from empathy enhancement. This study involved 23 participant pairs who engaged in four dream discussions over a period of two weeks. Participants completed an empathy scale at baseline, prior to any discussions, and again after the final discussion two weeks later.

For the analysis, participants were strategically divided into a low-baseline empathy group and a high-baseline empathy group based on their initial scores. The results were particularly illuminating: it was specifically the dream discussers in the low empathy group who showed a significant and sustained increase in empathy over the course of the study. In other words, after engaging in these four dream discussions, participants who initially reported lower levels of empathy felt a demonstrably greater sense of empathy toward the person who had been sharing their dreams.

This longitudinal finding carries significant implications. It suggests that dream sharing is not just a mechanism for fleeting empathy boosts, but a potential intervention for cultivating and developing empathy, particularly in individuals who may struggle with it. This opens avenues for therapeutic applications in relationship counseling, social skills training, and even community building, where fostering empathy is a key objective. The ability of dream narratives to bypass conscious defenses and tap into deeper emotional reservoirs appears to be a uniquely effective catalyst for empathetic growth.

Official Responses and The Empathy Theory of Dreaming

The cumulative findings from these studies have coalesced into what Dr. Mark Blagrove terms the "empathy theory of dreaming." This theory posits a radical departure from traditional views of dreams as solely internal phenomena. In Dr. Blagrove’s words, "A function of human and dreaming consciousness could thus be that its content and narratives can be passed to and engaged with by others, resulting in second person, social benefits and not just experienced in the first person for emotional and cognitive processes."

This statement underscores a fundamental shift in understanding. It suggests that one of the inherent purposes of dreaming, or at least one of its significant emergent properties, is to create narratives that are inherently shareable. By sharing these narratives, individuals can engage with the emotional and cognitive world of another, leading to mutual appreciation of life circumstances, emotional states, and even vulnerabilities. The empathy theory of dreaming champions the idea that the power of dreams lies not only in what they reveal to the dreamer, but in what they reveal about the dreamer to others, fostering connection and understanding.

Bridging Science and Art: Public Dream-Sharing Events

Beyond academic publications, Dr. Blagrove and Dr. Julia Lockhart, a distinguished artist, have actively translated their research into public engagement through innovative "dream-sharing events" under the banner of DreamsID.com. These unique events transcend traditional academic outreach, combining the rigorous science of dream research with the evocative power of visual art.

At these public gatherings, an individual volunteer shares their dream with the audience. Dr. Blagrove facilitates an Ullman-style discussion with the dreamer and the audience, guiding them through the non-interpretive process of exploration and reflection. Simultaneously, Dr. Lockhart, with remarkable speed and insight, paints a live visual interpretation of the dream. Adding another layer of symbolic resonance, her canvases are often pages from Freud’s seminal work, The Interpretation of Dreams, creating a dialogue between historical perspectives and contemporary scientific and artistic approaches.

These events serve multiple purposes: they make the research accessible to the public, demonstrate the Ullman technique in practice, and create a powerful, multi-sensory experience of dream sharing. They highlight how the personal and social benefits of engaging with dreams can be brought into public spaces, fostering community, stimulating conversation, and democratizing the often-esoteric world of dream analysis. The live artistic interpretation provides an additional layer of meaning and engagement, helping to externalize and process the dream’s imagery in a tangible and beautiful form.

A Timely Example: Dreams in the Time of COVID-19

The relevance of dream sharing became acutely apparent during the global COVID-19 lockdowns, a period marked by unprecedented social isolation and psychological strain. In a virtual DreamsID.com event held during this time, one participant shared a dream that vividly illustrated the contrasting experiences of isolation and connection:

"I am walking alone in the country, trying to get to a village. I am wearing a red skirt and red jacket. The short route to the village isn’t possible as the sea is coming over the path. The longer route is difficult and involves climbing and takes energy. I go across a thin rope-and-wood bridge, and ignore the advice of a group of people who I don’t know to take the dangerous short route. I am alone and look at the remote village.
I am then at my destination, in a big hall, the sort of venue a wedding would be held in. My friend P is there, she is wearing a thin black dress and tells me her favourite music is the waltz. She tells me my friends are going to be there and a crowd of people start dancing to a waltz."

This dream, shared during a period of enforced solitude, powerfully encapsulated the participant’s experience. The first scene, with its solitary journey, dangerous paths, and remote village, clearly reflected feelings of social isolation and the challenges of navigating an uncertain world alone. The shift to the second scene – a vibrant wedding hall, surrounded by friends, dancing to a waltz – represented a deep yearning for social connection and community.

Sharing and discussing such a dream in waking life, particularly during the isolation of lockdown, offered a critical avenue for social connection and empathy. For the dreamer, it provided a platform to articulate and process their internal experiences, while for the listeners, it offered a profound glimpse into the dreamer’s emotional landscape. This mutual exchange could potentially provide significant social connection and empathy for the dreamer, serving as a vital antidote to the pervasive loneliness experienced by many during the pandemic. It underscored the profound therapeutic and connective power of dream sharing in times of crisis and social disruption.

The Profound Implications: Beyond the Night

The collective body of research from Swansea University unequivocally demonstrates that dream sharing offers a dual pathway to well-being: individual self-understanding and enhanced social connection. These benefits significantly expand our understanding of dreaming, moving beyond theories that exclusively focus on "within-sleep" functions—such as memory consolidation, emotional regulation, or problem-solving during sleep.

The "empathy theory of dreaming" champions a view where dreams are not just for the dreamer, but for the community that surrounds them. This perspective has far-reaching implications across various domains:

Therapeutic Settings: Dream sharing can be integrated into psychotherapy and counseling, particularly for couples or family therapy, to improve communication, foster understanding, and resolve conflicts by exploring the deeper emotional currents revealed in dreams.
Relationship Building: Friends, partners, and colleagues can use dream sharing as a tool to deepen their bonds, cultivate mutual empathy, and create a more supportive and understanding environment.
Education and Personal Development: Incorporating dream discussion techniques in educational settings could enhance emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and communication skills among students.
Community Engagement: Public dream-sharing events, like those spearheaded by Drs. Blagrove and Lockhart, can foster community cohesion, reduce social isolation, and create inclusive spaces for shared human experience.
Mental Health Support: For individuals experiencing loneliness, social anxiety, or difficulty connecting with others, structured dream-sharing groups could provide a safe and effective means to build rapport and experience belonging.

The research not only provides empirical validation for the age-old practice of sharing stories but elevates dream narratives to a new status as powerful social instruments. They are not merely cryptic messages from the subconscious, but invitations to connection, understanding, and empathy in the waking world. The Swansea team’s work opens exciting new frontiers in psychology, suggesting that the very fabric of our nocturnal consciousness holds keys not just to individual well-being, but to the health and harmony of our social lives. As our understanding deepens, dream sharing may well become a recognized and valued practice for fostering a more empathetic and connected society.

References

Blagrove, M., Hale, S., Lockheart, J., Carr, M., Jones, A., & Valli, K. (2019). Testing the empathy theory of dreaming: The relationships between dream sharing and trait and state empathy. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1351.

Blagrove, M., Lockheart, J., Carr, M., Basra, S., Graham, H., Lewis, H., … & Valli, K. (2021). Dream sharing and the enhancement of empathy: Theoretical and applied implications. Dreaming, 31(2), 128.

Edwards, C. L., Malinowski, J. E., McGee, S. L., Bennett, P. D., Ruby, P. M., & Blagrove, M. T. (2015). Comparing personal insight gains due to consideration of a recent dream and consideration of a recent event using the Ullman and Schredl dream group methods. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 831.