The objective of this study was to differentiate ordinary dreams from traumatic and PTSD-related dreams, by using The Sang Bok Lee Neurocognitive Dream Orientation Scales assessing the narrative dream contents.

1248 dreams were collected from 416 Korean college students, Yongin, South Korea - 198 males (M age=20.46 years, SD=1.32) and 218 females (M age=20.17, SD=1.26). The collected dreams were evaluated to find traumatic and PTSD-related dreams by using The Sang Bok Lee Neurocognitive Dream Orientation Scales, designed by Sang Bok Lee. These scales particularly asked about the dreamers a series of cognitive orientations that cover location, person, event, the dreamer’s perception and coping action in the dream narratives. The PTSD-related dreams were hypothesized as having (1) frequently recurrent, (2) unfamiliar, (3) unexpected and accidental, (4) emotionally dreadful or fearful, and (5) not actively coped by the dreamer.

392 dreams (31%) of 1248 collected dreams were found as traumatic or very/extremely anxious dreams according to The Lee Anxiety Dream Scales (Mean=4.56). 36 dreams (0.9%) of 392 traumatic dreams were frequently recurrent and evaluated as PTSD-related. Strong positive correlation was found between 392 traumatic dreams and independent variables (unfamiliar: r=.85, p=0.0001; accidental: r=.82, p=0.0001; dreadful or fearful: r=.95, p=0.0001; not coped by the dreamer: r=.87, p=0.0001).

In this study, the traumatic and PTSD-related dreams were associated with unfamiliar, accidental, emotionally dreadful or fearful, not coped by the dreamer, and recurrent events.