Breger, Hunter and Lane (1971, p. 179) expanded on this perspective:
“The consistency with which each subject represented his fears and conflicts is seen in the recurrence of specific dream elements. Al’s dreams contained high frequencies of defective objects, threats of blockage, water as a threat or discomfort, repair and construction, references to legs and feet, and acts of cutting. Melvin’s dreams contained bodily defects and inadequacies, blockages, lost objects, acts of removing objects, and references to food and eating. Penny’s dreams made reference to defective objects, lost objects, acts of leaving, cutting, and references to food and eating. In all three subjects, the incorporation of these elements was more frequent in the preoperative period when the specific threat of surgery was greatest.”
It is particularly interesting that the strongly repetitive themes are most often apparent in the subjects’ preoperative settings, when the greatest stress exists. They are less often apparent in the post-operative settings where we can assume that stress is lower (Breger, Hunter and Lane, 1971, p. 179).
“One of the most striking ways in which the preoperative stress seems to have affected dream content was in the repetition of elements and themes. The great majority of incorporated elements for the three subjects were repeated in a higher percentage of the pre- than of the postoperative dreams. Interestingly, this was true not only of stress-related incorporations, but of almost all the elements and themes in the preoperative dreams. The narrow range of symbols and themes had the general effect of constricting dream content. For example, four times during the preoperative period Penny had a dream which not only contained the same basic content as an immediately preceding one, but was actually a continuation of its activities and events. Such a sequence occurred only once in her postoperative dreams. This repetition and constriction of dreams when the dreamer is under stress is similar to the repetitive, frightening dreams reported by soldiers in battle conditions. It was just this kind of data that led Freud to the ideas of the repetition compulsion and the role of dreams in attempts at mastery of threatening experiences.”
Perhaps this means that we are more likely to turn during our waking hours to themes that appear in our dreams when we are confronting focal conflict that are highly stressful. We approach and portray focal conflict with a repetitive set of themes and strategies. We find that the stress associated with confronting focal conflict during the nighttime and perhaps during the daytime is likely to precipitate the use of these themes and strategies. This suggests that there may be a reinforcing and accelerating relationship between stress, focal conflict and our repetitive engagement of specific themes and defensive strategies.
There is another important point made by Breger, Hunter and Lane (1979, p. 182) as related to addressing reality through use of dreams:
I”n general, the findings suggest that the amount of incorporation was related more to the level of emotional arousal than to the degree of preoccupation with surgery during the day: the dreams, rather than simply reflecting waking experience, seem to have dealt with unassimilated emotionally arousing information. For example, three subjects—Melvin, Penny, and Paul—had stressful experiences with drainage tubes for which they were not psychologically prepared. In each case the experience seems to have stimulated dreams which incorporated and dealt with the incident in a central way. In the dreams of all the subjects, the individual fears and conflicts are expressed in altered form. That is, the stress-related stimuli appear to be recoded, symbolized, displaced, or condensed so that their expression is at least one step removed from the primary source of stress. It is interesting, for example, that none of the subjects dreamt directly about surgery itself, and that there were generally more symbolic than direct incorporations.”
