Dreams a forlorn effort to resolve unfinished business

BRISBANE - Dreams, while meaningful, don't hold the answers to life's problems, a study suggests.

Queensland University of Technology psychology researcher Sandy Sacre said dreams did not give people answers to their innermost questions, but were instead a continuation of waking thought that served no specific purpose.

Ms Sacre carried out five studies, which examined the dreams of 270 recent divorcees, to determine if they helped them adjust to their trauma.

She said the findings overturned popular theories of dream function that revolved around the idea that dreams could help individuals cope with emotionally difficult situations.

"I followed them up over a period of a year and found that [their dreams] didn't help them and the ones that dreamt a lot about their problems were the ones that were the least well adjusted a year on."

Ms Sacre, from the university's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said the most common themes of dreams were ambivalence towards former partners, loss of control, disasters, exposure and vulnerability.

Few dreamed about positive themes, such as surviving a disaster, renovating the house and repairing things, "which seemed to be a metaphor for what they were trying to do in their waking lives".

"There was certainly a metaphorical element to what they were dreaming about, but it seemed like the dreams were much like their waking thought - dreams tended to just reflect what was going on in their lives rather than actually helping them or providing solutions," Ms Sacre said.

"Dreams have meaning but no independent function of their own. They don't make you wiser, they don't have the answers to people's problems."

Australian Psychoanalytical Society deputy president Dr Frances Salo said dreams still played an important role.

"I think part of sleeping and dreaming is about chunking down the events of the day into long-term memory.

"The dreams are usually the thoughts, conflicts, wishes and feelings that we haven't processed enough that in some way are still preoccupying us. They're part and parcel of trying to make sense of life."

- AAP