우울증 환자의 꿈 내용

Dream Contents of Depressed Patients

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the so-called depression-suggestive dream contents and the degree of depression in depressed patients. This study was done at psychiatric outpatient clinic of Kyungpook University Hospital during the 10 months from September, 1982 to July, 1983. The subjects of this study were 122 depressed and 57 non-depressed patients. All the subjects were asked to report their most recent dreams and the subjects, who reported dreams, were administered Zung’s Self-rating Depression Scale at the first psychiatric interview. As for the depression-suggestive dream contents, three categories were adopted; the dead object, the depressive theme, and unpleasant feeling of the dream ego. The depressive themes consisted of the following 5 items; loss, physical discomfort or injury, rejected or mistreated, escape, and blamed or criticized. The only one depressive theme was chosen out of each dream according to the final condition of the dream ego. The chosen depressive themes were specified respectively in accordance with the mutual agreement of the two authors. The frequency of the dreams with the depression-suggestive dream contents between the depressed patients and the non-depressed patients was compared. Then, the degree of depression between the depressed patients with the depression-suggestive dream contents and those without the depression-suggestive dream contents was compared. The results could be summarized as follows: 1. The rate of the dreams with the dead objects in the depressed patients, 21. ᄋ% ，was significantly higher than that of the non-depressed patients, 7. 5 %. Among the dead objects in the dreams of the depressed patients, the relatives were the highest in frequency. 2. The frequency of the dreams with the depressive themes among the depressed patients, 29.5%, was significantly higher than that of the non-depre ssed patients, 12.3%. The depressive themes in the dreams of the depressed patients appeared in frequency order of loss, physical discomfort or injury, rejected or mistreated, escape, and blamed or criticized. 3. The rate of the unpleasant dreams in the depressed patients was almost the same as that of the non-depressed patients. 4. Finally, the degree of depression was lower in the depressed patients with the depression-suggestive dream contents than in those without the depression-suggestive dream contents. Considering the above results, it is understood that the unconsciousness of the depressed patients reveals characteristic depression-suggestive dream contents compared with the non-depressed patients, but not necessarily according to the degree of depression