Gackenbach, J.I. (2019, June). Color in Dreams: A Scientific Analysis of the Artists Expression. Paper presented at the International Association for the Study of Dreams, Kerkrade, The Netherlands.

1. COLOR IN DREAMS:
A SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS OF THE
ARTISTS EXPRESSION
Jayne Gackenbach, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus in Psychology
MacEwan University
Gackenbach, J.I. (2019, June). Color in Dreams: A Scientific Analysis of the Artists Expression. Paper
presented at the International Association for the Study of Dreams, Kerkrade, The Netherlands.

2. ARTIST OR SCIENTIST?
• Retired exactly one year ago
• As Professor Emeritus from MacEwan University
• Sill work part time at online tutoring for Athabasca University
• For a year I did a “detox” from the academy and did NO RESEARCH, with light
scholarship
• During that year I took art lessons, sold crafts as craft sales, made art gifts for others
and
• revisioned my role(s) in part by creating art pieces from two previous books

3. BOOK IMAGES

4. DOING ART HELPS SCIENCE
• While I tried to “redefine” myself as more artist than scientist after a year due to a
series of “coincidences” my passion for research re-emerged
• I am now writing up various file drawer studies with former students and feel
invigorated by the break
• Doing art helped me to get clearer about both what art means in my life and its role
in reinvigorating me as a scientist
• This was always there as I made time for art my entire life, but it was not a primary
emphasis as it was for the past year
• Part of this process is a personal exploration of color in my dreams and paintings of
my dreams

5. CASE STUDY
• This is a case study of a scientist who has been an artist/crafter
longer than a dream scientist.
• I often have a key color in my dreams
• In the last year this has also become a cross model synesthesia
experience in dreams (i.e., a character is conceptualized as a color
and not seen as a person)
• In this presentation,
• the science about color in dreams,
• a personal experience of color in dreams
• as it relates to painting expressions of the dream

6. MEANING OF COLOR IN DREAMS
• Laboratory dream studies have shown that while most dreams are in color
(70% to 83%) (Hoss, 2018)
• only about 25% report colors in their dreams outside of the dream
laboratory.
• Observed colors condense with dream imagery in four ways (Hoss, 2018):
• “amplify the emotional content of the dream image;
• compliments the associations within the image alone;
• color association sometimes revealed hidden meaning within the dream
image;
• sometimes colors appear outside of any object attachment seemingly to
represent a general emotional environment associated with the dream
story at that point.”

7. 2015: THE YEAR OF COLOR AND COLLAGE
• This exploration was undertaken to explore if color in dreams was
related to the my dream related artistic endeavors.
• A year was picked where I did the most artwork based upon
previous nighttime dreams.
• In 2015, 210 dreams were recorded on 154 days.
• The number of dreams recorded that year ranged from seven to
31 per month with a mean of about 17 dreams per month.
• Colors were mentioned 228 times in these 210 dreams.

8. SPLITTING THE YEAR
• The years dreams were split into two half year sections with color words
examined in each half.
• This was done because it was obvious that the dream inspired art work
clustered in the second half of the year
• Thus comparison to dreams from the same year seemed informative
• The dreams in 1st half of the year had 11,987 words (37.5% of the years
dreams) while those in the 2nd half had 19,922 (62.5%).
• It appears that here are more colored words in the second half of the 2015
dreams, when more painting dreams occurred, that difference appears to
echo that there are more words in the second half.
• Subsequent statistical analysis did not support this assumption.

9. COLORS
MENTIONED IN
2015 DREAMS

10. BLACK AND WHITE
• Most noteworthy of these color mentions was the high incidence
of white and black relative to other colors, followed by red.
• I mean that in the dream there was mention of the whiteness or
blackness of an object or person or scene, rather than simply the
oft observed “my dreams are in black and white”.

11. PURPOSE
• The purpose herein is to connect these colors to the waking art work that
emerged from the dreams.
• Only 26 of these 210 dreams were painted,
• they were chosen to paint due to their emotional impact and their
relevance to waking events.
• All but two of these 26 dream/paintings occurred in the second half of the
year.
• There was a four and half month gap between the first two dream paintings
of the year and the remaining 24.

12. DIARY SEGMENTS
• When the painted dreams were examined alone, 81% had at least one color
mentioned in the dream.
• Significantly more words of color in painted dreams than dreams (mean=1.6)
NOT painted (mean=1.0)
• I was not motivated to paint a dream due to a color in it, rather it was more
about the emotion of the dream and its relationship to my waking life
circumstance.

13. COLOR WORDS
• Half year x painted on
color words
• Brown and yellow had
significant main effects
for both variables and
interactions – both
looked like this
1st half year 2nd half year
Painted
Not Painted

14. SENTIMENT CODING WITH NVIVO
• Nvivo is a qualitative computer based
software
• It has a built in sentiment coding function
• There are two parent sentiment nodes:
Positive and Negative.
• Further refine to “very” and “moderately”
• Half year x painted on sentiments as coded
by NVivo in their default coding
• Very positive had main effects for both
independent variables and a significant
interaction
1st half year 2nd half year
Painted
Not Painted

15. SENTIMENT IN DREAM CODING
FROM NVIVO
• Significant correlations between color words and sentiments for all dreams in 2015
(significant but low magnitude)
• White with moderately negative (r=.18)
• Red with very negative (r=.15)
• Blond with very positive (r=.15)
• Purple with moderately positive (r=.17)
• Only dreams that were painted correlations between sentiment and color:
• Red with very negative (r=.49)
• The remaining correlations were NOT significant

16. PAINTED VERSUS NOT PAINTED DREAMS
ON COLORS AND THE WORD ‘COLOR’
• Significant difference for:
• ‘Color’, green and mahogany where in each case the painted dreams were higher
than the nonpainted – no difference on all other colors

17. PAINTED VERSUS NOT PAINTED
DREAMS ON SENTIMENTS
Dependent Variable
painted dream (1=yes;
2=no) Mean Std. Error
Very positive 1 yes 34.615 7.823
2 no 18.085 2.909
Moderately negative 1 yes 61.538 9.660
2 no 40.426 3.592
Very negative 1 yes 46.154 8.536
2 no 23.404 3.174

18. DREAMS WHERE ONLY BLACK OR ONLY
WHITE WERE MENTIONED ON SENTIMENT
black or white
mentioned (1=white;
2=black) both in same
dream not classified N Mean Std. Deviation
Very positive 1.00 white 37 21.6216% 41.73418%
2.00 black 24 37.5000% 49.45354%
Very negative 1.00 white 37 43.2432% 50.22472%
2.00 black 24 25.0000% 44.23259%
?
Seems
odd

19. BLINDED BY THE SUN
July 13 - 10:23 am
Dreamt early morning about a one story house that was redone and all
deep brown and clean edges- not sure why I’m picking that phrase but
it seems to capture it – in any case the house was to my left and down a
hillside in the dream and I was thinking about how will we get it to
higher ground – I think there was a threat of a flood – I began walking
along the hill top which was plowed field with the rows all very obvious,
but also old dried up previous crop in greyish tone was underfoot as I
walked- the rows were going across my path so I was walking from row
to row and it was kinda wet and my feet kinda sucked into the ground
but not very deep – I looked up to see where this was going thinking of
a place for the redone house and it was hill after hill and I was partially
blinded by the sun but saw slightly to my right a silhouette of a man
sitting in a chair like he was waiting a few hills ahead – but I could only
see him in my right visual field peripheral vision as center was blinded
by strong sunlight

20. BLINDED BY THE SON
• does it represent “blinded by the SON”. Both my student, with whom I was
emotionally close and was a son figure, and my actual son, came to mind. I had just
seen my actual son’s film on euthanasia called “Hold Me”
(http://holdmethemovie.com/).

21. BLINDED BY THE SUN/SON
• In therapy I talked about the strong transcendent experiences I had with each ‘son’.
• We further speculated that I wanted my dark brown, earthen, house to be raised up from the
flood.
• I was often flooded by my unconscious during this period of my life.
• I had recently applied for phased retirement as I faced my 70th birthday and was coming to
understand that perhaps death is the next big ‘event’ in my life.
• In the dream, I am walking across the rows of the tiled field with both old dried up plants from
last season, but it was also wet with promise for a new planting.
• What was ahead of me in my retirement years.
• While in the dream I’m moving towards the light, the obvious and cultural metaphor for death,
but also blinded by it, i.e., sun or son.
• The son is now seated ahead and to the right in my peripheral vision. We thought that perhaps
this was my creative and emotional side while I’m also seeing something transcendent ahead as I
walk into the bright white light. . . .
• Brown and grey’s of the land and house I was trying to raise up out of the flood. These are
earthen colors which seem to point to a groundedness to which I aspire as I enter this last section
of life.

22. CONCLUSION
• Art and science
• inform my own journey
• Give focus and balance to my life in these latter years
• PS
• I still play a lot of video games and ride my motorcycle
