Anxiety and dream symbolism.
The present study replicates and extends previous findings of a relation between anxiety level and the use of dream symbolism. Anxiety, assessed by self-reports over a ten-day period, was positively related to the use of sexual symbolism identified from dream reports obtained over the same period. The appearance of symbolic dreams, however, was not preceded by elevated levels of anxiety. A positive relation was uncovered between the measure of anxiety and a measure of manifest sexual content in the dreams.
Anxiety↗