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@misc{cogprints7069, volume = {20}, number = {2}, author = {I{\~n}igo Saez-Uribarri}, note = {This article has been localized of Spanish}, title = {Anxiety upon Awakening and Attributes of Dream Characters}, publisher = {SES - Sociedad Espa{\~n}ola de Sue{\~n}o}, year = {2008}, journal = {Vigilia-Sue{\~n}o}, pages = {61--72}, keywords = {Content analysis, dreams, nightmares, questionnaires, sleep, state anxiety}, url = {http://cogprints.org/7069/}, abstract = {Objective: To explore the attributes of dream characters related to anxiety upon awakening, and the possibility of using these attributes to construct a questionnaire administered to dreamers as an alternative to traditional methods of dream content coding via trained judges, such as those of Hall and Van de Castle and Gottschalk-Gleser. Method: A sample of 169 volunteers rated their dream characters with adjectives. Character attributes related to anxiety upon awakening were analysed through an exploratory factor analysis with orthogonal rotation. Results: With 37 character attributes a KMO sampling adequacy index of 0.83 was obtained and 33.87\% of the variance was explained. Four factors were extracted: Psychological Threat, Auxiliary, Terrifying Threat and Spectator/Victim. Their corresponding alpha coefficients ranged between 0.85 and 0.73 and three of the factors presented significant (p {\pounds} 0.05)correlations with the anxiety of subjects upon awakening. Conclusions: Our results indicate that self-report questionnaires about subjects? dreams are a reliable and valid alternative for assessing dream content. Information obtained about the characters allows for the assessment of the dream and provides indicators which allow for a simple interpretation, which does not contain biases due to the assessor or the ability of the subject to create a report.} }