Table 4 Results of the qualitative analysis: thematic analysis
From: Exploring “psychic transparency” during pregnancy: a mixed-methods approach
Themes | Subthemes | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
Link between dream and reality | On/off | Waking up suddenly without any residual element of the dream. | “Sometimes, I’m dreaming and I wake up suddenly…[…] with the feeling of stepping from one world to another”. |
Dream/reality entanglement | Feelings and perceptions during the day that may be linked to dreaming activities. | “Dreams can come back during the day… in a situation or when you’re reading something.” “When I dream about someone …and when I meet them during the day, it feels strange” | |
Gradient | Sliding slowly from dreams to reality in the morning. | “Sometimes when I wake up I am still dreaming.” “Sometimes I start dreaming and then I’m in my patient’s room…wondering how I got there“ (woman working at night as a nurse).” | |
The Other and otherness | Self-understanding to understand others | Experiencing hypersensitivity to others’ feelings – the “emotional sponge”. (mopping up emotion) | “If my family or friends are not well, I’m not well either, I'll try to find out what’s wrong to help them.” |
Self/others entanglement | Guessing people’s feelings based on one’s own perceptions. | “I pay attention to others […] I can tell what people feel by listening to myself and my own feelings.” | |
Anxiety and coping | Death and disintegration (anxiety) | Fearing one’s own death or another’s death. | “I had this dream where my little sister was dead.” |
Identity (anxiety) | Feeling of no longer recognizing others and oneself. | “Sometimes, I dream about people I know but they don’t look like they should” “I dreamt I was a doll and I had two faces: my own face and the doll’s face”. | |
Separation (anxiety) | Fear of drifting apart from those close . | “I dreamt that my mother came to visit me and suddenly [when she wanted to come in] my flat didn’t have doors anymore.” | |
Verbalisation (coping) | Feeling the need to tell someone about the dream in the morning. | “Sometimes, my roommates tell me about their dreams” | |
Reality appraisal (coping) | Checking the reality of some feelings or some memories experienced at night in real life. | “I dreamt my sister was dead, I woke up at 6 AM and phoned her to be sure she was OK even though I knew it was just a dream” | |
Creative activity (coping) | Writing or producing art from dreams. | “I have a diary. I write up some dreams, telling myself that maybe, one day, I’ll publish it.” | |
Rationalisation (coping) | Giving no meaning to the dreams. | “Some dreams have no meaning, they just couldn’t happen in real life so there’s no need to give them any credit.” | |
Therapeutic function of dreams (coping) | Having the feeling that dreams lead to understanding what remains doubtful or unconscious during the day. | “It’s a way my brain is working at night, maybe to digest fears or, else pleasures.” | |
Intellectualization through literature (coping) | Trying to use literature to understand dreams. | “I tried to understand my dreams with books, Freud for example.” | |
Temporality | Biography | Referring to personal life. | “I’m going to a seminary next week.” “About my professional project, I would like to stop working with old people […] maybe psychiatry […] definitely not in paediatrics.” |
Dreams | Referring to the time when dreams occur and to the connexions between dream content and the subject’s personal life. | “Some dreams keep on coming back over the years.” “I often dream in the morning, from 5 AM to 7 AM” | |
Interview | Describing how they managed during the 5-minute interview | “5 min is a very long time.” |