Abstract

Many species dream, yet there remain many open research questions in the study of dreams. The symbolism of dreams and their interpretation is present in cultures throughout history. Analysis of online data sources for dream interpreta-tion using network science leads to understanding symbolism in dreams and their associated meaning. In this study, we introduce dream interpretation networks for English, Chi-nese and Arabic that represent different cultures from var-ious parts of the world. We analyze communities in these networks, finding that symbols within a community are se-mantically related. The central nodes in communities give insight about cultures and symbols in dreams. The commu-nity structure of different networks highlights cultural sim-ilarities and differences. Interconnections between different networks are also identified by translating symbols from dif-ferent languages into English. Structural correlations across networks point out relationships between cultures. Simi-larities between network communities are also investigated by analysis of sentiment in symbol interpretations. We find that interpretations within a community tend to have similar sentiment. Furthermore, we cluster communities based on their sentiment, yielding three main categories of positive, negative, and neutral dream symbols.