Iranians' Beliefs About Dreams: Developing and Validating the My Beliefs About Dreams Questionnaire

Several different beliefs about the importance of dreams have been recorded from ancient times to the present. In ancient Iranian culture, dreams had a special importance. Similarly, in modern times, Iranians pay much attention to their dreams. The present questionnaire study of several beliefs about dreams describes the beliefs of 486 Iranian university students in Tehran (men = 253; women = 233) from the Tarbiat Modares and Allameh Tabatabai University about their dreams through administering of the My Beliefs About Dream Questionnaire (MBDQ). The two main objectives of the research were to examine the psychometric properties of the MBDQ and to describe the dream beliefs of Iranian college students. Factor analysis of the MBDQ yielded a six-factor solution. In general, the present investigation revealed moderate to high construct validity and reliability of the MBDQ. A wide range of variation in dream beliefs was found among Iranian college students, with religious beliefs having much influence upon them.