Dreaming activity in bariatric surgery candidates

The objective of this article was to contribute to the comprehension of thepsychological aspects of severe obesity by analyzing the dream characteristics ofbariatric surgery candidates. Given the lack of previous studies comparing controlsubjects and obese patients, we did not formulate specific hypotheses on possibledifferences between the 2 groups. We conducted a pilot study, generating hypothesesfor future research. The study observed 41 severely obese individuals in presurgicalpsychiatric evaluation for bariatric surgery and 41 healthy volunteers of similar age.The last recalled dream of each participant was recorded and transcribed (dreamreport). According to the Jungian approach to dreams as texts, the dream reportswere evaluated according to the canons of textual analysis. Structural differencesbetween bariatric surgery candidates and the control group emerged: The bariatricsurgery candidates tend not to alternate between tenses, their narration inferior indrive and dynamism. They tend to characterize the dream setting in a descriptivemanner and they express less their emotional state in respect to the control group. Themean score of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale was significantly higher in thebariatric surgery candidates group. Our results suggest that severe obesity-acomplex condition pertaining to both mind and body-correlates with psychologicaltraits.