Individual differences in mental activity at sleep onset.

Reports of sleep-onset and nocturnal (EEG Stage 1, rapid eye-movement [REM] period) mentation, CPIs, and thematic fantasy responses were collected from 32 young-adult Ss. In confirmation of recent findings by Foulkes and Vogel, dreamlike mental activity was found to occur with fairly substantial frequency at sleep onset, albeit with wide individual differences. Patterning of personality correlates with hypnagogic and nocturnal dream recall suggests that the former varies directly with waking ego-strength and adaptive flexibility, while the latter varies directly with indications of waking maladaptive symptomatology. A psychodynamic interpretation of these results is offered.