Research Method

This page describes the actual standard every article on this site is written against - not a general statement of intent, but the specific checks applied before a claim gets published.

For Dream Science

Claims about sleep and dream research draw on peer-reviewed research, established sleep medicine organisations, university sources, and recognised work in psychology and neuroscience. Where a specific researcher or study is named - Aserinsky and Kleitman’s discovery of REM sleep, Calvin Hall and Robert Van de Castle’s dream content studies, Antti Revonsuo’s threat simulation theory - it’s because that attribution is genuinely part of the historical record of the field, not decoration. Where evidence is limited, contested, or still developing, articles say so directly rather than presenting it as settled.

For Historical Interpretation

Historical claims follow the standard set out in this site’s editorial policy: a specific author, work, date and culture, not a vague appeal to “ancient people” or “medieval belief.” A claim attributed to Artemidorus’s Oneirocritica is checked against what that specific 2nd-century text is actually documented as saying, not against a general impression of “ancient dream interpretation.” See Sources for the primary texts and researchers referenced most often across this site.

For Folklore

Folk beliefs and customs - a dream-telling taboo, a courtship divination ritual - are described as documented cultural practices, sourced from the kind of material found in recognised folklore collections and academic ethnographic work, rather than treated as free-floating “ancient wisdom.” Where a folk claim is genuinely widespread but hard to pin to one specific source, the article says that explicitly, rather than manufacturing a false citation.

What Gets Avoided

• Modern dream-interpretation blogs and unsourced “dream dictionary” sites, used as primary evidence for anything.
• Presenting a single study’s finding as scientific consensus.
• Presenting a historical or psychoanalytic theory (Freud, Jung) as current scientific fact.
• Inventing a specific historical detail to make a claim sound more authoritative than the evidence actually supports.

A Standard, Not a Guarantee

This is a small, independent reference site, not a peer-reviewed journal. The standard above is what every article is checked against before publishing, and it’s why claims are consistently hedged, attributed, and separated by type throughout the site - but readers should still treat any specific claim with the same reasonable scepticism they’d bring to any single source. If something here looks wrong, get in touch - see Corrections for what happens next.