I use a series of questionnaires for some things, which allows me to express in quantitative terms the relations among various aspects of the dreaming and waking experiences. For other things I create forms for purposes of coding some aspects of the dream report myself.

All this allows me to approach the phenomenon from the perspective of both my own theoretical constructs and empirically derived psychometric properties.

<<Sounds to me like the author just has a grudge against a psych prof who didn't share his views and interests.>>

I wish it was as simple as a collection of bad experiences in graduate school. Actually my research always ended up being well regarded and my doctoral dissertation (dreams of cancer patients) was considered wildly successful. But I still see too steep a competitive disadvantage for persons interested in dreams when it comes to winning external sources of funding and tenure-track positions in universities. I don't need $ to do my research, and I suspect most psychology profs don't unless they purposely design their research to justify the request for funds, all so they could put a grant on their CV. Faculty search committees give more weight to grants than to any other factor, which in the field of Psychology, has the effect of discriminating against many psychologistic research topics. Like a domino effect, this has a way of affecting the professional training model and what psych profs look for in graduate students and applicants to graduate programs.

So, yes, I did not appreciate the prejudices of the all-too common psych prof, and this prejudice was far more prevalent than a single bad experience. Moreover, as pervasive as this is, it is not just politics, it is also professional training and professional development issues, which are universal. So before you chalk this up to "isolated thunderstorms", you should know that what we're really dealing with scattered thunderstorms and, possibly worse, to enduring climatological features. What I am doing is not a complaint. It is a critique. An organized body of educated opinions from a PhD in Social Psychology who decided not to pursue an improbable career in Psychology. (The career is improbable for many, not just for me. Hundreds of PhDs wander in the wilderness of gypsy adjuncting, fooling themselves into thinking they have bona fide employment and the respect of their "colleagues." The field has been, is, and always will be too saturated and under these conditions, faculty search commitees can afford to cherry pick the one applicant out of 80-200 who tows the company line and embodies the "average").

And before you buy the charge of "sour grapes" that many Psychology stakeholders like to use in managing a favorable image of their field against me (and others like me), you should know that even if there had been a revenge motive -- even if I went public because I was disgruntled -- you should know that the motivation to express an opinion cannot be used to discount that opinion. Why? Too many people out there have legitimate reasons to blow whistles, and what they are complaining about has a significance broader than their own plight/fate. If you want to dismiss an argument, that is easy. I could dismiss the moon landing if I wanted. But if you want to rebut or refute an argument, you have to address it on logical/empirical grounds. No evasive end runs.

Wyatt Ehrenfels