For boys and girls dreams with aggression are equal in both sexes. However, after the age of twelve boys continue to dream about aggression i.e. competition, physical threats while girls begin to dream more about appearance and feelings. As both sexes mature sexually dreams diverge especially in the area of emotions and dream characters. These differences occur across cultures (Self…).

Women in general dream about negative emotions while men dream about positive emotions. Some of the most common emotions that women dream about are; anger, fear, hatred, and resentment. On the other hand, the emotional content of men’s dreams consists of joy, contentment, and curiosity. Across genders prominent emotions involve; surprise, distress, shame, fear, joy, guilt, contempt, anger, disgust, confusion, stress, and interest. In both sexes the primary perception felt is vision, then hearing and finally touch and smell. Surprisingly taste is not a perceptual experience in dreams of both sexes.

Dream characters appear differently in men and women’s dreams. For women the primary dreaming character is the opposite sex, then other females, and lastly being alone. Men dream about male and females equally, then other males, females, and then finally being alone. Also, when men dream about other men conflict or competition is often prevalent. If either gender dreams about aggression a man is generally the target. However, there is another difference between the sexes in that females will dream about verbal aggression and men will dream about physical aggression or action (Self…).

In various studies that have crossed cultures these same differences have been found in many countries like; Scotland, Nigeria, and Australia with little variation. Dreaming about gender specific themes is universal. As a general rule people will dream about those things that are important to them during waking life. If those topics or themes are gender specific then these themes will be a part of the dreaming process. Dreaming can be seen as an opportunity for the subconscious, which is running even during waking life to unravel some of the daily tension and anxiety. Dreaming is one way to become conscious of some of the issues that we experience daily through interpretation and, thereby, receive a different perspective on those daily issues.

Sources:

http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/qa/qadream/qadream11.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1097643/male_and_female_dreaming_differences.html?cat=68