They found that real-life race does matter in the dream world: Individuals reported that the largest proportion of people in their dreams were of their own race. The racial makeup of people’s dreams also tended to match the racial makeup of their daily lives. The findings were true of both blacks and whites, Hoekstra said. Asian and Hispanic participants showed similar patterns, but there were too few of those races in the study to draw firm statistical conclusions.
Television can apparently creep into dreams as well, Hoekstra said. People who watched more TV reported more blacks and fewer whites in their dreams. Preferences for sports and comedy programs, in particular, seemed linked to dreaming about more blacks, perhaps because those genres represent more black people than other shows.
“If you’re living in a predominately white community that [TV] would be another place you would run into people of color,” Hoekstra said.
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