Dreams which appear in the same form for many dreamers are called typical. Frequent (recurrent) typical dreams presented by nonepileptic individuals were studied to clarify the nature of typical dreams and to note the possible presence of electroencephalogram abnormalities as have been found during the all-night sleep of certain temporal lobe epileptics with recurrent dreams.Four individuals were interviewed, their dreams collected, and a total of 11 nights of sleep recorded. Although not apparent from initial interviews, all four individuals had more than one specific typical dream. All typical dreams were painful in feeling tone and intrusive. A typical dream may occur in varied motivational contexts, at times simply in association with a somatic sensation. Three individuals had abnormal wave forms in their all-night electroencephalograms. No sustained or epileptiform abnormalities occurred. The appearance of frequent typical dreams may represent a dissolution of the dream mechanism related, in some instances, to an altered neurophysiological factor.