Prior reports suggest that dreaming during anaesthesia is dependent on recovery 
time. Dreaming during sedation may impact patient satisfaction. The current 
study explores the incidence and content of dreaming during short-term sedation 
with sevoflurane or propofol and investigates whether dreaming is affected by 
recovery time. A total of 200 women undergoing first trimester abortion 
(American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status I) participated in the 
study. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either sevoflurane or propofol 
for short-term sedation. Patients were interviewed upon emergence with the 
modified Brice questionnaire. The results showed the incidence of dreaming was 
significantly different between anaesthesia groups with 60% (60/100) of the 
sevoflurane group and 33% (33/100) of the propofol group (P=0.000). However, 
recovery time did not significantly differ between groups. In the sevoflurane 
group, a greater number of dreamers could not recall what they had dreamed about 
(P=0.02) and more patients reported dreams that had no sound (P=0.03) or 
movement (P=0.001) compared with dreamers in the propofol group. Most 
participants reported dreams with positive emotional content and this did not 
significantly differ between groups. Anaesthesia administered had no effect on 
patient satisfaction. The results suggest that the incidence of dreaming was not 
affected by recovery time. Patient satisfaction was not influenced by choice of 
sedative and/or by the occurrence of dreaming during sevoflurane or propofol 
short-term sedation.