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.