Why Some People Remember Their Dreams While Others Don’t | STUDY

Have you ever had someone ask, “What did you dream about last night?” and you felt blank? It’s a universal experience for roughly one in four, while others can remember their dreams with crystal clarity. Some might recall vivid escapades or even being the lead singer of a rock concert. Researchers have been mystified by this discontinuity of dream recall for decades, but one new study brings to light some main factors driving the disparity.

Italian scientists between March 2020 and March 2024 did a thorough investigation of dream recall, which was published in Communications Psychology. The study included 217 adults aged 18 to 70 and integrated sleep monitoring, mental examinations, and brain activity recordings. All participants underwent brain tests, sleep monitors, and their brain activity was recorded overnight.

Major Factors Affecting Dream Recall

Recall of dreams has intrigued scientists for centuries. Although the first experiments in the 1950s linked dreaming to REM sleep, other work established later found that dreams occur in non-REM sleep too, although less frequent and less vivid and less easily remembered. Researchers at the IMT School for Advanced Studies in Lucca discovered three primary predictors of dream recall: one’s attitude toward dreaming, the frequency of mind-wandering when awake, and one’s normal sleep patterns.

To assess participants’ attitudes toward dreams, they were requested to agree or disagree with such statements as “dreams reveal my true feelings” versus “dreams are just random brain activity.” Participants who perceived dreams as meaningful were more likely to remember them. Another key point was how frequently the participants’ minds wandered throughout the day. Daydreamers would recall their dreams more vividly since daydreaming and dreaming activate the same areas of the brain associated with self-reflection and mental images.

Daydreaming and recall of dreams also proved to be likely related in the study. Individuals who commonly wandered into thoughts unconnected with their immediate reality were more competent at recalling dreams, since the experiences happen while the mind loosens its grasp on the physical world. Sleeping patterns also became an important determinant. Subjects who experienced longer bouts of light sleep and less deep sleep (N3 sleep) remembered their dreams better. However, deep sleep, which sequesters memories, can discourage the formation of dreams. Light sleep, in which brain functioning approaches wakefulness, facilitates retention of dream memory.

Age, Seasons, and Dream

Age was the second factor responsible for dream recall. Younger participants remembered their dreams more distinctly, whereas the older people often had “white dreams,” wherein they were certain they dreamed but remembered nothing about it. This implies that changes in the brain over age impact dream processing and recall.Dream recall also differed seasonally, being lower in winter than in spring or autumn. Although sleep patterns didn’t change, researchers theorized that changes in light exposure during different seasons could affect brain chemistry and thus dream memory.

Instead of written dream journals, the participants utilized voice recorders to describe morning thoughts that were used to help reduce interference with memory. For determining sleep quality, they wore wristwatch-sized devices known as actigraphs that monitored their movement patterns. A subgroup of 50 participants also wore headbands with electrodes to monitor brain activity during sleep. This enabled researchers to directly correlate dream recall with sleep patterns, as opposed to merely self-reporting.

Giulio Bernardi, author of the leading paper, also stressed that recalling dreams is not haphazard but is impacted by attitudes, cognitive style, and sleep factors. These findings may shed additional light on dream function in terms of mental illness and consciousness. Future research would be able to investigate how dreaming patterns are correlated with neurological and psychiatric disorders and could provide a window into processing memory and handling emotions during sleep.