Have you ever woken up with a dream on your mind only to have it fade away minutes later? You might remember a dream in intricate detail, as vivid as anything you’ve ever experienced. Or maybe you can’t remember even the tiniest sliver of a dream. It's unlikely that you never, ever dream, though you could be in a dry spell because you’re not sleeping well. Or it could be that you simply can’t recall your dreams. Let’s explore why you may be missing out on dreams, how it impacts health, and tips for remembering them.
Science hasn’t been able to fully explain the purpose of dreaming. It may be a way to help us process emotions and make sense of the world. That’s probably why even the most outlandish dreams contain snippets of reality.
We can’t know for certain if a person never dreams. We do know that some people rarely, if ever, recall their dreams. If you have trouble remembering dreams, you’re in good company. Most of us have 4 to 6 dreams a night, but we forget the vast majority of them. The dream you’re most likely to remember is the one you had just before waking up.
Several researchers have also noted an association between Dream Recall Frequency (DRF), menstrual cycle phase, contraceptive pill intake and pregnancy. However, recently, Ilias et al. (14), highlighted a higher frequency of dream recall, in particular of dreams with pleasant content, in women in the luteal phase, hypothesized that DRF increases following the greater production of cortisol that occurs in this phase of the cycle, and hypothesized that cortisol can cause amnesia of nightmares, selectively filtering unpleasant recalls of dreams and allowing only pleasant dreams to pass.
If you’ve ever awoken from a vivid dream only to find that you can’t remember the details by the end of breakfast, you’re not alone. People forget most of the dreams they have-though it is possible to train yourself to remember more of them.
Read also: Interpreting Blood Dreams
The Science Behind Dream Recall
Dreams tend to occur during the rapid eye movement (REM) cycle of sleep. A 2019 study noted that our ability to make memories is impaired during REM sleep. That would help explain why we’re prone to forgetting dreams. Missing out on REM sleep could mean missing out on dreams, too.
Dreaming happens mostly (though not always exclusively) during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During this sleep stage, brain activity looks similar to that in a waking brain, with some very important differences. Key among them: during REM sleep, the areas of the brain that transfer memories into long-term storage-as well as the long-term storage areas themselves-are relatively deactivated, says Deirdre Barrett, a dream researcher at Harvard Medical School and author of the book The Committee of Sleep (Oneiroi Press, 2001). This may be a side effect of REM’s role in memory consolidation, according to a 2019 study on mice in the journal Science.
Short-term memory areas are active during REM sleep, but those only hang on to memories for about 30 seconds. “You have to wake up from REM sleep, generally, to recall a dream,” Barrett says. If, instead, you pass into the next stage of sleep without rousing, that dream will never enter long-term memory.
REM sleep occurs about every 90 minutes, and it lengthens as the night drags on. The first REM cycle of the night is typically just a few minutes long, but by the end of an eight-hour night of sleep, a person has typically been in the REM stage for a good 20 minutes, Barrett says. That’s why the strongest correlation between any life circumstance and your memory of dreams is the number of hours you’ve slept. If you sleep only six hours, you’re getting less than half of the dream time of an eight-hour night, she says. Those final hours of sleep are the most important for dreaming. And people tend to remember the last dream of the night-the one just before waking.
Other factors also contribute to whether you’ll remember your fantastic nighttime adventures, Barrett says. Women tend to remember a few more dreams than men, on average, according to a 2008 meta-analysis of multiple dream studies. Young people remember more dreams than older people, multiple studies have shown. Memory of dreams increases in kids from the age at which they can communicate about those dreams, plateaus from the early teens to the early 20s and then very gradually declines in adults over the rest of their life span, Barrett says.
Read also: Decoding Common Dreams
There is a lot of individual difference in dream memory, though. Some people almost never remember a dream, and others regularly recall several each night. People who are more introverted and inward-focused tend to remember more dreams, Barrett says, while those who are more extroverted and action-oriented tend to remember fewer. Imaginativeness and susceptibility to hypnosis are also linked to dream recall, as are some measures of creativity, she says, though creativity is tricky because not all measures of creativity even line up with one another, much less with dream tendencies. Overall, according to one 2017 study, recall of and interest in dreams seems tied to openness to experience, a personality trait characterized by a desire to try new things and explore unusual ideas.
A few studies that have investigated lucid dreaming-vivid dreams the dreamer remembers very well and feels in control of-suggest that some areas of the brain linked to attention are more active in people who recall more dreams, indicating that basic neurological differences may play a role.
REM Sleep Cycle
The Role of Sleep Quality
There’s a connection between quality of sleep and dreaming. If you’re dealing with insomnia or sleep disruptions, you may be missing out on REM sleep. This is the stage where you’re most likely to dream. Lack of quality sleep can make mental health disorders worse, and mental health disorders can exacerbate sleep problems.
Poor sleep could be a sign of a physical or mental health problem. The ability to remember dreams can depend on a wide range of factors such as personality, creativity, mental state, cognitive functions as well as somatic symptoms.
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Sleep disorders, such as insomnia and sleep apnea, can keep you from entering the REM sleep cycle. Insomnia can increase your risk for:
- depression
- anxiety
- cardiovascular disease
- diabetes
Other factors that may contribute to poor sleep include:
- alcohol
- tobacco
- caffeine
- medication side effects
- stress
Mental Health and Dreaming
Depression: Among adults with depression, up to 90 percent report trouble sleeping, and insomnia is the most common complaint. That could account for fewer or less-memorable dreams. But depression may also increase disturbing dreams or nightmares.
Bipolar disorder: Sleep problems are highly prevalent in people with bipolar disorder. Sleep problems may lead up to an episode of mania or depression. Between 69 and 99 percent of people experiencing a manic episode experience sleep disruption such as needing less sleep or having trouble falling asleep.
Anxiety disorders: Insomnia can be a risk factor for developing anxiety or a result of anxiety. Sleep problems are reported by people who have: generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although lack of REM sleep can cut down on dreams, people with anxiety are more likely to have scary dreams.
Medications: SSRIs are often prescribed for anxiety or depression. These can block REM sleep needed for vivid dreams.
Sleep Disorders
Tips for Remembering Your Dreams
It is possible to train your brain to remember more of your dreams, though, says Leslie Ellis, a clinical counselor in British Columbia and author of A Clinician’s Guide to Dream Therapy: Implementing Simple and Effective Dreamwork (Routledge, 2019). She advises clients who want to remember their dreams to take a moment when they wake up, before they even move their body, to think about what they were just dreaming and remember as much as possible. This moves the dream from short-term memory to long-term memory.
You wake up with a dream on your mind. Minutes later, you can no longer recall it. That’s frustrating. Or maybe you can’t remember dreaming at all. Every time you wake up, no matter what time it is, write down everything you can remember about your dreams, even it’s just a small detail or emotion.
“Write it down right away, and then you’ll have it there,” Ellis says, “because they do slip away unless they’re deliberately recorded, for most people.”Dreams are often considered nonsensical in Western culture, Ellis says. Though the narratives may not make much sense, they often hint at emotions that people are processing in their waking lives. “We do dream about the things we kind of don’t want to look at,” she says. “During the day, we can repress a lot of that, but the dreams will bring those things to the surface.”
Even just thinking about dreams more often can bring them more fully into your waking life. Taking a class on dreaming, reading a book about dreaming or even just thinking more about dreaming has a short-term impact on people’s dream recall, Barrett says.
“Some people don’t pay as much attention to their dreams while they’re happening as others, just in terms of brain action going on,” Barrett says.
“Trying to remember your dreams or even just having a lot of context with references to dreams will temporarily increase your dream recall,” she says. “You can do it on purpose.... But it [also] indirectly works if somebody’s been talking to you a ton about dreams or you read an article in a magazine today on dreams.”
Here are some additional tips for getting quality sleep, which may help you remember your dreams:
- Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine, particularly in the few hours before bedtime.
- Get regular aerobic exercise.
- Go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time every day.
- Eliminate electronic screens in the bedroom.
- Do something relaxing in the hour before you go to bed.
A 2009 study showed that meditating for 20 minutes “as well as a separate 20-minute quiet rest condition ... significantly increased theta power.” Theta waves aside, are there active steps you can take to increase dream recall?
Set an alarm to wake up a bit earlier, when you’re more likely to recall a dream. Linger a moment before getting up. Think about dreams and review your notes from the night.
Arguably, lucid dreaming is the ultimate form of dream recall-where the sleeper is aware that they’re in a dream and can control what happens, changing the nightmare where your boss is firing the dreamer into a scenario where she offers them a promotion and a hefty pay raise to boot. A 2015 study reported that there was a "significant correlation" between mindfulness and lucid dream frequency in respondents with meditation experience.
When to Seek Medical Advice
If you can’t remember dreaming but you’re sleeping well, there’s probably nothing to worry about.
If you’re not getting enough quality sleep, make an appointment with your doctor. Lack of sleep can worsen existing health problems or lead to poor overall health. It can also be a sign that you have an underlying condition, such as sleep apnea or insomnia, that your healthcare provider should address. There are many effective treatments for sleep disorders.
While sleep problems and depression are linked, not dreaming doesn’t mean you have depression. See a doctor if you have other signs of depression, such as: overwhelming sadness, fatigue, appetite changes, loss of interest, thoughts of self-harm.
Rather than not dreaming at all, it’s more likely that you don’t remember your dreams. On its own, not dreaming is no cause for concern, and there are even a few things you can do to encourage dream memory.
When a lack of dreaming is due to lack of quality sleep, that’s another story.