Researchers have looked at how and why some people remember their dreams better than others. In a study of healthy adults, they monitored sleep and collected dream reports for 15 days. They found that specific sleep patterns increase the likelihood of recalling a dream, and that external or internal factors can cause the memory of the dream to disappear upon waking. This helps explain the phenomenon of “blank dreams,” when we feel like we’re dreaming but can’t remember the content.
Dreams are mental experiences that occur during sleep and reflect memories, thoughts, and emotions experienced while we’re awake. Although they may seem disconnected from reality, they are influenced by our daily experiences and can reveal aspects of our psychological state.
In addition, dreams are believed to play an essential role in memory consolidation and learning.
For a long time, scientists believed that dreams only occurred during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, because this phase involves intense brain activity, similar to wakefulness.
However, studies have shown that we can also dream during other stages of sleep, although less frequently. It is estimated that around 85% of awakenings during REM sleep result in dream reports, while this rate drops to approximately 45% during non-REM (NREM) sleep.
Although we all dream, dream recall varies greatly from person to person and even from one night to the next. Factors such as age, personality, sleep patterns and even the context in which we wake up influence this ability.
Studies indicate that women tend to remember more dreams than men, as do younger people and those who tend to daydream. It has also been observed that having a positive attitude towards dreams and greater emotional involvement with them increases the likelihood of remembering dream experiences. A recent study sought to better understand what factors influence dream recall.
To do this, researchers analyzed 217 healthy adults, aged between 18 and 70 years, over the course of 15 days. The researchers also collected information about the participants' personality, cognition and behavior.
The researchers sought to understand which factors influence dream recall, both those that vary between different people (inter-individual factors) and those that change within the same individual over time (intraindividual factors). To do this, they conducted a study with healthy adults, who recorded their dream experiences every morning upon spontaneously waking up.
The study used different methods to analyze the participants' sleep patterns. All of them had their sleep cycles monitored using actigraphy, a device that measures body movements during the night.
Actigraphy device to monitor body movements during sleep.
In addition, some of the volunteers wore a portable EEG, which records the electrical activity of the brain during sleep. The researchers also collected information on the participants' psychological and cognitive aspects to better understand how these variables influence dream recall.
The results showed that individual characteristics, such as a propensity for mind wandering and a more positive view of dreams, increase the chance of remembering dream experiences.
In addition, factors such as age and susceptibility to external interference upon waking also influence the retention of dream content. The study also reinforced that recall can be impacted by changes in sleep patterns throughout the night and that there are seasonal fluctuations in dream frequency.
Another interesting finding was the identification of so-called "blank dreams." In this phenomenon, the person wakes up with the sensation of having dreamed, but is unable to recall the details. This suggests that dreams occur frequently, but can be quickly forgotten, possibly due to the brain's difficulty in consolidating these memories during waking.
These results help to better understand why some people remember their dreams more than others and how different internal and external factors can affect this process. In addition, the research reinforces the importance of studying dreams to better understand their functions in cognition and mental health.
READ MORE:
The individual determinants of morning dream recall
Valentina Elce, Damiana Bergamo, Giorgia Bontempi, Bianca Pedreschi, Michele Bellesi, Giacomo Handjaras & Giulio Bernardi
Communications Psychology, volume 3, Article number: 25 (2025)
Abstract:
Evidence suggests that (almost) everyone dreams during their sleep and may actually do so for a large part of the night. Yet, dream recall shows large interindividual variability. Understanding the factors that influence dream recall is crucial for advancing our knowledge regarding dreams’ origin, significance, and functions. Here, we tackled this issue by prospectively collecting dream reports along with demographic information and psychometric, cognitive, actigraphic, and electroencephalographic measures in 217 healthy adults (18–70 y, 116 female participants, 101 male participants). We found that attitude towards dreaming, proneness to mind wandering, and sleep patterns are associated with the probability of reporting a dream upon morning awakening. The likelihood of recalling dream content was predicted by age and vulnerability to interference. Moreover, dream recall appeared to be influenced by night-by-night changes in sleep patterns and showed seasonal fluctuations. Our results provide an account for previous observations regarding inter- and intra-individual variability in morning dream recall.
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