[thedoc]

I was wondering why it was so difficult for us to remember our dreams when we wake up in the morning?
<i>Asked by Paula Ogilvie, Johannesburg, SA</i>

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[thedoc]

Professor Mark Blagrove, Professor of Psychology at Swansea University:

People differ on whether or not they can remember their dreams.  Some people have a great deal of interest in their dreams, have very vivid dreams or their level of anxiety or sleep quality results in people remembering dreams at different amounts each month, say.  In general, for all of us dreams are very easily forgotten once we wake up if we don’t consolidate them or in other words if we don’t transfer them from short-term to long term memory immediately upon waking.

There’s a few theories of why that happens to all of us.  One possibility is that our brain neuro-chemicals during sleep are very different from during wake time and so they don’t allow us to consolidate memory.  The other thing that’s quite possible is that we don’t pay attention to our dreams or are unable to do so during sleep.  We are unable to remember what occurs to us during sleep.  Even people with sleep apnoea who wake up during the night don’t know that that happens to them.

Similarly when we have a dream we’re not consolidating it as it occurs.  Indeed, if you have people having a long REM sleep period and you wake them up once the REM sleep period gets over about 20 minutes you don’t find that dreams increase in length very much.  It’s as if during the dream we forget what was happening.  The same happens immediately we wake up.  The dream just disappears.

[Madidus_Scientia]

I've heard this answered on the naked scientists before i'm sure. I think it was because there are parts of the frontal lobe that are inactive during REM sleep cycles, and these are the parts usually associated with memory and thinking critically.

[chris]

But you do remember some dreams don't you? So why the difference?

[Madidus_Scientia]

Yeah and even when you can remember a dream with all its details when you've just woken up, sometimes by the time you get to work and you think about it again you can only remember it very vaguely if at all, as if your brain deleted the file! Well that happens to me at least anyway. But then you can remember some other dreams very vividly and remember them for the rest of your life.

By the way, does anyone know how much those people that get their brain studied while they sleep get paid? That would be my dream job! :P

[chris]

But don't they also get woken up every time they start to dream? Doesn't sound like much fun to me. Geez, I've got a daughter that takes care of that for me...maybe I should just volunteer for the study and have a home rig to record my brain activity...

[Crypticfortune]

I have absolutely no scientific basis for this, it's simply my own observation, but from my days as an undergrad it seemed like I can get the same amount of "dreaming" (as measured in "perceived length of the dream") done off of a 20 minute nap in class as from a good 6-8 hours on the weekend. So, if sleep time doesn't have any effect on dream time, then it makes sense that any dreams we "remember" are simply the random creations we come up with at that brief moment of waking up. And if you'll permit a computer science analogy, it seems to me that dreams are just what happens when you read uninitialized memory after turning the power on. In other words, our brains are off in crazy rest/sleep mode, and switching back to awake mode leaves a lot of stuff all garbled, and we interpret that as dreams. If that's true, then it makes sense that it's hard to remember because those "experiences" aren't attached to anything, just random thoughts. And there's all sorts of information about memory being enhanced (if not entirely based) on being attached relations to other ideas/sensory experiences. So that's my guess. Sorry it's all just conjecture though...

(And by the same token, that probably supports "traumatic bad dreams" sticking with us, because we immediately associate them with the traumatic ideas/memories we have in real life, causing them to stick.)

Anyway, I'm curious to see if this is at all supported by research out there =P

[chris]

Interesting thought. thanks. We're you in SL on Sunday?

[Crypticfortune]

yup, I was. I'll be there again tonight. looking forward to another excellent show ^^

[kdwelch]

I actually remember dreams from when I was real little, they were either nightmares or just a vivid dream that's hard to forget. I think it's like recalling a memory of something that happened only it being a dream. You can remind yourself of that memory and it doesn't really go away. Journals do help if you have trouble recalling but also try to think of what you dreamed as a memory, it may help.

[tamera]

so when we dont remember are dreams its because the dream doesn get taken to the long term memory..but some times u juss remember a picture instead of the acuall video dream..but then why are some dreams longer than others is it because when we have shorter dreams it took us a long time to drift into a deep sleep?? does not remembering ur dreams have some thing to do with the amount of sleep u get?? does age have to do with it?? a friend of mine hasent had a dream scince he was 10 i think why that really??

[Lafu]

My grandson passed in June& I have not had a dream about him at all, why? He was the love of my life. My oldest sister passed in 2000 & my dad passed in 2004 & have not had a dream about none of them. Why? Why? Why? Help!

[Chinita09]

maybe you have dreamt about them.. but you just can't remember..

[Paul]

Wow that is very sad?

[Ben Love]

I love my dreams

[Matt]

I agree that my dreams sometimes seem just as long in a 30 minute nap as in a full nights sleep. They aren't just random thoughts though, because sometimes I can realize I am dreaming and actually control what I am doing in my dream. Dreams are crazy.

[owl16]

I understand... when I have a desire to see or spend time with a person that is no longer with me I try to dream with them to make it as vivid as possible. What I have tryed is thinking and have a picture of them as I go to sleep, sometimes it works and sometime it doesn't. As I understand dreams usually occur at the end of your sleep so dreaming what you want to dream may not happen.

[bernhard]

you dont remember them because when youre dreaming your in a different state of consiousness.

[Highpeak]

The most annoying thing is during the day you get a flash in your mind of the previous nights dream and you think "Oh yes, that was what I dreamt last night" ... but then 2 seconds later it has gone completely - you can't even recall what you thought in the previous second at all ... or is that just me? :(

[kelly]

Time to free up the ol ora from interpretating and sending energies That create mood.finally off to fuel the spirit with the tools our only our subconscious knows we need to battle What is destined..

[jan]

I have always remembered most dreams.I think about them right away, then write them down.Lately tho [I still sleep good]I barely remember any! Maybe fragments- it drives me nuts- while I'm dreaming,Iknow it., and theres so much going on! How can i not remember now, when
i could before? yes,sometimes I get a flash of a dream hours later- gone before I can catch it hate that too!