Study: People Who Do This During the Day Are More Likely To Remember Their Dreams

If you’ve wondered why you can’t seem to remember any of your dreams, you’re not alone. About 53% of people remember dreaming but can only recall “some details,” according to a survey conducted by the sleep product company Purple. Of those surveyed, a small group—14%—”remember dreaming and can clearly remember most details,” while 16% reported not being able to recollect dreams at all.

Italian researchers recently set out to investigate why some people are more likely to remember their dreams than others, apparently hoping to learn more in the process about why we dream at all.

Publishing details of their study in the journal Communications Psychology, the research team—mostly representing the MoMiLab Research Unit lab at the IMT School for Advanced Studies in Lucca, Italy—gathered data on 217 adult participants (116 women and 101 men) between the ages of 18 and 70.

Study participants also were required to meet the following criteria:

• Regular sleep/wake patterns
• Had to sleep six to eight hours of sleep per night
• No diagnosis of sleep-related problems or conditions
• No recent history of alcohol or drug abuse
• Could not be taking medications that could affect sleep patterns

The participants were asked to respond to questionnaires that involved their “attitude towards dreams,” anxiety levels, sleep quality, and more. They were then instructed to record, via voice recorders, “everything that was going through their mind just before they woke up, everything they remembered, every experience or thought they had before awakening.” They were also given a device to wear for tracking sleep-wake patterns.

Researchers also contacted participants at seemingly random times of the day to request they record what they’d been thinking about 15 minutes beforehand.

Then, after 15 days, researchers tested participants for processing speed, susceptibility to cognitive interference, and episodic, verbal, and visual memory.

Ultimately, the research team learned that a few factors could potentially influence dream recall:

• Age: Younger participants reportedly remembered more about their dreams than older participants—”white dreams,” or a dream’s memory being there upon waking up before rapidly fading, were more common in older adults.
• Time of year: The study suggests that people are more likely to remember dreams in the springtime than in the winter, potentially due to environmental and circadian changes.
• Intentionally trying to remember dreams: It also appeared that people who try to remember their dreams have an increased chance of dream recall.

Perhaps most surprising, however, is that the study’s results suggest that people who daydream are more likely to remember their dreams. One interpretation of this finding, according to the study, is that individuals who daydream “may pay greater attention to their internal states and subjective experiences.”

If you’re hoping for better dream recall (beyond allowing yourself to daydream a little), it wouldn’t hurt to keep a journal—or voice recorder—next to your bed to chronicle any thoughts when you wake up.

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