Dreams are such an interesting phenomenon. We’re not entirely sure why we have them, where they come from, or why they are so important. Even with all of this uncertainty, we’re sure that almost everyone dreams, even if they don’t remember it. Dreaming usually occurs in REM sleep, which the average person usually gets about 40 minutes of per night. Beyond the biology of dreams, I find it fascinating that some people almost always remember their dreams upon waking, while others do not. Some find dreams an integral part of their thought process, using them to sort through their feelings and emotions of the day. However, there are other people, myself included, that almost never remember their dreams from the night before. A study in 2013 attempted to determine why. Their findings suggested that those that are high recallers of dream activity generally use more brain regions when processing sounds than the low recallers (1). However, it does not address that some people go through cyclical dream recall, alternating between phases of high recall and low recall. There is ultimately still so much unknown about dreams, that this could only be a small factor in the recollection of dreams.
Moving away from the science, I wonder if being biologically predisposed to recall dreams affects the way that you dream. For instance, my friend Marquize relies on his dreams to sort out his thoughts and worries from the day. He cannot imagine not remembering his dreams, they are an integral part of his reflections. For myself, however, I do not rely on my dreams to do such, because I know I probably won’t remember them. So I wonder if our reliance on dreams stems from the disposition to remember dreams, or vice versa.
Amara, I think you bring up a fascinating point. Much like you, I almost never remember my dreams. However, I am well aware that my quality of life and overall happiness depends greatly on how much sleep I get every night. Whenever I have a big decision to make or am upset, I always sleep on it and know I will feel better in the morning. Perhaps both those with and those without good dream recall both experience the same thing, and gain the same value from dreaming, it's just that only the dreamers can directly ascribe the psychological benefit to its source. If there's any truth to this, it would certainly make me feel better about my dreamless nights. Perhaps we aren't missing out on this cognitive tool after all!
ReplyDeleteAmara, I love the question you're posing. For those of us who do remember dreams, do we remember because we rely on them? Or do we rely on them because we remember them?
ReplyDeleteFor me, I tend to only remember my dreams when life is easy and relaxed. On weekends, holidays, vacations, etc. etc. etc. I can always remember the dream(s) I had that night. What's interesting is that there are times where those dreams influence my conscious life. For example, once I dreamed that my boyfriend and I got into a fight, and I woke up mad at him in real life for what he did in my dream. This is a pretty extreme case, but it makes me believe that dreams influence the way our consciousness functions rather than the other way around. That is, we rely on our dreams because we remember them. Furthermore, when I am in school or working 40 hour weeks and I'm not remembering my dreams, I literally can't be influenced by them. I can't be influenced by dreams that I don't remember!
Of course everybody's experiences while dreaming vary, so now I can't help but wonder what other people think about this! I'm curious to hear the perspective of someone who consistently recalls dreams and someone who never recalls dreams.
I found your post really interesting! The whole concept of cyclical dream recall makes my dreaming pattern make a lot more sense; I go through periods where it seems like a dream every night and then weeks where I think I don't dream at all. Funnily enough, this week of class was one of the weeks where I remembered a ton of my dreams. Perhaps this was because I expected to remember them; I had to use them to write my Praxis. This makes me think that our disposition to remember dreams stems from our reliance on them.
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ReplyDeleteIt's so cool that you bring up the concept of cyclical dream recall, because I have been suffering from low dream recall all week. Every time I wake up, I'm aware that I HAD dreams, but I'm unable to remember any of the details. Usually I'm pretty good at recalling my dreams, so I've been trying to come up with an explanation for why I can't remember them this week, of all weeks.
ReplyDeleteWhile the alternating periods of high and low dream recall are interesting, I think the more likely explanation for why I can't remember my dreams this week in particular is sleep deprivation. I've been getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep each night, and when I wake up my head hurts and my thoughts are really disjointed. So while people might have more of a disposition to recalling dreams than others, I think that dream recollection also depends on how well-rested your brain feels coming out of sleep. If it still isn't fully rested, it is going to put all of its focus on putting your body through the necessary functions, and not have any energy leftover to ruminate on the thoughts that went through it during the REM period of its sleep cycle.
I think that the idea of this cycle of high and low recall is really interesting. I know that you said only some people go through these cycles, but I wonder, if more research was done on the subject if we find that many people go through this cycle. On that same tangent I wonder if people who cannot remember their dreams are stuck in the low recall part of the cycle for some reason. It may be a little bit of a reach, but I think more study could potentially shed a lot of light on why some people remember their dreams and why some people don’t. By proxy it might even shed light on how some of our other brain processes affect our dreaming. The concept of dreaming and how it affects cognition is just so interesting a subject! I’m really glad you decided to write a post about it!
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