Summary: A recent study examines why some people vividly recall desires while others ignore them. Scientists found that dream understand is influenced by character traits, sleeping patterns, and even seasonal changes. People who frequently daydreamed and held onto their goals had a higher recall rate.
Younger people recall dreams more frequently than older ones, and younger people even had higher chances of waking up with vision memories. The results suggest that rather than being strange, dream recall is shaped by cognitive and physiological aspects. Understanding these systems might reveal information about mental health and the part that dreams play in awareness.
Important Facts:
- Mind-Wandering and Attitude Matter: People who daydream and value goals recall them more frequently.
- Rest Stage Influence: Longer periods of mild sleep improve vision recall likelihood.
- Age and Seasons Affect Recall: Younger persons remember dreams more, and understand is lower in spring.
Origin: IMT
Some folks may recall their nighttime dreams powerfully and accurately, while others struggle to recall even a single word. Why does this occur?
A new study, conducted by researchers at the , IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, and published on , Communications Psychology , explores the factors that influence so called “dream recall” — the ability to remember dreams upon awakening—and uncovers which individual traits and sleep patterns shape this phenomenon.
The explanation for why there is such a change in dream recall is a secret. Some research found that women, young people, or those who have a tendency to daydream have better understand of nighttime dreams.
However, various studies did not confirm these conclusions. And data that didn’t support other theories, such as that character traits or cognitive abilities count, was even less reliable.
The individual differences in day dream recall were the subject of a new COVID crisis that attracted renewed people and clinical interest when a sudden rise in morning dream recall was reported widespread.
The new study, carried out in collaboration with the University of Camerino, was conducted in the centuries from 2020 to 2024, and involved over 200 respondents, aged 18 to 70, who recorded their dreams daily for 15 days while their sleeping and mental data were tracked using portable devices and diagnostic tests.
Every day right after the awakening, each study participant was given a voice recorder to record their experiences while they were sleeping.
Participants were required to report whether they had a dreamed or not, whether they had the impression that they had dreamed but had no memory of the experience, and whether they had the dream’s content.
For the duration of the study, participants also wore an actigraph, a sleep monitoring wristwatch that detects sleep duration, efficiency, and disturbances.
Participants were subjected to psychological tests and questionnaires at the beginning and end of the duration of the dream recording period, measuring everything from anxiety levels to desire for dreams to mind-wandering ( the tendency to frequently turn your attention away from unrelated thoughts or internal reflections ) to memory and selective attention tests.
Dream recall, which is the likelihood of waking up in the morning with impressions and memories from a dream experience, showed significant variation between people and was influenced by a variety of factors.
According to the study, those who had a positive dream outlook and a phobia of the mind were significantly more likely to recall their dreams. Sleep patterns appeared to play a significant role in how people slept, with more frequent periods of light sleep waking up with memories of their dreams.
Younger participants reported more frequent recall of dreams, whereas older people reported having” white dreams” ( dreaming without recalling any particular details ). This suggests that memory processes in sleep may be altered as a result of age.
Additionally, there were seasonal variations, with participants reporting lower dream recall in the winter than the spring, which suggested the possibility of environmental or circadian factors.
” Our findings suggest that dream recall is not just a matter of chance but a reflection of how personal attitudes, cognitive traits, and sleep dynamics interact”, explains lead author , Giulio Bernardi, professor in general psychology at the IMT School.
These findings” not only advance our understanding of the mechanisms behind dreaming but also have implications for examining the impact of dreams on mental health and the study of human consciousness.”
 ,” Data collected within this project will serve as a reference for future comparisons with clinical populations”, adds , Valentina Elce, researcher at the IMT School and first author of the study.
This will enable us to advance our investigation into the potential diagnostic and prognostic effects of dreaming.
About this news about neuroscience research and dreaming
Author: Chiara Palmerini
Source: IMT
Contact: Chiara Palmerini – IMT
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
Giulio Bernardi and al.” The individual factors that affect morning dream recall.” Communications Psychology
Abstract
The individual factors that affect morning dream recall
Evidence suggests that almost everyone has dreams while they sleep and may actually have them for a large portion 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 discovered that a person’s perception of their dreams, their tendency to wander, and their sleep patterns are related to their ability to report a dream when they awaken in the morning.
Age and sensitivity to interference were expected to affect the likelihood of recalling dream content. Moreover, dream recall appeared to be influenced by night-by-night changes in sleep patterns and showed seasonal fluctuations.
Our findings refute previous studies that examined the inter- and intra-individual variability in morning dream recall.
