Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Image
Topics: Psychology, Science, Sleep, Health
Emily Brown
Most of us know someone who regularly has memorable dreams, because usually they can't resist sharing it with you.
You hear about the random celebrities that show up, the bizarre betrayals they face and the wild conversations they get into, meanwhile many of us can only remember blurry snippets from our sleep-stories - if that.
Some people might be jealous about others' ability to remember their dreams, but as it turns out, only a small percentage of us are actually able to.
Advert
In 2021, CBS News conducted a poll on 1,010 adults in the US and found that just one in 10 people said they always remember their dreams.
But why are some people able to recall them better than others?
Well, researchers in Italy have said there are both individual characteristics and external factors that can impact our ability to remember dreams, with Giulio Bernardi, a professor in general psychology at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, explaining: "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."
The research saw more than 200 participants take tests and answer questions about their interest in dreams and how likely they are to get distracted.
While sleeping, participants wore a device that monitors sleep duration, quality and disturbances, and for 15 days they recorded if they'd had a dream, and described it if they had.
After analyzing the results, the scientists determined five traits that appear to be linked with the ability to remember dreams.
The traits are:
When it comes to the latter two traits, the scientists explained that people have reported having lower dream recall during the winter months.
As for age; results have shown that older people more frequently have the sense that they have dreamed, but they don't have memories to back up the feeling. These are known as 'white dreams'.
Bernardi, who was the lead author on the study, commented: “These insights not only deepen our understanding of the mechanisms behind dreaming but also have implications for exploring dreams’ role in mental health and in the study of human consciousness."
Rounding off their work, the scientists added that previous studies suggesting females could recall more dreams than males were not confirmed in their findings.