Dream-Recall Frequency and Waking Imagery
Perceptual and Motor Skills December 1, 2000 Hitoshi Okada, Kazuo Matsuoka, Takao Hatakeyama
Higher dream-recall frequency is associated with more vivid voluntary waking imagery and more frequent use of visual imagery, but not with control over visual imagery. Among 323 undergraduates, frequent dream recallers (n=82) scored higher on vividness of visual imagery and reported more use of visual imagery than infrequent recallers (n=80). Dream recall was significantly related to scores on visual, cutaneous, and organic sensory subscales, but not to auditory, gustatory, kinaesthetic, or olfactory subscales. No sex differences were found. The findings support Cohen's salience theory, suggesting that voluntarily forming vivid waking images helps retrieve or preserve dream images.