Did I have a dream last night? White dreaming as metacognitive feelings

White dreaming—the feeling of having dreamt without recalling any content—is best understood as a metacognitive feeling, similar to tip-of-the-tongue or déjà vu experiences. Drawing on research about metacognitive feelings during wakefulness, the author argues that white dreaming can sometimes be a metacognitive illusion: a misleading feeling that appears to originate from a dream but may actually reflect a different kind of sleep experience, or no dream at all. This perspective provides a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon's nature and causes.

Study at a glance

Abstract

While most research on sleep mentation focuses on dream reports, sleep experiences can also include reports lacking content, such as white dreaming —the feeling of knowing one dreamt but being unable to recall its contents. I claim that white dreaming is a metacognitive feeling, akin to tip‐of‐the‐tongue and déjà experiences. Conceiving it this way allows for a more nuanced understanding of its nature and causes. Drawing on research on metacognitive feelings in wakefulness, I suggest that white dreaming can sometimes be a metacognitive illusion : A misleading feeling that seems to arise from a dream but could reflect another kind of sleep experience—or none at all.