The individual determinants of morning dream recall.
Valentina Elce, Damiana Bergamo, Giorgia Bontempi, Bianca Pedreschi, Michele Bellesi, Giacomo Handjaras, Giulio Bernardi
Communications Psychology February 18, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s44271-025-00191-z (opens in new tab) via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractDream recall varies widely between people and across nights. In 217 healthy adults aged 18 to 70, attitude toward dreaming, tendency to mind-wander, and sleep patterns were associated with whether a person reported a dream upon waking. The likelihood of recalling dream content was predicted by age and vulnerability to interference. Night-to-night changes in sleep patterns and seasonal fluctuations also influenced dream recall. These findings help explain why some people remember dreams more often than others and why recall varies within the same person.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 217 |
| Population | Healthy adults aged 18-70 years |
| Key finding | Attitude toward dreaming, mind-wandering proneness, and sleep patterns are associated with dream recall probability; age and vulnerability to interference predict likelihood of recalling dream content. |
Abstract
Evidence suggests that (almost) everyone dreams during their sleep and may actually do so for a large part 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 found that attitude towards dreaming, proneness to mind wandering, and sleep patterns are associated with the probability of reporting a dream upon morning awakening. The likelihood of recalling dream content was predicted by age and vulnerability to interference. Moreover, dream recall appeared to be influenced by night-by-night changes in sleep patterns and showed seasonal fluctuations. Our results provide an account for previous observations regarding inter- and intra-individual variability in morning dream recall.