Dream recall frequency: impact of prospective measures and motivational factors.

People differ widely in how often they recall dreams, and part of that variation may come from how recall is measured. In a study of 358 participants who estimated their weekly dream recall and then kept either a narrative log (165 people) or a checklist log (193 people) for 2–5 weeks, dream recall frequency peaked early in the first week for both log types and then stayed stable. The two groups did not differ in their estimated recall, but narrative logs produced significantly fewer reported dreams per week. Only checklist logs yielded significantly higher recall than participants' initial questionnaire estimates. The pattern held across people with low, medium, or high baseline recall.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Significant individual differences exist in dream recall frequency (DRF) but some variance is likely attributable to instrument choice in measuring DRF. Three hundred and fifty eight participants estimated their weekly DRF and recorded their dreams in either a narrative log (n = 165) or checklist log (n = 193) for 2-5 weeks. There was an early peak in DRF within the first week of both types of prospective logs after which DRF remained relatively stable. Although the two groups did not differ in their estimated DRF, significantly fewer dreams were reported per week on the narrative logs and only checklist logs yielded significantly higher DRF than participants' questionnaire estimates. The interactions between DRF measures did not vary across groups with low, medium or high baseline levels of DRF. Keeping a dream log does not necessarily increase DRF and narrative logs' time consuming nature can impact subjects' motivation to report all of their dreams over time.