When I was younger, I remembered virtually all of my dreams. Of course, I had a few
recurring dreams, which probably made it somewhat easier to remember them.

But, nowadays, I doubt I recall even one dream a month. It turns out that some sort of “wakefulness” is necessary for us to be able to recall our drams. And since I am typically in a dead sleep, it should not be surprising that my dreams stay buried in my subconscious.

But there’s even more to this story. In a recent piece published in neuropsychopharmacology, a group of French scientists from Lyon, France (Drs. Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Alain Nicolas, Jérôme Daltrozzo, Jérôme Redouté, Nicolas Costes and Perrine Ruby) built upon the knowledge that when there are lesions in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) or the white matter of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC),  one’s dreams are not recalled. The TPJ is normally charged with the processing that collects data from the outside work (outside of us).  The MPFC is the portion of our brain charged with self-referential cogitation.

And, folks who recall their dreams have more activity in this region, as measured by blood flow studies. In addition to the temporoparietal region having elevated blood flows, the high recallers also had more active medial prefrontal cortices.

The researchers specifically hypothesized that these folks (who can recall their dreams) are still processing environmental noises in their sleep and are able to wake up instantly, thereby recalling their dreams.

This research further amplified the finding that those folks who suffered strokes cannot
typically recall their dreams…but they are certainly capable of achieving REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. (REM sleep is the phase of our sleep during which dreaming occurs.)

To remember our dreams, the brain must accomplish three tasks. Obviously, the first thing is to achieve REM sleep, the phase when dreams can occur. The second task is to encode the dreams in memory. Finally, we must be able to recall the dreams themselves. It is thought that the two brain centers are probably involved in the encoding and/or production of the dreams, as well as the recall process.

Our dreams are stored in the working memory portion of our brains. But, for dream recall,
longer term memory will be involved, unless we instantly awake from the dream. Those who recall their dreams more fully (the study had high recall and low recall cohorts) had twice as much ‘awake’ time during the night as those who had trouble recalling their dreams. This high recall cohort also responded to auditory signals much more readily during their sleep.

When I was younger, I was forced into bed at a certain time and it took forever to get to
sleep and was forced to wake up with an alarm clock (which can interrupt sleep cycles).  Given those condition, that’s probably how I recalled my dreams. Now, I go to sleep when I am tired and fall asleep quickly, don’t have trouble staying asleep, and wake up after the same duration of sleep almost every day.  That is exactly why I don’t recall my dreams.

What about you?

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