I look out over a vast blue expanse, the horizon stretches in front of me. A gentle breeze wafted up to me from the valley below. It was a nice fall day; the leaves were turning a crisp golden brown. I took a deep breath and filled my lungs full of the cool refreshing air. As I did so I took a flying leap and jumped off the cliff I was standing on. I took relish in the wind rushing past me as I fell. It was a feeling of pure bliss feeling the air on my face. As the trees near I stretched, at the last moment I unfurled my wings and soared up into the sky. Nothing could ever bring me down to earth again. Then everything went black.

That was obviously a dream. So why is it I was able to remember that. Why can I remember my dreams and some people can’t? Well that’s not as easy to answer as it sounds. The short answer is we don’t know. But we do have many theories as to why we do or don’t remember dreams. The current theories include that our brain activity is different sleeping then when we are awake. Scientists also seem to concur that dreams get mixed up in other brain functions.

Before we begin our journey into dreams and memory I would like to clarify that the data that follows is similar for males and females and that gender is not a discernable influence on dream recall or brain function. According to a test published in The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology by Rosalea Schonbar there is no statistically significant difference in dream recall (or recollection) between males and females. This is important to note because of the biological process of dreaming and remembering and the biological difference between men and women. While Schonbar found that intelligence and anxiety influence dream recall biological gender does not. (Schonbar)

Now that we have all of that scientific mumbo-jumbo out of the way we can get into, well more scientific mumbo-jumbo but stuff that is more pertinent to the matter at hand. So let’s get all the big words out of the way so you can actually follow what I’m saying. The Hippocampus is in the brains temporal lobes. It is part of the limbic system and is used to regulate emotion, store long term memory, and spatial navigation. (Dr. Ananya Mandal) Alpha waves are a type of brain wave that associated with sleep and are believed to come from a part of the visual cortex. (Palva) REM sleep or Rapid Eye Movement sleep is the period in the sleep cycle that we dream in. Now that was a little dry but hang in there and we’ll get to the good part soon.

The question at hand is not what are a bunch of scientific terms but how does dream recall work. Well, unsurprisingly, the answer lies in the brain. Despite all the research and advances dreaming is still very poorly understood. (Perrine Ruby) One of the strongest theories in the field has to do with alpha waves. Research has found that there is a higher level of alpha wave activity in people who have higher dream recall then those who don’t. (Bahar Gholipour) Now remembering that alpha waves are associated with sleep what could this mean? Well for one it means that in people with higher dream recall more parts of their brain are active during sleep. This higher level of alpha wave activity was found during a study done by the Brain Dynamics and Cognition Team at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center in Lyon, France. The study measured participants alpha wave levels when hearing their first names among a mix of ambient sound when awake and asleep. The study was made up of 32 people, 18 high recallers and 18 low recallers. The criteria for picking subjects were that “subjects were selected as High-recallers upon confirming dream recall (long stories or images) on more than three mornings per week, and as Low-recallers upon confirming dream recall (long stories, images or even a feeling of having dreamt) on less than two mornings per month.” (Perrine Ruby) Subjects brain activity was measured when listening to the prerecorded stimuli when awake and asleep. The study found that there were higher alpha wave levels in high recallers versus low recallers.

The difference in alpha wave activity shows us that there is a biological reason for remembering, or not remembering, dreams. The difference might lie in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is responsible for taking all of our stimuli; dreams, sight, sound, etc. and figuring out what it all means. The hippocampus in people who recall their dreams more readily might be more developed to distinguish between the different stimulus. A study done at University of Canterbury, New Zealand found that people have trouble when discerning actual memories from dreams. This suggest that those who can discern between the reality and dreams may have more developed brains. They found that those who could more easily distinguish between the two could also define different characteristics between dreams and real event. This study followed participants over a series of three months. Participants had to keep a journal of both dreams and real events. They were later quizzed on reports of their journals to see if they could distinguish the difference. Participants were then questioned about the characteristics of the memories. Those who could distinguish between events and dreams could see a difference in the recall of the memories. (Christopher D. B. Burt)

The difference between those who can distinguish between events and dreams shows us that dreams must be process, at least in part, by the part of the brain that oversees memories. If we take the assumption that those who can distinguish reality and dreams have a more highly developed hippocampus we come back around to alpha waves. While it is not believed that alpha waves come from the hippocampus, they come from the visual cortex, the more developed hippocampus might explain the higher levels of alpha waves. Alpha waves are generated from outside stimulus and is processed by the hippocampus. If the brain can process more stimuli more effectively while asleep that could explain why there is higher dream recall.

We do know that anxiety affects dream recall. Both anxiety and depression have physical symptoms presented in the brain. These conditions generally lead to a decline in processing of information and stimulus reaction. So, anxiety and other mental illnesses could counteract any enhanced recall brought on by higher alpha wave levels and a more developed hippocampus. The flip side of this coin is that consolidating the dream right after waking up, or remembering (transferring from short to long term memory) enhances recall. This can be done simply by reminding yourself that you want to remember your dreams. While dream recall is largely attributed to the anatomy of the brain there are more confounding factors to that assumption. (Mark Blagrove)

Dreams are a lot of fun to talk about and analyze with your friends. Some people have higher dream recall than others, or that is they remember more of their dreams more vividly. In the grand scheme of things the scientific community has no idea why some people remember dreams more than others. The current theories indicate that the anatomy of the brain might be the reason for that. In specific the hippocampus and alpha wave levels in the brain might influence recall. However dream recall might also be influenced by mental illness or by simply reminding yourself to remember your dreams. The science of dream recall is always advancing so one day we might know why we do or don’t remember dreams. Who knows, it might even come to someone in a dream.

• Blagrove, Marl. "The Naked Scientists." Why Can't We Remember Our Dreams? The Naked Scientist, 6 July 2008. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.
• Gholipour, Bahar. "Why Some Remember Dreams, Others Don't." Live Scienvce. N.p., 13 Aug. 2013. Web.
• Perrine Ruby, Camille Blochet, Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Olivier Bertrand, Dominique Morlet and Aurélie Bidet-Caulet. "Alpha Reactivity to First Names Differs in Subjects with High and Low Dream Recall Frequency." Frontiers. N.p., 13 Aug. 2013. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.
• Schonbar, Rosalea A. "Some Manifest Characteristics of Recallers and Nonrecallers of Dreams.Some Manifest Characteristics of Recallers and Nonrecallers of Dreams." Drexel Full Text Options. American Psychological Association, 29 Mar. 2006. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.
• SIMON KEMP, CHRISTOPHER D. B. BURTand MERCEDES SHEEN. "Remembering Dreamt and Actual Experiences." My Library. N.p., 17 Apr. 2003. Web.