Dream Recall, Sleep Quality, and Short-Term Memory

Dream recollection is understood predominantly only in theory. The current study sought to find associations between dream recall, sleep quality, and short-term memory. The data was collected from 205 participants who completed an online survey that included a dream recall measure, a sleep quality scale, and a short-term memory test. Standard linear regressions were run to analyze the relationships between sleep quality and dream recall, as well as sleep quality and short-term memory. A hierarchical multiple regression was run controlling for age and sleep quality, as well as for dream recall and short-term memory. A relationship was found between age and short-term memory. Sleep quality had no influence on short-term memory or dream recall. Dream recall did not yield an impact on short-term memory. The results displayed no positive relationship between the three variables. These findings are mostly inconsistent with previous research, which indicates that there is an irregular relationship between dream recall frequency, sleep quality, and short-term memory

Spotlight on dream recall. The ages of dreams

Brain and sleep maturation covary across different stages of life. At the same time, dream generation and dream recall are intrinsically dependent on the development of neural systems. The aim of this paper is to review the existing studies about dreaming in infancy, adulthood, and the elderly stage of life, assessing whether dream mentation may reflect changes of the underlying cerebral activity and cognitive processes. It should be mentioned that some evidence from childhood investigations, albeit still weak and contrasting, revealed a certain correlation between cognitive skills and specific features of dream reports. In this respect, infantile amnesia, confabulatory reports, dream-reality discerning, and limitation in language production and emotional comprehension should be considered as important confounding factors. Differently, growing evidence in adults suggests that the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the encoding and retrieval of episodic memories may remain the same across different states of consciousness. More directly, some studies on adults point to shared neural mechanisms between waking cognition and corresponding dream features. A general decline in the dream recall frequency is commonly reported in the elderly, and it is explained in terms of a diminished interest in dreaming and in its emotional salience. Although empirical evidence is not yet available, an alternative hypothesis associates this reduction to an age-related cognitive decline. The state of the art of the existing knowledge is partially due to the variety of methods used to investigate dream experience. Very few studies in elderly and no investigations in childhood have been performed to understand whether dream recall is related to specific electrophysiological pattern at different ages. Most of all, the lack of longitudinal psychophysiological studies seems to be the main issue. As a main message, we suggest that future longitudinal studies should collect dream reports upon awakening from different sleep states and include neurobiological measures with cognitive performance

EEG oscillations during sleep and dream recall. State- or trait-like individual differences?

Dreaming represents a peculiar form of cognitive activity during sleep. On the basis of the well-known relationship between sleep and memory, there has been a growing interest in the predictive role of human brain activity during sleep on dream recall. Neuroimaging studies indicate that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is characterized by limbic activation and prefrontal cortex deactivation. This pattern could explain the presence of emotional contents in dream reports. Furthermore, the morphoanatomical measures of amygdala and hippocampus predict some features of dream contents (bizarreness, vividness, and emotional load). More relevant for a general view of dreaming mechanisms, empirical data from neuropsychological and electroencephalographic (EEG) studies support the hypothesis that there is a sort of continuity between the neurophysiological mechanisms of encoding and retrieval of episodic memories across sleep and wakefulness. A notable overlap between the electrophysiological mechanisms underlying emotional memory formation and some peculiar EEG features of REM sleep has been suggested. In particular, theta (5–8 Hz) EEG oscillations on frontal regions in the pre-awakening sleep are predictive of dream recall, which parallels the predictive relation during wakefulness between theta activity and successful retrieval of episodic memory. Although some observations support an interpretation more in terms of an intraindividual than interindividual mechanism, the existing empirical evidence still precludes from definitely disentangling if this relation is explained by state- or trait-like differences

Lucid Dreams Content

Most work on the content of these dreams has failed to control for individual differences in dream recall

What Is the Biological Cause of Dreams?

The purpose of this experiment was to examine varying types of dreams and how they were connected with our everyday lives. Previous research has shown that the biological causes of dreams can be based on what type of sleep they are in, either REM or NREM, the amount of cortical activation caused by what point of the circadian cycle the dreamer is in, and the type of external or internal stimuli that may initiate the memory sources. In our first (correlational) study, we tested the strength of these relationships by examining naturalistic daily changes in their variables longitudinally over a two-week period. REM sleep was measured by using the information provided from the phone app called Pillow, giving us the percentage spent in REM, as well as the total minutes slept per night from each participant. Amount of sleep in the late circadian morning was measured by recording how many hours past midnight each participant slept in for each night of the study. The amount of light was measured with both the use of an app called Light Meter upon waking each morning and the number of words used to describe each recorded dream by their relevance to light stimulation. Dream recall was determined by the average score that participants gave themselves on a scale of 0-10, depending on the clarity of recalled dreams. Data pooled across participants in our correlational study showed no significant correlations of REM sleep or sleep in the late circadian morning with dream recall. Similarly, light stimulation showed no significant correlation with dream tallies. Although our correlations were not significant, the strongest was sleep in the late circadian morning and dream recall. Based on the strength of correlation found between the strength of dream recall and sleep in late circadian morning in our correlational study, we then conducted a second (experimental) study to test for specifically a causal relationship between these two variables. Over a ten-day period, we randomly assigned participants each day to wake up either one hour earlier or at their normal wake time and measured the effect this had upon dream recall each day. The results of our experimental study showed statistical significance in pooled raw data but not in pooled standardized data. The biological causes of dreams thus remain unsolved.Supervising Instructor & Course Number: Michael Pollock, Psyc 215 (“Biological Psychology”

Rapid Eye Movements (REMs) and visual dream recall in both congenitally blind and sighted subjects

Our objective was to evaluate rapid eye movements (REMs) associated with visual dream recall in sighted subjects and congenital blind. During two consecutive nights polysomnographic recordings were performed at subjects home. REMs were detected by visual inspection on both EOG channels (EOG-H, EOG-V) and further classified as occurring isolated or in bursts. Dream recall was defined by the existence of a dream report. The two groups were compared using t-test and also the two-way ANOVA and a post-hoc Fisher test (for the features diagnosis (blind vs. sighted) and dream recall (yes or no) as a function of time). The average of REM awakenings per subject and the recall ability were identical in both groups. CB had a lower REM density than CS; the same applied to REM bursts and isolated eye movements. In the two-way ANOVA, REM bursts and REM density were significantly different for positive dream recall, mainly for the CB group and for diagnosis; furthermore for both features significant results were obtained for the interaction of time, recall and diagnosis; the interaction of recall and time was however, stronger. In line with previous findings the data show that blind have lower REMs density. However the ability of dream recall in congenitally blind and sighted controls is identical. In both groups visual dream recall is associated with an increase in REM bursts and density. REM bursts also show differences in the temporal profile. REM visual dream recall is associated with increased REMs activity

The Effects of Suggestion on Dream Recall Frequency

The present research was designed to examine whether the power of suggestion can play a substantial role in a participant’s dream recall frequency (DRF; i.e., the average number of dreams remembered nightly). Nineteen students participated in a lab session in exchange for course credit, during which they completed a task assessing working memory capacity and several questionnaires. Of the 19 students, five chose to participate in the second phase of the study, for which they received $10. These five participants were randomly assigned to a “high dream capacity” group (i.e., told they have the highest dream capacity of anyone studied thus far) or an “average dream capacity” group (control) during the lab session. Participants recorded their DRF and other sleep-related measures for seven consecutive nights following the initial lab session. Although there was no significant difference between the DRF of participants in the high capacity group and the DRF of those in the average capacity group, a pattern consistent with the hypothesis was found. That is, those given the suggestion of a higher dream capacity experienced a higher DRF in the week following the initial lab session than those given the suggestion of an average dream capacity

Gender differences in dreaming in childhood and adolescence: the UK Library study

This study evaluates gender differences in dream recall frequency, dream sharing frequency, dream listening frequency and nightmare frequency in childhood and adolescence. The sample included 3534 children for the ages from 6 to 18 who completed a brief questionnaire distributed in libraries. We were able to show that overall girls recalled dreams more often, shared dreams more often, listened more often to dreams and reported higher nightmare frequency than boys. For dream sharing frequency and dream listening frequency gender differences increased significantly with age indicating that gender-specific dream socialization might be probable. As this effect was most prominent for adolescents of 13 years and older, one might speculate that the peer group – especially same-sex friendships play an important role in dream socialization. Dream listening is still a very young field of research and longitudinal studies are necessary to study when gender differences in dreaming emerge and whether this processes effect dream recall frequency and other dream variables in adults