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How did the researchers make sure that the participants were recalling the dreams they actually had? I understand the brain scan activity, but how could they tell that the actual subjective experience of the dreams was being accurately remembered?
from rats with electrodes to brain imaging tech
I have this ability, and it’s not as wonderful as it sounds. I think I might have posted about it before. The thing is, it’s sometimes better to forget than to remember. I am sometimes haunted by my dream memories because they are too vivid, too real, and interfere with my other memories. I have intense memories of dreams stretching back many, many years, and it’s not beneficial to me. It’s more nightmarish than crea…
I think this is related to the phenomenon of walking into a room and forgetting why you came in.
Memories are connected to the rest of your perspective. Change perspective and switch memories.
Change perspective intensely enough and you could flip all of your memories. Even your identity.
Recently I tried the supplement cocktail[1] that neuroscience podcaster Andrew Huberman has mentioned he sometimes uses: magnesium threonate, epigenin, and L-theanine.
While this does indeed make it easier for me to fall asleep, I also noticed that it consistently produces weirder and more memorable dreams than I normally have.
While I doubt there is a causal relationship between remembering your dreams and the creativity benefits described in this article, I do prefer to have wild dreams and remember them. If that describes you, too, you might experiment with these supplements and see if they have a similar effect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I consider myself very fortunate that I have very vivid and often lucid dreams - for 50 years since I was a child. My dreams are like cinematic productions - crazy camera work and all. I dream in color and sound. Many of my dreams have soundtracks. I often wake up in the morning with the soundtrack still playing in my head and I turn on my phone and record. I have dozens of them now. When I was ten years old I had a…
I too am fortunate to have frequent vivid and lucid dreams. Some of the music generated in my dreams has been the most beautiful I have ever heard. I've always been afraid that I would have less lucid dreams as I got older after reading statistics on lucid dreams, but it's reassuring to hear that you were still able to experience vivid dreams as you got older
i wake up with a feeling that what i heard was the most wonderful music ever, yet in reality hardly remember it
I don't get particularly vivid dreams but I sometimes get dreams of really interesting stories. The dream itself is like a movie, I'm not the main character but I'm just kind of watching it unfold. What's really interesting is that these "dream movies" always have a half-decent plot. IMO a lot of movie plots are really bad and stick to typical tropes and lessons. My dreams don't stick to these tropes and have actual…
I have similar dreams sometimes, but in the first person. I meet people in my dreams and have interesting, complex conversations (at least they feel that way in the dream). I usually have lucid dreams too-- or it could be that these are the ones I usually remember. Oddly, I will sometimes know when I am about to wake up and I'll say goodbye to the folks I've met.
for example if the setting is in school, my classmates would react to me as they would in real life
Here's how to do it: as soon as you wake up, pay attention to whether you were just dreaming or not. Don't get out of bed and go to the bathroom -- if there was anything to remember from your dreams, you'll lose it by doing this. Dream memories are extremely fragile. What you need to do instead, if you remember anything at all (even just part of a dream, some fleeting image) is get out a piece of paper and write it down immediately, in as much detail as possible.
Once you make a habit of this, a curious thing happens. First, you'll remember more dreams. After a while, you likely won't have enough time in the morning to write them all down. The other thing that happens is you'll dream more vividly. There seems to be a link between how descriptive you are in your writing and how rich your dream experience becomes.
You can improve your dream recall ability. It's not fixed. I did it when I was younger. I was lucky if I could remember one dream per month, and I went to remembering around six per night. Here's how to do it: as soon as you wake up, pay attention to whether you were just dreaming or not. Don't get out of bed and go to the bathroom -- if there was anything to remember from your dreams, you'll lose it by doing this. D…
It is less violent than writing. Requires less focus. Less damaging to the fragile memories.
Just mumble into the phone.
You can improve your dream recall ability. It's not fixed. I did it when I was younger. I was lucky if I could remember one dream per month, and I went to remembering around six per night. Here's how to do it: as soon as you wake up, pay attention to whether you were just dreaming or not. Don't get out of bed and go to the bathroom -- if there was anything to remember from your dreams, you'll lose it by doing this. D…
I have done that by dictating to my cellphone. Voice to text. It is less violent than writing. Requires less focus. Less damaging to the fragile memories. Just mumble into the phone.
Thinking up an idea and remembering an idea probably have similar patterns on EEG. I guess that experiment has been done?
At times I've had pretty interesting dreams, but since I was a teen (decades ago) wondered if perhaps the dream was made on the spot as I "remembered" it. Provided the creative part kept ahead of the "recall" part then it seems doable.
I wonder if there could be negatives to greater dream recall, processing memories of dreams sounds like extra work for your finite brain functions to handle.
I once woke from a dream with a sense of religious injunction, and still have the name I was "given" as a curiosity in my life, "St Athanasius of Lubensk". I had never heard of the forename nor the place at the time of the dream. Research showed them to separately be something. If you have details, let me know.