What Did You Dream About Last Night? Tips to Remember Your Dreams

Dreams are still a mystery for scientists .

Many experiments were carried out and many theories were posed, but scientists still do not fully understand how and why we dream.

The thing is further complicated by the fact that all people dream, but some of them generally do not remember their dreams.

Progress in studying the functioning of the human brain and recent psychological studies have brought us a step closer to explaining the fact that some people are fond of remembering dreams, while others never remember what they dreamed, writes Mental Floss.

Here's what influences whether you will remember dreams in the morning or not.

Gender

In general, women remember dreams more often than men.

Scientists are not sure why, and they think it might be due to be biological or hormonal gender differences.

Women may be more aware of their dreams, because they are simply more interested in dream phenomenon than men.

But the difference is insignificant, and it can be said that there are many women who remember their dreams, but also many men who remember theirs.

Age

The older we are, the harder we are to recall our dreams. The ability to remember a dream is improved in late childhood and adolescence, and is at its peak in the twenties. After that, it mostly falls gradually, though there are exceptions, as in everything else.

Personality

This is not a strict rule, but there is a certain connection between certain personality traits and the tendency to remember dreams. People who tend to analyse their psychological state more often remember dreams than those who approach life more conveniently.

Time spent in sleep

Time you spend on average sleeping is one of the most important factors determining whether you will remember your dreams or not. People dream every 90 minutes during a rapid eye movement (REM) cycle of sleep.

But these REM cycles become longer during the night, which means that most dreams are dreamed before the morning, in most cases just before we wake up.

If you sleep four hours, say, instead of eight, you only have 20 percent of the usual time for dreams. For this reason, people often remember their dreams at weekends, because then they have time to "compensate" sleep that they sacrifice on weekdays, but they do not remember the dreams that they are dreaming on working days.

Brain Activity

Thanks to the new methods of brain scanning, scientists have a clearer outline of what parts of the brain are associated with dreaming. A part of the brain that processes information and emotions is more active with people who are more likely to remember dreams, according to a 2014 study.

A recent study from 2017 has shown that with people who are mostly remembering their dreams there is increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of abstract thinking, so it makes sense to be connected to dreaming and lucid dreams (those that we conscious to dream).

Responding to external stimuli

Similarly, with people who are more likely to remember dreams, a higher brain activity is recorded in the waking state when they hear someone pronounce their name while they are awake. A study in 2014 showed that people who remember their dreams have increased brain activity in the regions that are responsible for sound response.

What can you do to remember what you dreamed of in the morning ? It's pretty easy, before you go to bed, think "Tonight I'll remember everything I dream." The very act of thinking about dreams before falling asleep can make a difference.

When you wake up, take some time in bed and try to "invoke" dreams. If something is "returned" to you, and remember the fragments, write them down or think about them a little. Immediately after the awakening, the dreams are still in our short-term memory, and it is easy to forget them.