If I don't remember dreams, do I not dream?

Most people dream but forget quickly on waking. Waking during or just after REM makes recall easier, and writing dreams down immediately helps.

Do people dream in colour or black and white?

Most people report colour dreams. Studies found more black-and-white dream reports among those who grew up with black-and-white TV, suggesting experience may shape dreams.

Dream

🩺 Nursing & Health By CampusDown Wiki Editorial Team Last updated October 26, 2026

Dreams are vivid perceptual, emotional and story-like experiences during sleep; they are longest and most vivid in REM sleep but can occur in other sleep stages too.

Contents

1. From divine messages to the unconscious
2. REM sleep and brain science
3. Lucid dreams, nightmares and sleep health
4. FAQ
5. References

From divine messages to the unconscious

Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt had dream books, and from Joseph in the Bible to East Asian conception dreams, dreams were long read as omens. In the 2nd century the Greek Artemidorus wrote the Oneirocritica on dream interpretation. In The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) Sigmund Freud called dreams disguised fulfilments of repressed wishes and "the royal road to the unconscious", while Carl Jung saw symbols of a collective unconscious. These theories shaped culture deeply but are hard to test scientifically. In 1966 Calvin Hall and Robert Van de Castle systematically coded thousands of dream reports, showing "continuity": dream content often tracks waking concerns.

REM sleep and brain science

In 1953 Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman at the University of Chicago discovered REM sleep, when sleepers' eyes dart periodically. In 1957 William Dement and Kleitman showed that people woken from REM report dreams far more often, opening dream research with brain waves. In 1977 Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley proposed the activation-synthesis hypothesis: the brainstem fires random signals and the cortex weaves them into a story. In 2000 Antti Revonsuo suggested dreams rehearse threats, but memory consolidation, emotional processing and other functions remain competing ideas. In 2013 Yukiyasu Kamitani's team at ATR in Japan partly decoded the kinds of objects in sleep-onset dreams from brain activity, and a 2017 study linked dreaming, even in non-REM sleep, to a posterior cortical "hot zone".

Lucid dreams, nightmares and sleep health

In 1981 Stephen LaBerge and colleagues proved lucid dreaming — knowing you are dreaming — is real, as dreamers sent pre-agreed eye-movement signals. Everyone has occasional nightmares, but frequent ones that disrupt sleep and daytime life may be nightmare disorder, sometimes alongside PTSD, depression or insomnia; imagery rehearsal therapy, rewriting the dream's ending while awake, is reported to help. Shouting or thrashing while dreaming may signal REM sleep behaviour disorder and warrants medical evaluation. Fortune-telling from dreams can be fun but has no scientific basis. If sleep problems persist, consult a sleep specialist.

This article is general health information and is not a substitute for diagnosis or treatment. If symptoms persist, see a doctor.

FAQ

If I don't remember dreams, do I not dream?: Most people dream but forget quickly on waking. Waking during or just after REM makes recall easier, and writing dreams down immediately helps.
Do people dream in colour or black and white?: Most people report colour dreams. Studies found more black-and-white dream reports among those who grew up with black-and-white TV, suggesting experience may shape dreams.

Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26

References

Freud, S. (1900). Die Traumdeutung. Leipzig und Wien: Franz Deuticke.
Aserinsky, E., & Kleitman, N. (1953). Regularly occurring periods of eye motility, and concomitant phenomena, during sleep. Science, 118(3062), 273–274.
Dement, W., & Kleitman, N. (1957). The relation of eye movements during sleep to dream activity: An objective method for the study of dreaming. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53(5), 339–346.
Hall, C. S., & Van de Castle, R. L. (1966). The Content Analysis of Dreams. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Hobson, J. A., & McCarley, R. W. (1977). The brain as a dream state generator: An activation-synthesis hypothesis of the dream process. American Journal of Psychiatry, 134(12), 1335–1348.
LaBerge, S. P., Nagel, L. E., Dement, W. C., & Zarcone, V. P. (1981). Lucid dreaming verified by volitional communication during REM sleep. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 52(3), 727–732.
Revonsuo, A. (2000). The reinterpretation of dreams: An evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23(6), 877–901.
Aurora, R. N., et al. (2010). Best practice guide for the treatment of nightmare disorder in adults. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 6(4), 389–401.
Horikawa, T., Tamaki, M., Miyawaki, Y., & Kamitani, Y. (2013). Neural decoding of visual imagery during sleep. Science, 340(6132), 639–642.
Siclari, F., et al. (2017). The neural correlates of dreaming. Nature Neuroscience, 20(6), 872–878.

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This article was last updated on October 26, 2026. It is based on widely recognized original works and textbooks; when citing it in a paper, please check the original sources listed in the references.