I remember them for a while, but I guess they fade, gradually.
I’m not sure. One of the reasons maybe that we don’t think about them too much. To remember something you have to kind of “reinforce” the memory by thinking about it, and when you don’t do that it’s easier to forget.
I think it’s also likely that dreams are very short, or consist of very small ideas. Your brain makes sense of them, but you don’t live through the experiences like you do in real life. What may seem like a long dream when you wake up may actually have only been a very short experience while you were asleep.
A while ago I read that dreams were a left-over feature of when you made your brain as a baby. I’m not sure if this is true. The idea is that when you were growing (in your mum) and you were making your spinal cord and brain, you would randomly fire the nerves, to sort of build them up. Like muscles, and exercise. This would have helped development. When you were born, and were growing up, your body kept doing this, kind of like a habit. You’d get random nerve shots into your brain for no reason, and when they arrived in the brain, your adult brain (with a lot of memories now) would have to make sense of them. So it would desperately try to apply a meaning to random inputs, which would explain why your dreams are a little bit connected to reality, but also a bit weird.
Like I said, I don’t know if that’s true. But it would mean that the “dream” lasts a split second. Your brain’s analysis makes it feel like a long time, but it isn’t. Because it’s not a long time, your brain doesn’t put down any memories about it, and you don’t remember much.
One is that the chemicals in our brain are different to when we are sleeping and they don’t let us form memories as we would do while awake. Another reason is that it could be that we don’t pay attention to our dreams in the same way that we pay attention to what we do while we’re awake so what we get are snippets of memories of the dream when we wake up.
Let’s turn this question around: if we don’t remember, then how we know that we even have dreams? We know because we do remember at least some dreams. But usually we don’t pay much attention so we forget, especially as many dreams do not seem to make much sense. Some people have a book next to their beds, so that as soon as they wake, they can write down what they remember of their dreams before they forget.
I had a series of dream (nightmares) when I was younger which I can still remember today. I had the same dream repeatedly over several days, and because I was scared of it, I would think about it during the day too.
Thinking about it so much reinforced it in my long-term memory, just like studying for a test and remembering facts. It caused an emotional response (fear) which helps me to remember it as well. Emotional events cause more activity in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in making memories. It’s important for us to remember really scary or dangerous situations so that we avoid them in future. For this reason, our emotional memories are often clearer.
Most dreams fade quickly from our memories because we don’t store them in our brain. It’s kind of like driving along a road, watching the scenery. You see it and register it at the time, but you won’t remember individual bits in 10 minutes. Our brain receives so much information each day that it cannot store it all. We can have approximately 7 pieces of information in our short-term memory at any time, but the information will be lost unless we transfer it to long-term memory. There are a few ways to store information in long-term memory, one of them being to think about the information a lot, creating a strong pathway for that memory in our brain.
Dreams are hard to remember because we usually don’t think about them much after we wake up (no transfer to long-term memory). Also, they usually don’t make a lot of sense, so we would have to remember lots of separate little bits of information, rather than a single, clear memory. You can teach yourself to remember dreams more clearly, and write down the details as soon as you wake up, but I don’t believe that there is much significance in them.
I can remember some dreams and not others. I usually remember the dreams where I wake up in the middle of them. I think it’s harder to remember what your dreams were about if you sleep right through them
I remember them for a while, but I guess they fade, gradually.
I’m not sure. One of the reasons maybe that we don’t think about them too much. To remember something you have to kind of “reinforce” the memory by thinking about it, and when you don’t do that it’s easier to forget.
I think it’s also likely that dreams are very short, or consist of very small ideas. Your brain makes sense of them, but you don’t live through the experiences like you do in real life. What may seem like a long dream when you wake up may actually have only been a very short experience while you were asleep.
A while ago I read that dreams were a left-over feature of when you made your brain as a baby. I’m not sure if this is true. The idea is that when you were growing (in your mum) and you were making your spinal cord and brain, you would randomly fire the nerves, to sort of build them up. Like muscles, and exercise. This would have helped development. When you were born, and were growing up, your body kept doing this, kind of like a habit. You’d get random nerve shots into your brain for no reason, and when they arrived in the brain, your adult brain (with a lot of memories now) would have to make sense of them. So it would desperately try to apply a meaning to random inputs, which would explain why your dreams are a little bit connected to reality, but also a bit weird.
Like I said, I don’t know if that’s true. But it would mean that the “dream” lasts a split second. Your brain’s analysis makes it feel like a long time, but it isn’t. Because it’s not a long time, your brain doesn’t put down any memories about it, and you don’t remember much.
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There’s two schools of thoughts on this.
One is that the chemicals in our brain are different to when we are sleeping and they don’t let us form memories as we would do while awake. Another reason is that it could be that we don’t pay attention to our dreams in the same way that we pay attention to what we do while we’re awake so what we get are snippets of memories of the dream when we wake up.
0
Let’s turn this question around: if we don’t remember, then how we know that we even have dreams? We know because we do remember at least some dreams. But usually we don’t pay much attention so we forget, especially as many dreams do not seem to make much sense. Some people have a book next to their beds, so that as soon as they wake, they can write down what they remember of their dreams before they forget.
0
I had a series of dream (nightmares) when I was younger which I can still remember today. I had the same dream repeatedly over several days, and because I was scared of it, I would think about it during the day too.
Thinking about it so much reinforced it in my long-term memory, just like studying for a test and remembering facts. It caused an emotional response (fear) which helps me to remember it as well. Emotional events cause more activity in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in making memories. It’s important for us to remember really scary or dangerous situations so that we avoid them in future. For this reason, our emotional memories are often clearer.
Most dreams fade quickly from our memories because we don’t store them in our brain. It’s kind of like driving along a road, watching the scenery. You see it and register it at the time, but you won’t remember individual bits in 10 minutes. Our brain receives so much information each day that it cannot store it all. We can have approximately 7 pieces of information in our short-term memory at any time, but the information will be lost unless we transfer it to long-term memory. There are a few ways to store information in long-term memory, one of them being to think about the information a lot, creating a strong pathway for that memory in our brain.
Dreams are hard to remember because we usually don’t think about them much after we wake up (no transfer to long-term memory). Also, they usually don’t make a lot of sense, so we would have to remember lots of separate little bits of information, rather than a single, clear memory. You can teach yourself to remember dreams more clearly, and write down the details as soon as you wake up, but I don’t believe that there is much significance in them.
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I can remember some dreams and not others. I usually remember the dreams where I wake up in the middle of them. I think it’s harder to remember what your dreams were about if you sleep right through them
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