For many years there has been speculation about why some people can remember their dreams almost daily and others cannot. However, recently and for the first time, a group of neuroscientists from Lyon Neuroscience Research Center was able to empirically explain this difference.
They are more reactive to environmental stimuli and wake up more during sleep
According to them, people who tend to remember their dreams when they wake up show more activation in the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), a brain area related to directing attention towards external stimuli and promoting wakefulness during sleep.
To carry out the study, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) was used to measure the spontaneous activity of the brain during the states of wakefulness and sleep of 41 volunteers, who were classified into 2 groups: 21 “subjects who usually remember dreams when waking up”, who remembered an average of 5.2 dreams per week and 20 “subjects who rarely remember their dreams when waking up”, who remembered an average of 2 dreams per month.
After carrying out the analysis, it was found that the “subjects who usually remember dreams upon waking” demonstrated stronger spontaneous brain activity in the medial prefrontal area and in the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ).
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According to the researchers, these results show that people who tend to remember their dreams upon waking are more reactive to environmental stimuli and wake up more during sleep, which contributes to better encoding of dreams in memory.
They are also related to the production of dreams
This is how research director Perrine Ruby explained it: “While we sleep we are not able to memorize new information; “You need to be awake to be able to do that.”
The researchers hypothesize that these brain differences are also related to dream production, as it is possible that people who frequently remember their dreams produce a greater number of dreams than people who rarely remember their dreams.
You can access the magazine for more details of this investigation.
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