A new study suggests that whether people remember their dreams may depend more on how they sleep and how prone they are to mind wandering than on raw memory skills.

In a 4-year study of 204 healthy adults aged 18 to 70 years, researchers tracked sleep and dream patterns to uncover what influences dream recall. Participants wore sleep monitors and recorded their dreams each morning for 15 days using voice memos, enabling naturalistic, home-based data collection.

Those who frequently recalled dreams shared key traits: they valued dreams, had a tendency for mind wandering, and typically experienced longer bouts of sleep that were light in quality—specifically, with a lower proportion of deep (N3) sleep, known as “long light sleep.”

Dreams were categorized into three types:

• Contentful dreams, with specific recalled details

• White dreams, where participants felt they had dreamt but couldn’t recall the content

• No dream experience

Contentful dreams were most common, followed by white dreams and then no dreams. More than 70% of morning reports included either contentful or white dreams. On average, participants recalled just over five dreams per week—nearly double the number they self-reported in prestudy surveys. This discrepancy suggests that dream recall is strongly influenced by how and when memory is prompted.

Sleep data showed that long light sleep—characterized by extended sleep periods with relatively low deep sleep—was strongly linked to dream recall. This sleep pattern was more common in younger adults, potentially explaining age-related differences in recalling dreams.

Age also influenced memory for dream content. Older adults more often reported white dreams, implying that while dreaming still occurred, the memory trace was more easily disrupted—perhaps due to aging-related changes in attention or working memory.

The researchers also identified seasonal effects. Dream recall rates were lower in winter than in spring or autumn, even after controlling for sleep architecture and psychological traits.

General memory performance did not predict whether dreams were remembered. Instead, individuals more vulnerable to mental distractions—measured as “interference”—were less likely to recall specific dream content. This supports the interference hypothesis, which posits that attention immediately after waking is critical to retaining dream memories.

Overall, the study found that the likelihood of recalling dreams—and remembering their content—varies widely among individuals and across nights. Attention and sleep quality, rather than memory strength alone, appear central to whether dreams are remembered.

Researchers used actigraphy, voice recordings, and cognitive testing to collect data. A subset of participants also wore portable EEG headbands to assess brain activity during sleep. The design aimed to capture sleep under natural, minimally disruptive conditions.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Source: Communications Psychology