# Do you dream in color? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 21, 2005, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259 "2005-06-21T22:41:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/1 "2005-06-21T22:41:52Z")
So whats the SD? some of us can and some cant? Dream in color. I mean I know I can, but what does that mean ? ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/2 "2005-06-21T22:59:57Z")
I’d say I dream more in shapes. That is, it’s not really in color, but it’s not really black and white either. Unless I specifically think in the dream about the color of something, in which case I see the colors. It’s sort of like Pleasantville, where things were different ‘colors’ but noone noticed the quality of the color until they thought to notice it. ---
**Author:** ![tiltypig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dbc845/32.png) [@tiltypig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiltypig)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/3 "2005-06-22T00:28:05Z")
I have dreams with extremely vivid colors in them. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/4 "2005-06-22T00:40:47Z")
Yes ---
**Author:** ![Sunshine\_and\_Smiles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Sunshine\_and\_Smiles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunshine_and_Smiles)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/5 "2005-06-22T00:51:22Z")
Colours, certainly. ---
**Author:** ![flamingbananas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f4b2a3/32.png) [@flamingbananas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flamingbananas)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/6 "2005-06-22T00:54:26Z")
Yup, my dreams are just like real life. ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/7 "2005-06-22T05:41:13Z")
Always. I have always marveled at people who dream in black and white, as I can honestly never recall having a single non-color dream. Colors in my dream are just like real life. ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/8 "2005-06-22T06:07:11Z")
Not only in colour but Technicolor (I know this because right before I wake up I always see the logo) ---
**Author:** ![Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stark_Raven_Mad)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/9 "2005-06-22T06:19:07Z")
> [@Seven](#): > > Not only in colour but Technicolor (I know this because right before I wake up I always see the logo) Har! Anyway, yeah. Color for me, too. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/10 "2005-06-22T06:46:10Z")
My daughter’s Psychology textbook says people don’t dream in color. I say BS. I do it all the time. ---
**Author:** ![mrunlucky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@mrunlucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrunlucky)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/11 "2005-06-22T07:06:48Z")
I thought I’d read somewhere that people might “insert” the idea of colors into their dreams afterwards. Unless I am confusing this with the idea of ascribing narrative onto nonlinear events, which is a thing I have had occasional trouble with when writing down my dreams – trying to recall the progression of events. Regardless I can recall some specific dreams in which everything was clearly black and white. I noted this anomaly when I woke up. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/12 "2005-06-22T07:36:40Z")
Put me down as another colour dreamer (I’m also one of those able to read in dreams) - I quite often have birds in my dreams & their colours strike me even in the dream (nothing fantastical, I’m talking pretty mundane birds like [this](http://home.btconnect.com/bt-uk-connect-012/Black_Redstart_5552_THM.jpg) .) ---
**Author:** ![Marnevel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Marnevel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marnevel)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/13 "2005-06-22T08:57:10Z")
I assure you, I always dream in colour. I call BS on that psychology textbook. Perhaps boring stuffy professor-types only dream in black and white. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/14 "2005-06-22T10:18:20Z")
> [@mrunlucky](#): > > I thought I’d read somewhere that people might “insert” the idea of colors into their dreams afterwards. . Except if they paid attention to the color during their dream . For instance, I can remember a dream where I was watching a firework, and another where I was marvelling at a house interior decoration, and in both case I was particularily interested in the colors. So, I would have to insert the whole scene into my dream. Or actually having been marvelling at the wonderful black and white in my dream while calling it “purple” (which wouldn’t be beyond the “logic” of dreams, but still…). Besides, I can’t see why we would dream in “black and white”. We don’t perceive things in back and white, and thinking in black and white requires a conscious effort to get rid of the colors we spontaneously include in our mental pictures. Why would it been different for dreams? ---
**Author:** ![Thalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f475e1/32.png) [@Thalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thalion)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/15 "2005-06-22T11:57:03Z")
I’ve always dreamed in color. I have a friend who swears that his dreams were solely black & white all his life, up until his late fortys. Then my brother performed a hypnotic past life regression on him (he “remembered a past life” as a test pilot who crashed). My friend says that since that day, he has dreamed in color. ---
**Author:** ![audiobottle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/16 "2005-06-22T12:17:22Z")
**clairobscur** makes a good point. A black and white dream would seem to be the anomaly, not the norm. I have to think for a second before I can think of images that are black and white. What would be the reason behind sucking the color out of your dreams? ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/17 "2005-06-22T12:37:44Z")
I don’t think that “not dreaming in colour” means dreaming in black and white but rather, not having a colour associated with the dream. Dreams aren’t mini-movies inside our heads, they’re a highly complex, gestalt of all kinds of different sensorary input. So it’s not a matter of a flower being in black and white say, it’s a matter of you dreaming of the concept of a flower except without dreaming of the concept of the colour of the flour. ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/18 "2005-06-22T13:00:24Z")
Except my dreams are ver much like a mini-movie inside my head (except from my point of view). They are usually very well paced, with plots and everything. Of course, how much sense the plot makes to a waking mind is up for debate. (I have some wierd dreams) ---
**Author:** ![audiobottle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/19 "2005-06-22T13:13:49Z")
I’m not sure how that’s so different from normal life though. At the end of the day, if you were to ask me what color such and such a thing was, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you unless something about the object had stuck out to me. Same with dreams. If I don’t really notice the thing in my dream, then whether or not it has color is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Toaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@Toaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toaster)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259/20 "2005-06-22T13:21:05Z")
My dreams often ARE mini-movies. I mean, from my point of view, in some of the dreams, I am merely watching others act everything out, even with my point of view changing angles, slow zooms on important parts, etc. Every once in a while I’m lucky enough to play a role in one of these, where when I wake up I can remember both being in the dream, and watching it from a distant point of view. Typically in those I swap characters, as whichever one I’m possessing (I rarely dream that I am myself at all) will get killed off, then I’ll be in someone else, with no knowledge of the other character’s history or knowledge, with a new history and knowledge base generated for each character. It’s really freaking annoying as I wake up ultra jumbled with several character histories running through my head. Oh, I do the high color, high smell, texture, taste, hearing, etc. dreaming all the time, with some manipulatable lucid dreaming thrown in too. I WISH my dreams were gestalt. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-dream-in-color/309259.md?page=2)