# Do you see color in your dreams? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 12, 2014, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-color-in-your-dreams/685931 "2014-04-12T12:18:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-color-in-your-dreams/685931/21 "2014-04-12T20:07:52Z")
Always color. Sometimes I dream about nighttime, but even though there’s plenty of black and white, it’s still color. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-color-in-your-dreams/685931/22 "2014-04-12T21:09:56Z")
Most times, no: most of my dreams are somewhat abstract. There are visual images, but the ideas are more important than the pictures. But…now and then, some very nice full-color stuff pops up, often in beautiful detail. I’ve dreamed Rocky Mountain Landscapes that would be the envy of National Geographic magazine. These are, alas, kind of rare. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-color-in-your-dreams/685931/23 "2014-04-12T21:18:01Z")
> [@ticker](#): > > It is my belief that dreams are not at all like a movie or video. When watching a movie you are presented with a stream of images and sounds which, just like the real world, is far too much data for your visual system and brain to cope with in real time. Instead your brain directs attention to those aspects it feels are important to make sense of what it is seeing and discards the rest, guessing at the missing bits to fill in any gaps. > > In a dream you do not have the full amount of data from which to select the salient stuff but rather just a stream of sensations of what you might experience after the brain has already made that selection. All that exists are the details on which your dream-consciousness has focused itself. As such it cannot really be said that color either exists or does not exist until you find your dream-self asking the question “what color is that?”, at which point the sensation of color will magically occur - unless you are in some weird Charlie Chaplin dream where the absence of color is a specific experience. > > I expect that all normally-sighted people will at some time experience color in their dreams. The question becomes one of how important is color to your view of the world which will be reflected in how often your dream-consciousness finds itself inserting the sensation of color into the stream of experiences. Ditto. I remember many of my dreams, but I never remember colors, nor the particular absence of color. I guess I’m one of those people to whom color is not a part of the universe that we normally notice. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-color-in-your-dreams/685931/24 "2014-04-12T21:38:46Z")
I dream in color. In fact, I once had a dream where I was a small child again and it was Easter in Poplar Bluff, MO, a town I lived in from the ages of 7 to 14. Everything was made of neatly-typed words (eggs were the word ‘egg’, for example) and those words were all very vivid pastels, if the word ‘vivid’ can even apply to pastels. I remember the colors, and the fact I was amazed I could see so clearly even without glasses (I’m very myopic in real life). So, yes, all my dreams are in color. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-color-in-your-dreams/685931/25 "2014-04-12T21:52:49Z")
Yes. Often a bit desaturated, but last time I had a dream that was monochrome that I can remember is 30 years ago…and that was all in orange. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-color-in-your-dreams/685931/26 "2014-04-12T21:56:29Z")
I wonder how Martin Luther King Jr. would have answered this question? ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-color-in-your-dreams/685931/27 "2014-04-13T00:48:47Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > \I remember the colors, and the fact I was amazed I could see so clearly even without glasses (I’m very myopic in real life).\ Heh - I’m also quite near-sighted in real life, and I recall one dream where I took my glasses off in my dream, and I couldn’t see anything. I think that’s the only time I have not been able to see clearly in dreams - my glasses are never an issue in dreams. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-color-in-your-dreams/685931/28 "2014-04-13T01:19:39Z")
I don’t recall ever having a dream that wasn’t in full color. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-see-color-in-your-dreams/685931.md?page=1)