It happens all the time. I know there are levels of alertness and actually being ‘awake’, but I’m talking up to 10 to 15 minutes after being ‘up’. Most of the time it’s much less than that, (still often takes a good while though), but this morning was 15 minutes, at least, before I lost all traces of a nighttime fantasy I really wanted to hold on to. I can remember more than a few other cases where I would lose the dream late too. I almost ALWAYS lose it eventually.
I can remember everything else I thought about after getting up. What’s the deal? Why, even in a short span of time, is a dream more likely to forgotten than other thoughts at the time awakening?
I can’t answer your question, but for me, if I wake up in the middle of it, and I stop and think about it, I tend to remember it. I have a number of cool dreams that I can still remember in detail 20 years later. But if I wake up around a normal time it fades fast just like you are describing.
I’ve found that if I immediately tell the story to someone, it converts from being a fading dream into something more like an actual memory, and it doesn’t disappear. This works even if I just tell the story to myself in my head.
ETA: not that that answers your question or anything…
Maybe it has something to do with REM sleep. If theres a neurologist on the board they can probably explain better.
As most people probably know, people dream every night, even if you dont remember it. The deepest and most vivid dreams happen during REM sleep. Most of us dont remember those dreams because we wake up at a normal time in the morning.
However, theres an absolute foolproof method of remembering your dreams that should work with everyone. Set your alarm for 3 or 4am, assuming you sleep at about 11pm to midnight. When you wake up, you should have a pretty good recollection of whatever you’re dreaming about. This probably speaks to REM sleep somehow being connected with your memories, since most scientists believe that dreams are simply a mish mash of things drawn from your memory. Sorry this doesnt answer your question directly, but at least you should be able to remember your dreams better
A common problem with myself, too. I try to keep a blog about the dreams I’ve had. It doesn’t work very well when I can remember only bits 'n pieces of them.
Odd story…
One time I woke up at about 3am from a dream. In this dream my wife had been doing drugs, and it really pissed me off. I know it was a dream, but I was still mad. I flipped on the computer and wrote her an e-mail about it.
…and then promptly forgot about it.
A couple of years later, when I was starting my dream blog, she reminded me about the e-mail, and I could only vaguely remember what it was about. She forwarded it back to me, and I put it in the blog.
So, assuming this is true, dreams don’t normally get transferred to longer term data storage; that’s why you forget them. They aren’t stored in a memory area designed to last.
I guess I wanted to know if this is a common thing as well. I’m not worried about it, but I’m curious. Could occasional pot smoking play a role? My mother’s side of the family all suffer from sleep apnea, could that in anyway help explain this?
Or is this something we all face time to time? Sound to me like I’m not alone. It’s just so weird that I fully realize what I’ve just dreamt, put it into context, (even add/edit the scenario, if it could make for a good yarn), then… POOF!
So you’re mind has a proverbial file cabinet just for dreams? I know what they mean when they talk about remembering other dreams within dreams. Is there more to it? How can your brain distinguish the dream even after rationally thinking about it?
It was a good link, I guess I was just seeing if I could get more insight. Maybe the answer is that simple, I just wanted to see if anyone could elaborate more on it. Hopefully I’ll understand it.
Or dreams just use a specific “filing cabinet” that doesn’t store memories long, but is also used for other things.
The brain has a function that somehow tags things as “real” or “imaginary” *; dreams being natural and common, it no doubt has evolved to automatically label them as “imaginary”.
This is what makes some hallucinations so convincing, even though they may be highly unrealistic. A hallucination may be far simpler than reality, but utterly convincing because whatever is causing the hallucination is also causing the “It’s real !” switch to be on. It’s not all that rare for people to have hallucination that don’t flip that switch, and are therefore not treated as real. I recall a quote from a guy who said he considered such things as the apparent materialization of floating heads speaking gibberish to be “free entertainment”.
Nah… I just mention it because I used to always try to tell my wife until I figured out that listening to someone else’s rambling account of their weird and “fascinating” dream is just about the most boring thing in the world. So I usually suppress the urge to subject her to it.
After a couple of years of studying and working with dreams, I agree with the general idea that you need to transfer the dream from ‘dream memory’ to real memory.
The moment you wake from the dream, immediately walk yourself through it, noting as many details as you can, as quickly as you can. Think about the more vivid images, think about the overall plot, think about the individual elements. This tends to fix it in your waking memory and you won’t easily forget it.
When analyzing a dream, I consider two elements;
1> The overall plot, which can tell you what it’s all about.
2> The details, which can give you insights to your experiences and feelings about whatever the hell it’s about.
A dream journal isn’t a bad idea. I kept one for several years. The beauty of the thing is that for some of the longer dreams, I tended to get it almost completely written before the lightbulb went off and I knew what the heck that dream was about. The act of detailing it, writing it out, much like telling it to another person, was what was needed to “hear it outside myself” and figure it out.
Just like when you develop a plan of action for something, explaining it to someone else allows you to see holes, problems and even advantages you never thought about in your head.
I heard somewhere that if you are woken mid-dream, interrupted by an alarm or something, then you’re more likely to remember that dream for longer, maybe even as a proper memory, than if you were to let the dream run its course and your REM to do its regular “CD Burn Lead Out” stage.
Nah… I just mention it because I used to always try to tell my wife until I figured out that listening to someone else’s rambling account of their weird and “fascinating” dream is just about the most boring thing in the world. So I usually suppress the urge to subject her to it.