Why do we only remember certain dreams?

Question

Why do we only remember certain dreams?

Answer 1

You actually have more than one dream per night, usually one blocks out the next.

How you wake up can jolt you out of your dream, getting your distracted and thus making you forget your dream.

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Answer 2

People differ on whether or not they can remember their dreams.  Some people have a great deal of interest in their dreams, have very vivid dreams or their level of anxiety or sleep quality results in people remembering dreams at different amounts each month, say.  In general, for all of us dreams are very easily forgotten once we wake up if we don’t consolidate them or in other words if we don’t transfer them from short-term to long term memory immediately upon waking.  

There’s a few theories of why that happens to all of us.  One possibility is that our brain neuro-chemicals during sleep are very different from during wake time and so they don’t allow us to consolidate memory.  The other thing that’s quite possible is that we don’t pay attention to our dreams or are unable to do so during sleep.  We are unable to remember what occurs to us during sleep.  Even people with sleep apnoea who wake up during the night don’t know that that happens to them.

Similarly when we have a dream we’re not consolidating it as it occurs.  Indeed, if you have people having a long REM sleep period and you wake them up once the REM sleep period gets over about 20 minutes you don’t find that dreams increase in length very much.  It’s as if during the dream we forget what was happening.  The same happens immediately we wake up.  The dream just disappears.

Answer 3

The Dreams you remember are the ones you have when you are in the lighhter stage of sleep.  Everybody dreams everynight but because thety are so deep in your subconcious you cannot remember them.  The dreams remembered are when you are drifting into sleep or drifting out of it.

Answer 4

Connections between subconscious and conscious are flighty and random.

Answer 5

we normally only remember dream closest to are waking up because thats when a brain is getting into the daytime function.

hope i helped!

Lucie

Answer 6

It really depends on the person.

I have really vivid dreams. Sometimes I have lucid dreams. I always remember my dreams, every single one of them. When I wake up, I write them down and come back and read them later, compare them to other dreams. Sometimes there's insight in dreams, and sometimes they're just movies playing in your mind.

I am sure it varies from person to person on how real their dreams are, how intense they are, and how often they remember what they dreamt.

Answer 7

You do nor remember certain dreams because some dreams are not close to your waking hour. So some dreams will pass and you will only be able to remember the latest dreams dreamt.

When you wake up in the morning record your dreams. If you don’t remember a dream, record the first thoughts you had as you were waking up. This will stimulate you to capture those precious messages from your best friend, your soul.

Answer 8

We seem to only remember dreams that don't finish before we wake up. This is why we always remember our worst nightmares; you wake up before it is over. Sometimes, though, our sleep is just too light, and outside interferences prevent us from remembering them.  

Answer 9

Because in some dreams, it occurs to us why  we are having them and the messages in them we need to heed, so we don't need to remember them. The ones we remember are ones we need to work out to see what the message is about.

Answer 10

The ones we remember usually come true, and the ones that we don't are usually meaningless. Yet sometimes we can remember a dream but not be able to explain it, these are the ones that might really have a purpose.  

Answer 11

Because they are either happy or sad or contain strong emotions and this helps with the memory process.