Why We Sometimes Remember Dreams

Introduction

Some people recall a dream every morning, whereas others rarely recall one. A team led by Perrine Ruby, an Inserm Research Fellow at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (Inserm/CNRS/Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1), has studied the brain activity of these two types of dreamers in order to understand the differences between them.

Main Item

In a study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the researchers show that the temporo-parietal junction, an information-processing hub in the brain, is more active in high dream re-callers. Increased activity in this brain region might facilitate attention orienting toward external stimuli and promote intra-sleep wakefulness, thereby facilitating the encoding of dreams in memory.

The reason for dreaming is still a mystery for the researchers who study the difference between "high dream re-callers," who recall dreams regularly, and "low dream re-callers," who recall dreams rarely.

In January 2013 (work published in the journal Cerebral Cortex), the team led by Perrine Ruby, Inserm researcher at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, made the following two observations: "high dream re-callers" have twice as many time of wakefulness during sleep as "low dream re-callers" and their brains are more reactive to auditory stimuli during sleep and wakefulness. This increased brain reactivity may promote awakenings during the night, and may thus facilitate memorization of dreams during brief periods of wakefulness.

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

In this new study, the research team sought to identify which areas of the brain differentiate high and low dream re-callers. They used Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to measure the spontaneous brain activity of 41 volunteers during wakefulness and sleep. The volunteers were classified into 2 groups:

• 21 "high dream re-callers" who recalled dreams 5.2 mornings per week in average.
• 20 "low dream re-callers," who reported 2 dreams per month in average.

High dream re-callers, both while awake and while asleep, showed stronger spontaneous brain activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and in the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), an area of the brain involved in attention orienting toward external stimuli.

"This may explain why high dream re-callers are more reactive to environmental stimuli, awaken more during sleep, and thus better encode dreams in memory than low dream re-callers. Indeed the sleeping brain is not capable of memorizing new information; it needs to awaken to be able to do that," explains Perrine Ruby, Inserm Research Fellow.

The South African neuropsychologist Mark Solms had observed in earlier studies that lesions in these two brain areas led to a cessation of dream recall. The originality of the French team's results is to show brain activity differences between high and low dream re-callers during sleep and also during wakefulness.

"Our results suggest that high and low dream re-callers differ in dream memorization, but do not exclude that they also differ in dream production. Indeed, it is possible that high dream re-callers produce a larger amount of dreaming than low dream re-callers," concludes the research team.

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Attribution/Source(s):
This peer reviewed publication was selected for publishing by the editors of Disabled World (DW) due to its significant relevance to the disability community. Originally authored by INSERM (Institut national de la sante et de la recherche medicale), and published on 2014/02/17 (Edit Update: 2024/04/15), the content may have been edited for style, clarity, or brevity. For further details or clarifications, INSERM (Institut national de la sante et de la recherche medicale) can be contacted at inserm.fr. NOTE: Disabled World does not provide any warranties or endorsements related to this article.