Sleep Amnesia: Why Do We Forget Our Dreams?

By Vicki Santillano, Divine Caroline

Do you ever have nights so filled with dreams that you wake up feeling like you haven’t slept at all? I hate nights like that. But what worries me more are the nights when my head hits the pillow and it seems like one minute later, the alarm’s going off and I have no idea where my mind has been for the past eight hours. Everyone experiences dreamless nights at least once in a while, so unless we’re all terrible at remembering dreams, something else must be going on. Does it mean the dreams were too intense for our minds to handle? Is it possible we didn’t dream at all?

No Sleep Without Dreams
Well, we can rule out one of the aforementioned scenarios. We have dreams every night, whether we remember them or not come morning. According to Scientific American, we have five dreams per night on average, which translates to 1,825 dreams per year. Why we don’t remember all of them is less clear.

In general, we tend to forget more than we recall. Unless we make a point of writing down our dreams’ content immediately upon waking, chances are we’ll lose at least half of it a few minutes after we start our day. Several theories attempt to make sense of the complexities of dream recall (or lack thereof); most are content based–that is, they propose that something about these forgotten dreams stops them from reaching our conscious selves.

A Theory of Repression
When it comes to dream recall, Freud’s theory of repression is by far the most well known. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, he argues that all dream content is a product of wish fulfillment. So when we don’t remember certain aspects of a dream, it’s our brain’s way of blocking out wishes or longings that we’re not emotionally equipped to handle. Freud also believed that a lack of dream recall signals repression as a form of self-preservation–our brains don’t want us remember certain content because it’s simply too traumatic. And, of course (this is Freud we’re discussing, after all), he felt that most repression (and dream symbols in general) are rooted in sexual desires.

Alternatives to Freudian Fear
Many other content-based theories besides Freud’s take a crack at dream recall. They also adopt simpler, less psychological stances on the topic. Salience theory, for instance, postulates that we forget some dreams simply because they’re not interesting enough; if nothing remarkable happens in a dream, it’s less likely to stay with us when we wake up. Another theory–this one by L. Strumpell, a dream analyst during Freud’s time–suggests that dream content isn’t organized enough for us to comprehend its events in waking life. However, studies have yet to prove this idea.

The Mind in Sleep: Psychology and Psychophysiology mentions dream kinesthesia as a potential suspect. It happens when we lose the physical movements in our sleep as soon as we physically move after waking up (such as when we reach for the alarm clock). Another possibility is that our memories are formed through repetition and finding connections to other parts of our lives. So when dreams are especially unique (read: crazy) or too undefined to be relatable, it’s harder to tie them to real-life events and remember them.

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Read more: Exercises, Health, Mental Wellness, Spirit, amnesia, dreams, memory

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Sonny H.

8:09AM PDT on Jun 8, 2010

I have tried writing down some of my dreams but tend to forget half ot it and sometimes I can hardly read what I wrote. I might have been dreaming that my writing was legible, but not.

send a green star

Past Member .

8:29PM PST on Feb 19, 2010

I agree, "dream recall can’t be simplified." I don't tend to like all of Frued's theories, but I think he might have a good perception for some of the time on this one. We could take all of these theories, and try to plug them into the different stages of sleep and the kinds of dreams associated with those stages, but I think there would still be variations in personal psychology.

Paraskevi A.

1:09PM PST on Jan 29, 2010

Sometimes my dreams are "so real" as in real life. It's amazing.

susan w.

9:26AM PST on Jan 18, 2010

i like dreaming..... my dream last night was i was shot and instead of getting aid they put a torch on me and i burned up.....2 things i watched last night was the news about haiti and a movie called dead woods,at the end of the movie the woman was burned up....so dreams have something to do with what your brain took in before you went to sleep.....

Tammy N.

2:07AM PST on Jan 10, 2010

dreams may sometimes reveal our embedded thoughts. i can remember some of my dreams and they are impressive!

Donna B.

1:48PM PST on Dec 28, 2009

Dreaming can provide a time to analyze our thinking, to gain wisdom. I notice that I remember best dreams about problems I am trying to work out.

Richard N.

2:35AM PST on Dec 25, 2009

Dreaming is so relaxing...

Adrian D.

11:05AM PST on Dec 13, 2009

I love dreaming!

lina b.

9:09AM PST on Dec 11, 2009

I find dreams both controllable and not-- sometimes if I have a feeling (within the dream) that I am dreaming and can alter the situation...it was also how I got out of a lot of nightmares as a child.
Other times...I wake up to my deepest fears being so real.

Marta A.

4:51PM PST on Nov 24, 2009

I think that dreaming is an incredible and amazing thing.
But there are still lots of questions that science can´t explain about this.