Why don't you always remember your dreams ?

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Even in the middle of the night, when you are deep in your sleep, your cerebral organ still maintains some activity, however minimal. It composes stories, draws faces, invents situations – sometimes crazy, sometimes disturbing, often strange. However, when you wake up, these nocturnal creations often fade into the mists of oblivion and your dreams become blurred as you wake up.

This apparent contradiction between the richness of our dream life and our difficulty in remembering itis the result of selective amnesia, and not of any brain dysfunction. Explanations.

The paradox of the amnesiac dreamer

The work of Erin Wamsley, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Furman University (Greenville, South Carolina), demonstrates that virtually all individuals dream regularly, even those who claim otherwise. When researchers interrupt participants' sleep during phases of intense brain activity, they systematically describe fragments of thoughts, snippets of stories, mental images that populated their minds a few seconds before. Repeated observations, which attest to the universal aspect of the dream experience.

Only specific neurological disorders can alter this ability to dream. The rare patients with lesions in certain brain regions lose this faculty, which leads to profound upheavals in their cognitive functions.

Dreams can be seen in several ways. From a personal point of view, we can see them as nocturnal ramblings, but from the perspective of neuroscience, they actively participate in the balance of our brain. These can help us process and integrate difficult emotions or traumatic experiences and provide us with a safe space to relive these experiences and analyse them symbolically. They also consolidate memory, helping the brain sort through the wealth of information it has received during the day.

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How neurotransmitters influence our dreams

Dream memory obeys precise neurological mechanisms, explaining their ephemeral nature. Laboratory studies conducted by Wamsley have highlighted a particular phenomenon: the retention of dream memories is closely dependent on the moment of awakening. Without a period of wakefulness coinciding with the end of a dream, followed by a time of conscious reflection, these nocturnal experiences quickly disappear from our memory.

Imagine that you have a particularly vivid and memorable dream and when you wake up, you still have a very clear sense of it. You tell yourself that you will absolutely write it down in a notebook as soon as you open your eyes. However, the daily grind catches up with you; your alarm goes off and you have to get up quickly to prepare for your day. You are caught up in the whirlwind of the morning: shower, breakfast, getting things ready, etc. Your mind gradually detaches itself from the imprint of the dream and remains occupied with various tasks and concerns.

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Several hours later, while you are at work or in class, suddenly, your dream comes back to you. You try to remember its details, but the images are much blurrier than when you woke up. You can only vaguely remember a few fragments, but the overall story has faded.

This peculiarity is explained by the specific activity of neurotransmitters (the chemical messengers that allow neurons to communicate with each other) during sleep. The sleeping brain operates according to a neurochemistry distinct from the waking state, which directly influences our ability to form and maintain memories. Nocturnal micro-awakenings, these brief natural interruptions of sleep during which we change position, play a role in this process: they create opportunities to memorize dream content.

However, too many of these interruptions disrupt sleep cycles, compromising its restorative quality. The brain must therefore maintain an optimal balance between the continuity of sleep and the possibility of preserving certain memories of our dreams.

The role of sleep cycles

Sleep takes place in four different phases: paradoxical sleep (REM) and three phases of snon-paradoxical sleep (NREM). The first NREM phase, which is short-lived, gives way to the second, characterized by a slowing of brain waves interspersed with brief electrical bursts. This stage occupies nearly half of the sleep time in adults. The third phase, called deep sleep, occurs at the beginning of the night and represents about a quarter of our rest. Finally, paradoxical sleep, marked by brain activity close to wakefulness, occupies the last quarter of our night.

While the most vivid dreams generally occur during REM sleep, with an 80% chance of being remembered upon waking compared to 50% for other stages, the ability to dream is not limited to this period alone. Morning dreams are particularly memorable, as our brains naturally become more active as we approach waking.

A vast majority of us use a very common object to wake up: an alarm clock, or an alarm directly on the smartphone. Well, these tools are real enemies of this memorization. According to Jing Zhang, a researcher in cognitive neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, the abrupt awakening caused by an alarm increases levels of cortisol (stress hormone). An interruption that immediately diverts attention to daily obligations, to the detriment of dream memories.

Therefore, forgetting your dreams is not abnormal, on the contrary, and they are not all made to be memorized. Here too, the brain sorts and prioritizes, as it does with our memories of the day, and determines what is relevant to remember for you or not. Keeping a dream journal is a great way to capture your dreams, without worrying about the coherence or logic of the story. The important thing here is to keep the essence of the story, not necessarily the details.

• Even though we dream every night, our brain quickly erases these memories unless we wake up at the right time
• The activity of neurotransmitters during sleep makes dreams difficult to remember, except in the case of natural interruptions.
• A sudden awakening instantly diverts attention, often making it impossible to keep track of our dreams.

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