• Question: Why do we tend to forget our dream so easily?

    Asked by Alanna Senior and Saema K to Adrian, Iroise, Joe, Rachel, Ria on 14 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Joe Bathelt

      Joe Bathelt answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Unfortunately, I do not know much about this, but I found a very useful article on this topic: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-memories-of-vivid-dreams/

      In summary, we potentially forget dreams easily because of the lower concentration of a neurotransmitter that is related to memory formation in the cortex is lower when we sleep. This is the mechanistic explanation. The reason might be that we do not need to remember most of our dream content, because it has no direct relevance to our daily life.

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