Not recalling any dreams - my theory?

I'm sure its not just me that's very occasionally woken up with not even the impression that you've had a dream that night? Now, I'm not very clever so I hope this makes sense - and maybe its been gone over before - I know that we all have three or so REM cycles every night so that means that even if we don't recall anything we did have dreams.... Could it be that the reason we sometimes have no recall is because the 'dreams' weren't dreams as such but just random images/sounds/junk with no story or narrative etc to bind it all together and therefore there is literally nothing to remember because at best we would only have had split second moments of worthwhile dreams if at all.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense, I've been mulling it over he last few days and am finding it hard to put into words, hopefully someone gets it! :)

Not only might it be difficult to find a narrative for a dream, but the experience might not even be expressible in words and sentences. Astral experiences for example, whatever they are, may be too strange to fit anything known to the dreamer. And what is a mind to do with such complexity?

Of course, sometimes there just are no dreams; dreaming is not like falling off a log - it does have certain physiological precursors. E.g. if your sleep is too light, because of physical discomfort, then you might not dream at all.

That's certainly possible, stevedoig, but I don't find (at least in myself) that this is often the case. Very seldom I will awake from a dream that is abstract, and not have a very good memory of what occurred; what memory I have makes no sense and I quickly begin to forget it. I've never had a night where all of my dreams are so abstract as to be unmemorable. This may rather be a case of just not remembering any dreams.

I suppose i'm just looking for excuses for when I have a blank night!!! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Voldmer

Of course, sometimes there just are no dreams; dreaming is not like falling off a log - it does have certain physiological precursors. E.g. if your sleep is too light, because of physical discomfort, then you might not dream at all.

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Hmm, I always thought we have dreams every night just that sometimes we don't remember them.

As for he original post, your theory makes perfect sense...it could even be the very essence of what nightmares are made of. Ok, probably not.


I just had a blank night also, its frustrating.