I've noticed that when I dream things in the background or on the periphery of my attention tend to be either shadow and unusually dark or washed out like an over-exposed photo. The effect is that much of the dream world is hidden by shadows or an overabundance of light.

I think this is probably because my mind can only create a limited amount of detail at one time. This shadowy or over-exposed background is a huge clue that I'm dreaming for me. Anyone else experience this?