Thread: Why do we forget dreams after a short while?

Interesting thought....

I think all types of memory are active when we are asleep, at least for recall, because in your dreams you can remember things from different time spans.
Short term and medium term is available for storage or else you wouldn't remember them when you woke up, or you wouldn't be able to recall them later in the day.

Long term however usually take effort to establish. Usually a concious effort with repetition.

Think of the clutter after a while if dreams were stored in long term....
The only dreams I commit to long term are those that have a personal significance to me.

Guess we can't throw away those dream journals yet, eh?

I guessing it's because when we wake up, our mind realizes:

a: It doesn't need the space anymore, and uses it for visual interpretation.
b: we realize it wasn't real, therefore making it real easy to lose.

dreams are supposed to be the random firing of synapses in the brain...theres is only the brining up of past thoughts feelings experiences etc. from this, it takes a chemical movement to create a new connect/synapse, which is something we do not do when we dream...dreaming is purely electrical in nature (electrical = immediate and short term, chemical = long term), thus unless you start thinking with your concious mind and make an effort to make a chemical reaction, the electrical differences in your synapses dissapates as new electrical signals quickly come in...thus we forget them as we wake up, aka the more we intake (sight sound etc)...hope this helps

Things that are not real are harder to remember.

For example, if I remebered a dream with a flying pig on a picycle shaped like an orange, that dosen't really make sense. And you don't get the "domino" effect you get with rational thoughts. The "domino" effect is where a stream of different thoughts point to one thing. It's kind of hard to explain... Like this:

I remember seeing an apple in a bowl.
So, perhaps one day I'm thinking, then I think glass. Then I think I have a bowl that's made of glass. Then I remember the apple, and then my memory conjures up the picture of this apple.

I remember having a dream with a flying peice of bacon shaped like George Bush's behind.
I might think about George Bush. But you can't really associate George Bush with bacon, or behinds, so you won't remember this dream as easily, you'll probably start thinking of politics instead.

Well, if you understood that, great.
It's hard to explain.

that goes along with my arguement tho...the random firing of synapses is the electricity going along non-linear neurons, thus illogical and random in nature thus george bush behind bacon flying...when we normally think the electrical impulses travel along pathways that connect one associated synapse to another for example the synapse george bush president politics...these are synapses that are all in close association and thus physically are close together in your brain so when a current runs along them it make sense, as opposed to the jumpy nonsense you get in dreams...biology is neat sometimes

That brings me to the next question, why is it that some people claim that they dreamt a life time when they can only remember so little? How did they know they had dreams that are long and detailed?

Something is fishy!

Ooohh good point. I've never dreamed a life time, but have had extended dreams. Looking back on them, I find holes.....

Hmm.. Has my mind established pointers around these holes, or has garbage collection reclaimed the storage?

Hmmm...

i dont know the biological reasoning behind this other than maybe theres a nerve for how fast we feel time is moving, and its hit to make it feel like a long time has passed...or something...i do know that often nerves are hit that gives us emotional feelings, maybe this is jsut another feeling we can have like being scared or happy...only a little more complicated

WerBurN, your answers are interesting, but you seem to be forgetting something in the last one. The accounts for long dreams are not just the feeling of time passing by, but also detailed experience.

Dreaming a life-time? I have heard of such a thing before.

Perhaps, now, this is just me thinking, and isn't scientifcally proven in any way, they had a normal dream, but during this normal dream, their brain added alot of garbage that never really happened. For example:

The Actual Dream:
Talked To Somebody->Became Lucid->Walked Around->Woke Up

The Actual Dream, but when the brain has messed it up:
Talked To Somebody->Walked round a cafe building twice->Scaled a wall->Became Lucid->Talked to another person->Nearly woke up->Sung a song in a cabaret->Walked around->Fell down a neverending hole->Floated up again->Time travelled->Woke up
(Italic: added/modified stuff the brain put in there)
(Normal text: actual dreamstuff)

Now, say this is true. Those holes would be where the brain hasn't quite made the extra stuff fit in perfectly. Say we had a dream like this:

Talked to teacher->Woke up

And the brain added some stuff,

Talked to teacher->Scribbled on board->Opened a locker and fell in->Woke up

There might be a hole here:

Scribbled on board--Hole->Opened a locker and fell in

Because the brain didn't connect them together perfectly.
And at the same time this is all happening, this nerve is being hit creating the feeling of time passing. When in fact it isn't really.

That's all just my thoughts.
The brain could be capable of such a thing; it can do magnificent things.

I read somewhere that dreams are often cinematic, like movies, and usually skip boring or unnecessary parts. I doubt you'll ever see yourself doing something trivial like spending an hour doing questions in math class.

ive spent entire dreams doing meaningless stuff like climbing a never ending staircase...

Eh, well there goes my theory..

I've noticed in some dreams even though I dont remember it all I still had a feeling of how long it was; Take the nap I just took. I only remember 7 or 8 lines of the dream but I know it was about 20 minutes long (In dream time ) I think that might be whats up with the lifetime deal. Then again perhaps not

I like your answer Kaniaz. It sound reasonable. We might be connecting the dots ourselves, but after we wake up. It's like if you see a picture of a person you know with some of his details erased, then you can make the whole face up from memory.

but thats me...im very wierd lol....get a second opinion before drawing any conclusions

Scientist have proven that the brain fills in those holes in real life with multiple persons at the same place with different details of the same thing.

There you go. I think that's it. When some one says that they have had a very long dream; life long, then we should not believe them. There is so little we can remember. That's why we forget so easily after a short while after we wake up. That's why it would be impossible to have a long dream, but you can have the feeling of having a long dream, but not actual events.

That's why we wake ourselves up so many times at specific moments, and that is because we want to remember the dreams. We need to be close to them in time.

When someone mentions the details of a "long" dream, I am willing to bet that there is so much gap filling in it. Otherwise we would not be able to describe the dream well enough to make sense.

The next time you talk or write about your dreams avoid filling in the gaps, and see what happens.

Ta-da! We got it! Yay!

The end.

I guess you have more time to remember "the math class" as the dream, since REM takes a very short time... but I don't remember that much of my real life to, just the broad lines...

For a second, imagine you are on a road trip (woohoo), and that you have been driving for the past six hours. Will you remember about all the bumbs in the road, or the colors of the cars that passed you in the past six hours? Probably not, unless you make a special note of it in your head, or something stood out. It still happened, you just don't remember it all.

But this is dreaming, and the gaps would of been filled in.

I think everything is stored in the brain at least once. It's just a matter of pathways and connections. To remember something, you need to remember or be thinking of something related to it. The other day I remembered a memory from my childhood.. for the life of me I can't remember what that memory was or what I was thinking of that recalled it. but I just remembered it like that, and I had never thought about it since childhood.

Originally posted by Seeker
Interesting thought....

I think all types of memory are active when we are asleep, at least for recall, because in your dreams you can remember things from different time spans.
Short term and medium term is available for storage or else you wouldn't remember them when you woke up, or you wouldn't be able to recall them later in the day.

Long term however usually take effort to establish. Usually a concious effort with repetition.

Think of the clutter after a while if dreams were stored in long term....
The only dreams I commit to long term are those that have a personal significance to me.

Guess we can't throw away those dream journals yet, eh?