Why do you forget your dreams after you wake up?

Answer 1

Because they are put into your short term memory. If you want to remember your dreams you have to try to recall them the first 5 minutes of waking up, or they are usually completely forgotten. You have about 10 dreams a night so it's difficult, you can only remember every one if you woke up during each one. And also you usually can only remember the most recent ones you had prior to waking. Hope that works for you:) haha

Answer 2

The recall of dreams is extremely unreliable, though it is a skill that can be trained. Dreams can usually be recalled if a person is awakened while dreaming. Women tend to have more frequent dream recall than men. Dreams that are difficult to recall may be characterized by relatively little affect, and factors such as salience, arousal, and interference play a role in dream recall. Often, a dream may be recalled upon viewing or hearing a random trigger or stimulus. A dream journal can be used to assist dream recall, for psychotherapy or entertainment purposes. For some people, vague images or sensations from the previous night's dreams are sometimes spontaneously experienced in falling asleep. However they are usually too slight and fleeting to allow dream recall. At least 95% of all dreams are not remembered. Certain brain chemicals necessary for converting short-term memories into long-term ones are suppressed during REM sleep. Unless a dream is particularly vivid and if one wakes during or immediately after it, the content of the dream will not be remembered.

Because most of your dreams only last a few seconds. It may seem a while but its most likely to be a second long. Our brains are functioned so we don't usually remember stuff that's less than a few seconds long.

Many people do not remember their dreams. This does not represent any particular problem. It may simply mean that the person is a sound sleeper.

Answer 3

Your mind "knows" that they are not real occurrences. If you want to better remember your dreams, do not move much or look around when you wake. This keeps the mind in the "dream world", allowing you to think about the dream and put it in your memory banks.

The reason you forget your dreams is because some areas of your mind are working during sleep, but other areas are resting. So really the reason is because you think it is not real but your mind knows that it sometimes it is. The best way to remember your dreams is to keep a "dream book". A dream book is something that you write all of your dreams in.

[additional comments by this contributor moved to Discussion page.]

Answer 4

THIS IS NOT MY ANSWER!!! TAKEN HONESTLY FROM USER User:Animalkingdom. The brain dreams to keep your body occupied, because the thinking part of your mind never stops. You only dream 3 times a night, and 15 minutes each one. Since you are not fully conscious, you brain remembers fragments of the dreams. If a dream is particularly pleasent or unpleasent or absurd, the body seems to remember it. Do you remember minor details such as what you said to everyone all day? Not really. Same concept... Your mind considers the details unnescary and discards or forgets them.

Answer 5

Research in the area of sleep has revealed that sleep is made up of several distinct states or types of sleep. Dreams occur during only certain types of sleep. If a person is awakened during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, they usually report vivid dreams. It may be that a person who does not remember dreams tends to wake up from a different stage of sleep, long after REM sleep has ended.

Answer 6

There is no definitive answer known. It could be because dreams are produced by the subconscious mind while the conscious (waking) mind is resting in sleep. Unless the conscious mind becomes actively aware of dreams, they are not stored in either the short term or long term memory. Why one might remember a dream upon awaking only to have it vanish like sand through one's fingers is a mystery. It is possible to train oneself to remember more dreams through practice.

Answer 7

Dreams can be difficult or impossible to recall because of the way the mind works. Most dreams reflect the sorting of thoughts, feelings and memories that your subconscious mind performs while your conscious mind is sleeping. Most of these dreams consist of snippets of random thoughts that are entirely meaningless, so there is no point in remembering them. Other types of dreams illustrate the subconscious mind's problem-solving processes, exploration of deeply held emotions or the expression and release of tension from negative emotions. The subconscious mind does all these things and more without engaging your conscious awareness, which is unnecessary to its purpose.
See the Wikipedia article linked below for additional information and other resources.