Dream in colors? Fact, or fiction?

Some say you don't dream in color, I say it's bunk.

Ever since I read that somewhere, I always tried to remember details about my dreams, but I never could remember if infact I dream in color......... UNTIL recently.

I was having a dream about me walking outside on a nice hot day. For some reason Bark at the Moon was playing in my dream, but the was no real source of where it came from. (That was a minor detail). Anyways, while strolling along a road in my dream, I stopped dead in my tracks and said, "what clor is your shirt" to myself. I didn't know why I asked that to myself in my dream, (maybe cause it was on my mind every now and again back then) and in my dream I looked down, and it was red. I said to myself, "RED!". The dream ended there, and I woke up.


So whoever said people don't dream in color, are imcorrect. At least from what I've seen.


What are your opinions?

Do you think we dream in color, or not, or do you think only some of our dreams are in color?

[Edited on 7-4-2004 by AnonymousPoster4]

I know for a fact that we dream in color, based on personal experience. I have always been able to observe shades of color, and demensional differences (3D) in my dreams.


Mr. M

This isn't quite the same...but possibly relevant.

Years ago I had a dream, I don't even remember what the bulk of it was about. But at one point in the dream I wondered if there were ceilings in dreams. (Of course, my 'dream self' thought it was awake...) I was indoors, and there was a man there that just smiled at me with a mischevous grin and said "look up" as he pointed in that general direction. I look up, and sure enough there was no ceiling in the room, it dropped off to a gray haze about 8 feet up. Of course, it dawned on me that I was indeed dreaming and had just got the answer to my question. Double shock! I looked back down at the man, and he just gave me this smug look, like he knew what was up. Then I woke up...

Of course, this was at least 10-15 years ago, but I remember it vividly. It was some pretty moving stuff!

I've never hear of anyone that dreams in black and white, I've always dream in Technicolor with Full Digital Surround Sound!!!! ok, not really. But it would be interesting to see what animals dream in, Color or B & W.

Creative people dream in color. Uncreative people dream in black and white.

Speaking of music... Every time I sleep through my alarm clock (without ever having known it was on to begin with - I am sleeping through it after all, lol), I find that I will have music in my dreams and that the dreams morph to equalize with the music. Its hard to explain, but damn if I haven't had some weird dreams with Guns n Roses or Led Zeppelin as the background music. Its only after I wake up that I realize, "I just had music in my dream, specifically rock music. Where the heck did that come from?"

Thats when I come to the conclusion that I slept through my alarm clock, and somehow the music that played from it came into my dreams. If I remember correctly, my psych teacher said that that isn't possible. The explanation being that our brains only tune into "emergency mode" things when we sleep (from which usually wake up) such as smoke alarms, loud sounds (most of us at least), abnormal house sounds, etc... Our brains shut out what it determines to be "background" noise. Because of that, we can't have external sounds taking form in our dreams - your brain isn't "supposed" to be reacting from external stimuli, while in "dream mode" (REM sleep). BS to that "fact."

BTW, anyone ever have any dreams that take place over a few days time (in dream time), when it has probably only been a few minutes to an hour in the real world? And you have actually accumulated many days worth of memories from that dream?

oh man, that is sooooo ture. When I sleep through my alarm clock, the buzzing is intergrated into my dream, like some alarm in my dream going off, it's really freaky. I to have dreams that last not only several days in dream time, but over several nights in real time.

[Edited on 4-7-2004 by muzz]

Muzz,
Would you say it is a recurring dream or a dream that starts where it left off (a "continuing" dream I suppose : )? Strangely, I've never had a recurring dream or a "continuing" dream - they are all original, lol. I know many people who have. I'm somehow being left out of the fun.

Yeah, it's like a friggin' mini-series in my head. I wake up and go through the day, then when I go back to bed, I start off exactaly where I left off. This can go on for nights at a time. I have also had recurring dreams, mostly when I was a kid, the same dream every night, but not so often nowadays.

Originally posted by muzz
Yeah, it's like a friggin' mini-series in my head. I wake up and go through the day, then when I go back to bed, I start off exactaly where I left off. This can go on for nights at a time. I have also had recurring dreams, mostly when I was a kid, the same dream every night, but not so often nowadays.

Very interesting, care to share?

I am a very vivid dreamer. I have lucid dreams on a very regular basis and have learned somewhat how to control them.

As far as I remember all of my dreams are in color. As far as lucid dreaming goes I think I do because I sleep with my eyes partly open which freaks people out, but I swear it has something to do with it.

It's really kinda hard to explain. I have dreamed about whole months in my life that lasted a few nights. I also used to have recurring dreams alot when I was a kid. I can't really remember what they were about, but I remember having them. -Muzz

Of course we dream in Color. The guy that created that myth was obviously color blind

There are people that say its not possible to dream in colour??!!

I've never had a black and white dream in my entire life!

They're always colour and I always get killed

I just had a very disturbing... ok not all that disturbing, but VIVID dream and, like most if not all of my dreams, it was in color.

my dreams are ultra-real, as well. Sometimes they are so believably mundane, that I have no idea that I am dreaming until I actually wake up and remember and say "oh crud. that was a friggin dream...". Says a lot for how much I value my own life , eh? Often when I wake up, I find myself trying to convince myself that the experience I had was part of my subconscious as opposed to an actual event that I was a part of. They are so real that I really do think that dreaming may be the brain's way of communicating and/or existing in different dimensions, in addition to the usual simulations that it generates. After all, right now, my brain is converting external stimuli in the form of electrical impulses, right? Pretty much the same thing happens when I am dreaming, as I understand it.

[Edited on 4/7/2004 by AlnilamOmega]

I dont know about you but I dream in third person. Like a video game that looks like the same angles as resident evil. As for the color I dream in black and white but whenever Im aware of an object the object turns into color.

Hi all,

Ok a bit about myself- i always dream in colour, sometimes dreams feel very real,

like jumping off a cliff in a dream and i get a rush,

eating donuts and tasteing them,

also i have dreamt that i went to sleep and woke up in a dream, just after i woke up in the dream i said to myself "I have to wake up now" .......strage eh?

Now my understanding of dreams is that they vary for every individual so no one is going to have the same results.

Dreams are just our brains interppreting electrical impulses and undergoing chemical reactions.

so what is classified as a dream and what is reality?
i mean sometimes a dream may be more real than when you are awake.
for most of us reality is when we are awake, but for people who may be physiologically and pschyologically different, eg delussional or insane, they have lost touch with reality, maybe they are dreaming all the time.

also i have heard reports of people who use acid reporting that while under the effects of the drug everything is more real, and in some cases people who normally dream in b +W dream in colour after using acid.

interesting eh.....

Many say that we apply color to our dreams using the left side of our brain, applying logical colors to practical objects. Thats why things not normally seen might be crazy colors. Also, Thoughts may be going throgh the brain during REM sleep so quickly that the left side of the brain cannot keep up, thats why you might have blue grass and green skies. I've always thought that the application of color varies dream to dream, if color is and important factor in a dream it will b remembered, but if it isn't, then the colors are probably just slopped into the dream when we try to remember it later.

I've always thought of it as our brains trying to apply reason and logic to abstract thought.

Then, I had a dream in black and white. Seriously Everything was black and white. I woke up and at that point realized that my thoughts had finally escaped the bindings of logic and reason, and that I was finally free of the bindings of trying to make sense.

Its kind of funny, however, that when we think of the right side of the brain we think of colors and creativity, and with the left side we think of black and white words and knowledge.

Why is it reversed like that in my dreams then? Color corresponding to logic and monochromatic corresponding to creativity?

Because the dream world is the opposite of reality. insteresting theory eh?

Studies show that most dream in color, but men are more likely to dream in black and white than women are.

Originally posted by muzz
Yeah, it's like a friggin' mini-series in my head. I wake up and go through the day, then when I go back to bed, I start off exactaly where I left off. This can go on for nights at a time. I have also had recurring dreams, mostly when I was a kid, the same dream every night, but not so often nowadays.

I have those same types of dreams. It's like falling asleep here in this life and going to another life in my dreams. It's awfully mundane, though. My dream ego hasn't turned out to be anything unusual... though I do travel (commercially) in space shuttles in my dreams (it's an odd take on modern society. Very up-tech in some ways.)

My dreams are detailed enough to have maps... and if I thought about it, I could probably redraw the maps of the world.

about 15 years ago I had read how you could manipulate your dreams
a couple of knights later I was haveing a dreamof being chased some how i realised i was dreaming i was running on the roof of my house that i live in as a
kid so if it was a dream i could fly so i ran of the end of the house and flu around the naborhood
never done it again

All of my dreams with the exception of one (that I can remember) have been in color.

I've also had outside stimuli affect the way my dreams were played out, although I didn't realize it until after I woke up. It's happened with both the radio and tv playing in the background. In both instances, my dream changed to suit the music I was hearing.

As I tend to be a light sleeper, the fact that I didn't wake up when the music started, was stranger than anything else.