Do people see their dreams in color or black and white?

We usually have dreams every night, but we often cannot remember them. Some mornings we remember the vivid details of our dreams, while other days we only remember a vague outline of them. But what about color? Do most people see colors in their dreams or do they experience black and white images?

This question may be surprising for some, but in fact, it is one of the topics on which there are conflicting views. Modern research has shown that television and movies have a significant effect on the experience of dreaming and how it is remembered when awake.

Eric Schwitzgebel, professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, told Live Science: “Since we’re used to seeing color media, we assume that dreams must be like watching a movie or a YouTube video. Because these images are colored, we unconsciously assume that our dreams are also like that.

But it has not always been this way. Until the 1960s, researchers believed that humans mostly dreamed in black and white, and surveys supported this hypothesis. In a small 1942 study of 277 college sophomores, it was found that 70.7 percent rarely or never saw colors in their dreams. Some 60 years later, Schützgebel asked a group of 124 students the same questions, and the results were dramatically different. In the new survey, less than 20 percent of participants said they rarely or never had colorful dreams.

Recent studies have also brought similar results. Researchers have found a striking pattern: People born before the advent of color television and movies are far more likely than later generations to report having dreams in monochrome. This finding shows that the way we interpret our dreams is largely influenced by the type of media we use.

However, entertainment is not the only contributing factor. Much of what we remember from dreams depends on the accuracy of our memory and the details that remain in our minds. Michael Schredl, head of the sleep laboratory at the German Central Institute of Mental Health, told Live Science: “Dreams are mental experiences during sleep, and the only way to access them is to remember them after waking up. The main problem here is how good are you at remembering dreams?”

As in waking life, in the world of dreams, the colors of objects are easily forgotten if they are as expected. For example, seeing a yellow banana in a dream probably doesn’t have much of an effect on memory. “In this state, we don’t pay attention to the color, so it’s hard to remember,” Scherdel explains. But if a neon pink banana is seen in a dream, it will probably have a greater impact on the mind.”

Additionally, if a particular color has a special meaning to a person in their waking life, they may be more likely to remember it. “If a color has a special meaning in one’s real life, it may also refer to something in a dream,” Scherdel says. It’s not about the color itself, but about the effect that color has on a person.”

However, Schützgebel believes that the question of whether dreams are in color or black and white may have been fundamentally wrong from the start. He explained that when we visualize a scene in our mind and the colors are not important in it, our mental image is not necessarily in color or black and white, but has an indeterminate or vague state.

In addition, what we remember in the morning may be different from what we experienced during the dream and is more based on mental assumptions than actual memory. Dreams may be less of a visual, movie-like experience than we think, and in fact, the media we consume may shape how we remember our dreams, Schweitzegbel says.

“Many people find it hard to understand how a dream can be neither in color nor in black and white,” he concludes.