Trait and neurobiological correlates of individual differences in dream recall and dream content

Abstract

Individuals differ greatly in their dream recall frequency, in their incidence of recalling types of dreams, such as nightmares, and in the content of their dreams. This chapter reviews work on the waking life correlates of these differences between people in their experience of dreaming and reviews some of the neurobiological correlates of these individual differences. The chapter concludes that despite there being trait-like aspects of general dream recall and of dream content, very few psychometrically assessed correlates for dream recall frequency and dream content have been found. More successful has been the investigation of correlates of frequency of particular types of dreams, such as nightmares and lucid dreams, and also of how waking-life experience is associated with dream content. There is also potential in establishing neurobiological correlates of individual differences in dream recall and dream content, and recent work on this is reviewed.