Question: Why dont remember our dreams

Lynne Thomas answered on 18 Jun 2014:

The processes that are going on in our brains is likely to be quite different to when we are awake. So the chemicals that we need to be there to write memories are probably not there in the same amounts. Maybe this means that we can’t write things to our memory or maybe its just a matter of us not being able to pay attention when we are sleeping. I tend to only remember dreams if I’m suddenly woken up or if I’m having a restless night so it could also be affected by what phase of sleep you are in when you wake up – its widely accepted that some sleep is deeper than other parts. I don’t think anyone properly understands what is happening in our brains as we sleep although some people believe that it is the time that the brain sorts out all of the fragmented thoughts that we have and put them into organised places. We still need to do a lot more work to understand our brains as they are very complicated organs so we are probably some way off being able to give an exact answer to this question.