Why some people remember dreams and others don't

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In “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”, Joseph recalls his dreams in extraordinary (musical) detail, but many of us wake up each morning to find not a single dream memory will do.

Now, scientists have discovered a string of factors that influence whether we remember our dreams or not – so we can all be more Joseph.

Positive attitude, wandering mind

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Scientists from IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca in Italy, gave each of their 204 male and female volunteers a sleep-monitoring wristwatch that detects sleep duration, efficiency, and disturbances. They also issued them each with a voice recorder, and asked them to record, right after waking each morning, everything that was going though their mind and everything they remembered from before waking up.

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