To dream, perchance to remember: individual differences in dream recall

Each day for 14 weeks, 193 college students indicated whether or not they remembered a dream from the previous evening; they also recorded their sleep schedules and noted whether they had (1) exercised and (2) consumed alcohol and caffeine. In addition, the students completed measures of dissociation, schizotypy, sleep-related experiences, and the five-factor model of personality (N=169). Analyses of these data indicated that individual differences in dream recall were strongly stable over a 2month interval. Dream recall was specifically associated with openness and was unrelated to the other Big Five traits. Subsequent analyses indicated that individuals who are prone to absorption, imagination and fantasy are particularly likely to remember their dreams and to report other vivid nocturnal experiences. These results are consistent with a salience model of dream recall and a continuity model of human consciousness.