A diary study of dream recall: Successful dream recall and contentless dreams

Abstract

Contentless dreams or white dreams are defined as waking up with the impression of having dreamed but unable to recall any specific dream content. A sample of 69 students completed a dream recall frequency scale, an attitude towards dreams scale, and kept a diary for a two-week period. Comparable to previous home and lab studies, content less dreams are quite common (about one third of the mornings). The number of contentless dreams however did not correlate with dream recall frequency (questionnaire), the number of mornings with successful dream recall, and attitude towards dreams. Thus, the findings indicate that contentless dreams are not simply an intermediate category between successful dream recall and no recall. Future research, e.g., using cueing techniques, is necessary to shed light on the phenomenon of contentless dreams whether these are simply forgotten dreams (due to interferences) or a minimal form of conscious experiences during sleep.