dream recall

[mellowtigger]

It turns out that dream recall can be predicted, and it appears that autism does affect it.

A recent study found two different predictors of dream recall, depending on which stage of sleep you last experienced.

"In particular, after morning awakening from REM sleep, a higher frontal 5–7 Hz (theta) activity was associated with successful dream recall. ... a different predictive relationship was found after awakening from stage 2 NREM sleep. Specifically, a lower 8–12 Hz (alpha) oscillatory activity of the right temporal area was associated with a successful dream recall."
- http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/18/6674

There are boatloads of articles about how autistics vary in the arrangement of their frontal and temporal lobes. During the last year, several papers have been written about how to use these variations that show up in brain scans as a way of objectively diagnosing autism even in very young children, down to 1 year of age.

I found only a single reference to dream analysis comparisons for autistic versus neurotypical subjects.

"Questionnaires revealed that participants with ASD, compared to controls, had fewer recollections of dreaming, fewer bad dreams and fewer emotions. In the sleep laboratory, dream content narratives following REM sleep awakenings were shorter in ASD participants than in controls. ASD participants also reported fewer settings, objects, characters, social interactions, activities, and emotions. It is concluded that these characteristics of dreaming in ASD may reflect neurocognitive dimensions specific to this condition."
- http://www.springerlink.com/content/th56g5u8w26528rt/

Ha! So I'm "typical" in this regard, at least when you compare me to the right group of people. :)

Comments

[furr_a_bruin]

I've never remembered any dreams, with the sole exception of a particular repeating nightmare that would ONLY occur when I was running a fever, and which finally stopped sometime after puberty. Even when I was in the hospital with a kidney stone and the demerol gave me nightmares, I simply woke up screaming - with absolutely no idea WHY.

[mellowtigger]

I'm sure that everyone must dream nightly, including me. Every time I see a paper about the concept of dreaming, researchers consistently say that they think it's important to memory consolidation. Why dream recall should vary so much between people, though, is an interesting question.