Why do we forget dreams? What does that mean for what we dreamed of and for us in general?
It must be immediately clarified that there are no people who do not dream, and that physiological examinations have determined that dreams occur in the so-called REM phase of sleep that is closest to the waking state.
Later, the deeper phases of sleep are characterized by slower brain waves that are increasingly different from the waves in the waking state, and these phases of sleep are characterized by the fact that the person sleeping in them rarely dreams, and it is harder to wake him up.
However, not everyone remembers their dreams. What that might mean for someone to forget their dreams?
People usually forget the most of the dream, about 90%, ten minutes after they wake up. But, what about people who never remember their dreams?
Dreaming is a sign of a brain activity when the brain is well-rested and ready to wake up.
People who don’t remember dreaming anything could have problems with being tired and not so well-rested.
Chronic pain, tiredness and not enough sleep can lead to forgetting dreams or not even remembering them.
People who tend to forget their dreams more than others don’t have a tough connection with their dreams.
That means that they don’t take their dreams seriously and maybe don’t have an emotional connection with them.
Every person dreams
If we try to wake a person during the REM phase of sleep, they will wake up much easier and will mostly remember the content of the sleep during which they just woke up.
Therefore, in the physiological sense, every person dreams, and the conclusion is that there are psychological reasons for forgetting dreams, after waking up.
For example, if you wake up and then go back to sleep, you are more likely to have a dream and therefore remember that dream after you wake up for the second time.
On the other hand, you are more likely to forget the dream if you get up the first time and you feel tired.
If you don’t get enough sleep, your mind will be tired and won’t remember any of the dreams you had during sleeping.
Not paying attention to dreams
The most common reason for forgetting dreams, which is the easiest to solve in practice, is the phenomenon that a person did not pay attention to dreams at all, never thought about them, and did not even try to remember them.
When these people, due to circumstances – usually by watching a scientific show in the media or reading an expert article, become interested in dreams, it usually happens that they start to remember them better.
So, if a person has problems with remembering their dreams, they should try to be more focused on them and more interested. If a person doesn’t care about what dreams they have, they are less likely to remember the dream.
Some people dream rarely
People who dream a little all their lives usually generally find it difficult to accept the contents of their unconscious part of the personality, i.e. they have no habit of communicating with their unconscious but wiser part of the personality.
Conversely, people who are good dreamers are also good interlocutors with their unconscious part of the psyche from which they can obtain valuable information that will correct many wrong conscious attitudes, and which as the wisest counselors will help them make the right decision at the right time.
This means that people who are trying to ,,talk to themselves”, discover new things about themselves, and constantly think about what they want usually remember their dreams because they are more connected to their subconscious mind.
If you don’t discover yourself and you don’t think about who you really are, you are more likely to forget your dreams because you don’t see them as a part of you.
Rather, you see those dreams as a coincidence and something that you can’t control. But, those dreams are product of our minds and are not there for no reason.
Forgetting dreams
If people who dream relatively often, stop remembering their dreams at some point, it is most likely that they found themselves in a period of life when unconscious contents became unacceptable for them.
This strong resistance of the conscious part of the personality begins to “erase” the dream because it is too disturbing for the conscious psyche.
In people who are good dreamers, the reason for forgetting dreams can be “fatigue” of the unconscious psyche if in the previous period there were more energetically strong dreams, in the psychological sense, which led to a significant individual jump.
It is logical that now the unconscious psyche needs some rest, so it does not produce energetically strong dreams that carry important messages.
People who tend to forget what they have dreamed about usually don’t feel any emotion toward their dreams, or they feel too many emotions and their subconscious mind decides to put those emotions in the closet.
Another important factor that can lead to forgetting dreams is being exhausted and mentally stressed. If you work too hard and you never rest, your mind won’t have needed energy for proper function and it will start to forget things because the mind will focus on the things you are stressing about.
If your life is hard and you don’t have time for yourself, that can also lead to forgetting your dreams. If there is a lot of things you need to handle at one day, you don’t even have the time to sleep properly thus you can’t remember your dreams.
If a person is feeling stressed and their dreams are nightmares, it’s normal that person will try to forget about those dreams.
Sometimes, people who have been through a lot of bad things in life are likely to forget their dreams which remind them of those bad things. That’s a self-defense mechanism and is normal.
On the other hand, some dreams are not so relevant and seem like they have no meaning for us in our waking life.
That can also be the reason why someone would forget their dream – because the dream is irrelevant.
Our memory is deeply connected to our feelings. We remember events and people who are important to us emotionally and we never forget things that made us feel a lot of positive or negative emotions.
However, we easily forget things that didn’t wake any emotion within us.
But, as it is said before, sometimes emotions can be so strong and negative that our mind tries to forget about them, thus when we have emotionally disturbing dreams, we tend to forget them.
The reason you forget your dreams is because you either don’t want to face the feelings that dream has brought to you, or you simply didn’t feel anything and your mind decided it’s not important to remember that dream.
The spiritual meaning of forgetting your dreams is that you are forbidden to enter your subconscious mind.
Dreams are mirrors of your subconscious mind and they carry the message for you when you don’t pay attention.
Dreams help us understand how our deeper mind functions and how to find a key to our souls.
If you forget your dream, you can’t know the message of that dream. That means that you can’t enter your subconscious and you can’t see the secrets your mind keeps away from you. Maybe you usually never try to dig into your mind and find things you didn’t know existed.
You should know that meeting your true self is very important and that you should always know who you are.
People who refuse to meet their true selves don’t know who they really are. And they often forget about their dreams because they don’t find them relevant.
Sometimes, people can really distance from their true selves so much that they forget who they are. They just keep living their lives the same every day and they never try to change anything.
This kind of behavior can lead to forgetting dreams because those people don’t ever try to understand why are they in that situation or why they feel or think a certain way.
The key to becoming better is to always find a reason for your thoguhts and feelings. If you don’t know why you are sad, how are you going to change it?