Why do I only remember my bad dreams?

That happens to me too. I’m not sure but I always think it’s because since they are frightening we tend to remember them easier. Don’t quote me (:

I’m not sure I even have good dreams, so the bad ones are the only ones I remember.

I’m in the opposite situation, I always forget my bad dreams. I wake up from a bad dream and I do remember what was so scary or negative, but then in the morning, I’ve completely forgotten. The ones I remember the most end up being the weirdest ones. But then I usually write them down so I won’t forget them.

But yeah, I wouldn’t know what to do about it.

@DominicX Lucky you.. I have dreams from my childhood that still haunt me.. not as bad as before but I still remember them.

@DominicX

I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream that was truly disturbing on a personal level. My scariest dreams are ones that are extremely realistic and something supernatural is going on and I just can’t believe it (like a ghost or demon is in the house I’m in or something) and it’s really creepy. Other than that, I’ve had night-terror type dreams where there’s nothing scary in particular, it’s just a feeling of fear that makes me breathe rapidly and cry out upon waking. Luckily that hasn’t happened in college so far because it’s pretty embarrassing.

One dream that I remember clearly is of me running in a field with very tall grass and feeling really scared cause someone was chasing me.. in the distance I could hear this creepy laugh coming from the person (or thing) that was chasing me.. I remember getting to an old abandoned house and trying to find somewhere to hide but the creepy old man was getting closer and there was nowhere I could go to hide.. I think thats about the point where I woke up.. I had this dreams years ago and i still remember it very clearly.

@kheredia

That’s pretty odd. Despite what I said, I actually do remember a frightening dream that wasn’t so “abstract” and it happened a couple years ago and I do remember it vividly. It took place in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in front of my vacation home and there was this creepy looking guy looking at me from across the street standing next to a beat up old car. I remember just a general feeling of negativity and then I turned around and headed towards the front door when I felt the guy grab me and cover my mouth and I remember trying to scream and then I woke up. The weird part is that from the beginning of the dream, I knew that was going to happen (and it wasn’t lucid or anything, as far I was concerned, it was really happening). Freaked me out.

@DominicX It sounds like old beat up abandoned things are always connected to bad dreams.. weird.

Maybe you are a bad person. . .

. . .or maybe I am a bad person.

I can’t remember. It all just seems like a dream.

I love my bad dreams but I have trouble remembering them.

You meant bad as in naughty, right?

We tend to remember the dreams we wake up from. The normal sleep cycle is a series of periods of deep sleep followed by periods of dream sleep. We go through about 5 of those cycles every night. Between each cycle we come very close to waking, or do actually wake up.

Dreams don’t normally register in memory unless we wake while they’re still fresh in the mind. The neural pathways to memory are closed to sleep consciousness. At the end of an unremarkable dream period, we’re likely to just roll over and go back into deep sleep, and that dream will be lost to memory. But at the end of a bad dream (or any “high energy“dream), we’re likely to wake with a jolt into full waking consciousness. In that state, we can actually capture the dream in memory and we’ll still be able to recall it in the morning.

Think about your life. Thousands of days, but all of the really bad ones you can recall in detail – the rest are usually a blur unless something else eventful but not bad happened.

@Harp beat me to it.

(Most) dreams take place during the REM portion of the sleep cycle. It is known that if you wake up during REM or soon thereafter, the chances of recalling the dream in itself is significantly higher.

“Bad” dreams generally invoke a negative, high-energy, emotional response. You are more likely to slip into consciousness during a “bad” dream because of this. If you are having a blissful, peaceful dream, chances are it is keeping you grounded in the sleep cycle.

That, and there is that saying: “Pain is infinitely more rememberable than pleasure.” Though our minds seem to be tailored to forget all the particular nuances of physical anguish, mental distress is not so fettered.

I remember significant dreams. Sometimes they are bad, sometimes they are just strange. My theory on this is that we probably remember bad dreams more because that’s usually how people think. When we remember things, we tend to recall and concentrate on negative things, because as @Grisaille said these memories invoke a negative and highly emotional response.

I think the bad ones stand out because they make more of an impression on your mind! I remember the weird ones.