French researchers have taken a step forward in deciphering our way of dreaming, in particular what differentiates those who regularly remember their dreams, big dreamers, little dreamers. The team of Perrine Ruby, researcher at the National Institute of Health (Inserm), analyzed the brain activity of these different dreamers. In a study published by the journal Neuropsychopharmacologythe scientists explain that they have located the most active part of the brain in people who remember their dreams: the temporo-parietal junction, “a crossroads of information processing in the brain”, explains theInserm.
The activity of this junction would induce “a greater reactivity to external stimuli, thus facilitating awakening during sleep, which would promote memorization dreams.” In a previous study in January 2013, the same team had made the difference between big dreamers, who count twice as many waking phases during the night, and light dreamers The brain of heavy dreamers would be more reactive to environmental stimuli, which explains an increase in awakenings and allows better memorization of dreams.
A greater amount of dreams
For this new study, the volunteers were separated into two groups. On the one hand, 21 big dreamers, remembering their dreams an average of 5.2 times a week, and on the other, the little dreamers, remembering an average of two dreams a month. The researchers measured their spontaneous cerebral activity by Positron Emission Tomography (PET). “These results show that large and small dreamers differ in terms of dream memorization but do not exclude that they also differ in terms of dream production. Indeed, it It’s possible that big dreamers produce a greater amount of dreams,” the team concludes.
It remains to be seen whether remembering one’s dreams, and therefore waking up often at night, is synonymous with poor sleep or not.
