Dreams: black and white or colour?

[Darlica]

I got inspired by Bruder Cuzzen's post in The Good News Channel.

I have always taken for granted that dreams are in colour. I see my surroundings in full colour during the time I'm awake so it would make sense for me to dream in colour, right.

I know I dream in colour, as a child I once had a nightmare about being chased by a rainbow coloured snake (record breaking anaconda size but with fangs).
And not long ago I had another not so fun dream, and the sky had a rather alarming hue of viridian green...

But recently I've started to wonder if the brain just adds colour when it's significant to the dream? I mean we know that the colour the sky or the ground usually have.
What if everything that makes the backdrop, that doesn't carry any significance to the dream, are grey scale and only details that either appear different than they usually does or where the colour is otherwise important really are in colour but we don't notice that because grass is usually green etc.?

I have a friend who's certain she dreams like that, in a style similar to old hand coloured black and white photos.

How do you dream?

[Aggie]

Colour, as far as I know.  It's possible some are in muted colours or B&W, but anything vivid enough to remember is in colour.

[roystonoboogie]

I am going to resist the tempatation to trot out a string of academic articles and references, and just tell you what I think. So if anyone wants to say 'But that's unsubstanitiated, subjective opinion!' my answer is 'Correct. That was my intention'.

So here goes. You mostly see colour with the centre of your visual field: your peripheral vision only sees light and dark. As I sit here looking at my computer screen, I can see the red curtains out of the corner of my eye, but I only know they're red because I looked at them before, and my brain is filling in that sort of information for me automatically.

Your brain 'fills in' missing bits like that all the time (think of the 'blind spot' experiment where you look at the two dots with one eye shut - the brain 'fills in' the other dot the same as the background colour, so it disappears).

When you dream vividly, it uses a lot of the visual parts of the brain, so I am assuming that similar processes are occurring. So, if it's important, if it is salient that something in your dream has a colour, it will have a colour. If it is important that someone in your dream is a person you know, they will have their face (I've had loads of dreams with faceless people in them, and it's not at all scary, they just didn't need faces).

I think it's the same with sounds and speech and accents and stuff - you will only attribute an accent to someone in a dream if it is important. People can tell you things in a dream without talking: the person appears and you know what they wanted to tell you (because the talking bit wasn't that important to you).

The only real exception to this appears to be smell: smells can be triggers of dreams, and by my experience you don't really dream about smells. Smell is not terribly spatially or temporally specific, and it uses different mechanisms to access and trigger memory. Think of the last time you smelled candy floss - it made you think of childhood, yes?

Here's something to think about: we all have 3 different colour receptors in our eyes to see three different colours, but about 20% of women have 4 colour receptors (which give them extra sensitivity at the red end of the spectrum). So the next time you're haranguing your man about 'how can you not see that paint is a different colour?', the answer is because he can't.

[The Meromorph]

Very nice post Royston. Understanding that it's a simplification, I agree totally. (I suspect I'd agree totally if you fully explicated your sources, reasoning , and details.  ).

Which is why I answered 'Only in color'. I believe anyone would claim they see 'only in color'.  As you pointed out, that's not technically correct (our vision is multifunctional), but to normal understanding, it's true. Similarly for 'vision' in dreams.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

When I was a kid I frequently had dreams in sepia (and odd ones at that) but it's been a while since I have one of those.

Royston made wonder about other quality of dreams, namely the ability of a person in a dream to change radically to a different one (including sex changes ie: I began talking to my school buddy and ended up talking to my sister) without any visible transformation (it just happens without you noticing).

Probably a side effect of the pack/defrag of brain memories while we sleep.

[roystonoboogie]

Royston made wonder about other quality of dreams, namely the ability of a person in a dream to change radically to a different one (including sex changes ie: I began talking to my school buddy and ended up talking to my sister) without any visible transformation (it just happens without you noticing).

Yeah, I had one of them recently where I was walking through the frozen food aisle in Tesco with a dog (I don't own a dog), and when I turned the corner at the end of the aisle, I was in the Champs-Elysee in Paris. Not only was it a seamless transition, it didn't even seem weird at the time.

I think it is a mistake to try and extrapolate the 'deep hidden meaning' of dreams: it's like trying to investigate someone's life by raking through their garbage can. "Hey, they had macaroni and raspberry ice cream last, and then finished a jar of gherkins while reading the newspaper". No, that's just the order the garbage went in the can.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

... but about 20% of women have 4 colour receptors (which give them extra sensitivity at the red end of the spectrum). So the next time you're haranguing your man about 'how can you not see that paint is a different colour?', the answer is because he can't.

Do you have some sources on that information?

I'm male, but I've always had color acuity off the charts.  That is, every time I've been tested for color separation and acuity, I always tested past the scope of the testing material.  I've always been able to see the subtle color differences that many other folk (men and women included) could not.   Some people I've known seem to be able to see subtle colors  as well as I, but I've never met anyone who could see more subtle differences that I could not.

.....

And, yes, I always dream in color-- many times color plays a minor significance in the sequence of [dream] events.

But, I'm also a lucid dreamer, and often "re-play" or "re-wind" sequences of dreams that I don't like how they were going, or had turned out.... so I "wait, start again" in my dream, and follow a different path.

Unfortunately, being a lucid dreamer, means every time I have a nightmare, I wake myself up.  I say unfortunately, because now I'm wide awake, my heart pounding from the adrenalin, and I have a "bad taste" from the nightmare...

[Bruder Cuzzen]

I chose the " I don't know " because of my most dreams are forgotten so quickly that I can barely recall any content and I am unsure if they were in B/W , color , or a combination of both .

I've only had perhaps a dozen lucid dreams and while in that state , I find that I can't wake myself up .
Most often the dream would run it's course and I'd wake up  physically shaken in a cold sweat , since the majority had been nightmares .
When I had/have a nightmare I am generally  lost in the rapidly shifting changes in the setting and befuddled in the physical impossibilities that often occur .

The reoccurring nightmares were a great strain until I found myself thinking while dreaming  ( many of my dreams would begin with me watching television and suddenly I would be a part of what I was viewing ... I don't think much while in front the boob tube ) .

I thought ," WTF IS THIS S*** !? I MUST BE DREAMING !" With this epiphany I declared that I had had enough of this nonsense , confronted my demons and vanquished that bloody reoccurring nightmare  with a vengeance . I haven't had that type of dream ( being pursued with the threat of death) since.

I wish I could teach one of my housemates how to become lucid while dreaming , I've heard him being tortured by nightmares on a regular basis .

[Swatopluk]

I voted 'only in colour' since I can't remember any instance of a strict b/w dream. Although I am not sure, I think that even b/w 'movie replays' in the dream are coloured. On the other hand I am pretty sure that neither smell nor taste has ever occurred in a dream I remembered, although "the situation" would have required it.
The awareness of dreaming while still asleep is varying. I know dreams where I am fully aware of it being a dream (and I know that I will wake up the moment that a sex act would happen. Damn that inner censor!), while other dreams are so "real" that it takes quite some time after waking up to sort out reality from fiction. This is especially true with dreams that involve waking up an looking for the time (usually in the dream it is already late and I risk to miss an important appointment).

[roystonoboogie]

Do you have some sources on that information?

I went to find that source and discovered, to my chargin, that neuroscience has moved on and I haven't noticed. The fourth cone receptor has gone the way of phlogiston and luminiferous ether, I'm afraid, and has been replaced by an alternative theory of retinal sex differences.

Pardo, P.J.; Perez, A.L.; Suero, M.I. (2006), 'An example of sex-linked color vision differences', Color Research and Application (32: 6, 433 - 439)

It is well known that men and women may experience, perceptually and cognitively, the appearance of color differently. One of the possible physiological factors underlying these differences is a sexual dimorphism in the gene that encodes the photopigment of the long-wavelength-sensitive cones in the retina, manifest in a different frequency of expression in men and women. The present work describes a psychophysical experiment that revealed significant differences in color perception between men and women, and that consequently advises the separate treatment of the two populations.

So when I was studying, they thought they had found a fourth sort of cone cell, but it looks like it was actually just a genetic difference in the one sort of cone cell between men and women. At least I think that's what it says.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Do you have some sources on that information?

I went to find that source and discovered, to my chargin, that neuroscience has moved on and I haven't noticed. The fourth cone receptor has gone the way of phlogiston and luminiferous ether, I'm afraid, and has been replaced by an alternative theory of retinal sex differences.

Pardo, P.J.; Perez, A.L.; Suero, M.I. (2006), 'An example of sex-linked color vision differences', Color Research and Application (32: 6, 433 - 439)

It is well known that men and women may experience, perceptually and cognitively, the appearance of color differently. One of the possible physiological factors underlying these differences is a sexual dimorphism in the gene that encodes the photopigment of the long-wavelength-sensitive cones in the retina, manifest in a different frequency of expression in men and women. The present work describes a psychophysical experiment that revealed significant differences in color perception between men and women, and that consequently advises the separate treatment of the two populations.

So when I was studying, they thought they had found a fourth sort of cone cell, but it looks like it was actually just a genetic difference in the one sort of cone cell between men and women. At least I think that's what it says.

It's why I asked.  I had *thought* the "4th color cone" story had been debunked, but I wasn't sure.  And my personal experience seemed to go counter to it anyhow. Thank you, by the way for looking into it.

On the other hand I am pretty sure that neither smell nor taste has ever occurred in a dream I remembered, although "the situation" would have required it.

Now that you've written that, I do recall any number of vivid dreams including smell and taste.  Go figure--

As a child, I had serious problems getting my active mind calm enough to get to sleep (still do, a bit..) one method I utilized was to fantasize or tell myself  stories.  I would often "re-write" these stories as they unfolded, to change the outcome, or the direction it was going.  Did that nightly for years and years and years....

I think it's why I'm now a lucid dreamer, I literally *practiced* it for years.  My storytelling often included smell and tastes, too, soo...

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

There is a story in this month's Scientific American on the subject of trichromacy or our primate ability to distinguish 3 different wavelengths as opposed to dichromacy which is common to most mammals. In the process to explain how we gain it they explain how a portion of new world female primates have trychromacy but not the males: the gen in question is on the X chromosome and given that females have and extra copy it is possible for the copy to have a slight variation that allows the reception of a different wavelength. It is suggested that something similar may apply to human females but they claim it hasn't been proved yet (any carrier wouldn't know).

[Kaliayev]

I can't recall a single black and white dream.

Then again, I cant remember what I dreamt last night either, so that doesn't really mean anything.  If I ever get the hang of this lucid dreaming business, I'll see what I can do.

[Swatopluk]

For unknown reasons I dreamed of a math test yesterday (too easy but my papers disappeared when I wnated to hand them in) and about the economic theories of Iulius Caesar this night. The latter was a debate in class about the correct translation of the Latin text. I have no idea what Caesar has to do with the current Wall Street disaster but at the time of the dream it seemed terribly important and much depended on what the Latin text actually said.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Lucid dreamer for the same reason as Bob (I have them every day I wake up on my own), in vivid color like Darlica.

I've had some pretty fantastic ones. Once, I was an Indian man sitting in a tall sequoia tree, with pioneers circling the bottom of my tree like wolves because I had killed one of their men. I decided I needed to disguise myself and put on a stove pipe hat and became Abraham Lincoln and ran through the trees...and then while I was crossing the ocean, I became a woman and there was suddenly years of backstory involved. The last scene I remember was one of most vivid and gorgeous things I've ever seen, awake or asleep. I wish I had the skills to replicate what I saw. 
I also had a dream involving an orangutan sitting on my bathroom floor. That's been my favorite recent one.