Do you dream in color or black and white? The answer may depend on when you grew up

By Lindsey Bever

The question: Is it true that some people dream in color and others in black and white?

The science: It was once believed that most people dreamed mostly in black and white, and color dreaming was thought to be associated with psychological issues. Science has since dispelled those myths.

While dreaming in black and white is not uncommon, many people dream in color much of the time. A 2017 study showed that participants reported color in nearly 50 percent of their dreams, with black and white dreaming reported only 10 percent of the time. For 40 percent of the dreams, dreamers could not recall whether there were any colors.

The tendency to dream in gray scale or color may be influenced in part by age and when people grew up. Up until the 1950s, research suggests, a large majority of people surveyed said they only occasionally, rarely or never dreamed in color, referred to at the time as “technicolor” dreams in the scientific community. That seemed to change with the advent of color TV.

A 2008 study found that people older than age 55 — who may have grown up without a color TV — reported dreaming in color only about 34 percent of the time, whereas those younger than 25 said they did so about 68 percent of the time. Both the older and younger age groups reported similar results when it came to not remembering the colors in their dreams, nearly 18 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

The inability to remember whether dreams are in color may indicate that our minds prioritize other aspects of our dreams. “It may be a matter of attention and memory,” said Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist who studies dreams at Harvard Medical School and author of “The Committee of Sleep.”

For instance, Barrett said, after dining at a restaurant, a customer is not likely to remember the color of the server’s shirt. That does not mean the shirt lacked color, but the color was not noticed and committed to memory. Sleeping and waking worlds are thought to be similar in that way, she said.

And that may be more noticeable as we age. In 2011, researchers published findings from two surveys, conducted 16 years apart, showing that about 80 percent of participants younger than age 30 reported color in their dreams, but it dropped to about 20 percent by age 60.

In general, dream recall, including the level of detail, declines with age, Barrett said.

What else you should know
The most commonly reported colors observed in dreams are black, white and red, which has been associated with love, blood, flesh and fire, said Kelly Bulkeley, a dream researcher, author and founder of the Sleep and Dream Database, which includes more than 40,000 dream entries.

Barrett said some people have even reported seeing unrealistic colors — such as people with blue arms — or colors that do not exist in the waking world.

Colors often hold significance for the dreamer, signaling that an object in color is important, Barrett said.

And colors may be more significant for some people than for others.

“Dreams are highly subjective and often reflect the dreamer’s life and their daily interactions,” Eti Ben Simon, a senior research scientist in the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California at Berkeley, said in an email. “For instance, if someone is working as a painter, colors in dreams might hold greater meaning relative to someone who is somewhat indifferent to colors overall.”

The bottom line
Many people dream in color, but research suggests that color dreaming as well as the ability to remember the colors may vary based in part on age and when people grew up.
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Credit: The Washington Post