Why you forget your dreams so quickly

Everyone dreams, but not everyone remembers their dreams. In some cases, that's just as well, because it's not always pleasant in your head.

Whether or not you remember your dream has everything to do with the moment you wake up. Here's the thing: you dream during your REM sleep, you know, the part of your sleep where your pupils dart around (hence: rapid eye movement) and where our feelings are processed through dreaming. REM sleep occurs multiple times a night because sleep cycles alternate, and during the night, REM sleep gets longer.

Memories and thoughts are sent to the optical center, allowing us to see images and dream. It's also true that you can't dream of anything you've never seen. Every face you dream about has crossed your path at some point.

Our brains have a short-term memory and a long-term memory where, you get it, you briefly remember things that happened not too long ago, and in long-term memory, you remember things that happened longer ago. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that connects short-term and long-term memory.

During REM sleep, the hippocampus is also at rest, so the gate between the two brain areas is, as it were, closed.

This is how you remember dreams:

1. Don't set a alarm clock

This way, you wake up at a moment you choose and are not abruptly disturbed in your sleep cycle.

2. Wake up slowly

If you wake up slowly and relaxed, the brain areas and the hippocampus also wake up slowly, allowing your dreams to travel from the short-term part to the long-term memory.

Then you can only hope that you had a nice dream that you want to cherish. Otherwise, it's a matter of getting up quickly and taking action, hoping that dream stays on the short-term side and then disappears very quickly.