Healthy Aging: Body, Mind & Spirit

Does early exposure to TV influence our dreams?

January 9, 2010 on 6:04 pm | In Brain Fitness, Brain plasticity, Dream research, Health Psychology | 1 Comment

The advent of color TV may have injected color into generations of dreams.

According to a new study, kids who watched only black and white TV are more likely to have black-and-white dreams throughout their lifetime.

Scientists have debated whether we humans dream in gray scale or color for many decades. Most of this research took place in the period between 1915 and 1950s, when it was thought that all our dreams were in black and white.

However in the 1960s, scientists discovered that about 83 percent of dreams include some color. This particular time in history saw the transition from black-and-white film and TV in technicolor.

Previously scientists based their research on questioning participants in mid-day, when they might have forgotten many details of their dreams and assumed that they only dreamt in black-and-white.

In order to clarify these issues, Eva Murzyn from the University of Dundee, UK, decided to interrogate 60 people, half under age 25 and half over 55.  Participants were asked questions related to the color of their dreams, their exposure to film and TV, and  asked to keep a morning dream diary.  Researchers discovered that the results from the questionnaires and those from the dream diaries were quite similar.

After analyzing her findings, Murzyn found that 4.4 percent of dreams reported by subjects aged under 25 were black and white and 7.3 percent of dreams reported by participants aged over 55, who have been exposed to color TV and film during their childhood, were also black and white. However, those over-55, who were exposed to black-and-white media, said that they were dreaming in grayscale a quarter of the time.

“There could be a critical period in our childhood when watching films has a big impact on the way dreams are formed,” said Murzyn.

Despite the fact that subjects spent only a couple of hours each day watching television, their concentration along with emotional engagement can be amplified, thus leaving a profound impact on their minds.

Nevertheless, the scientists stated that it is still impossible to determine whether a person dreams in black-and-white or if exposure to television modifies the way a human’s mind interprets dreams when we wake.

Findings do suggest that TV leaves a huge imprint on developing minds.  TV is interesting and emotionally engaging and even dreamlike.  So when you dream you may copy what you have seen on the screen. However, Murzyn noted that reports from dreamland are rarely reliable.  It’s possible TV only makes us think our dreams are in color.

I would like to add that after seeing AVATAR in 3D recently, I woke up and immediately knew that I do definitely dream in COLOR!