Researchers agree that most dreams are in color. However, because the dream fades so quickly after we awake, our memories of the dream are often recalled in gray tones. Studies show that those who are in tune with color in waking life tend to remember more color in dreams as well. My husband claimed he never dreamed in color. One morning he was recalling a dream and I asked what he was wearing and he said, "A blue shirt." I reminded him that he "never" dreams in color and he had one of those "Aha" moments. Since then he has noticed that his dreams do have color.
Historically, no one ever believed dreams were in black and white. In fact, it wasn't until the late 1950s and early 1960s that the question came to be debated. The cause? People were beginning to watch a lot of black and white television in those days, and this made their dreams, on occasion, mimic the black and white worlds that people were seeing on their TVs at night.
If you'd never seen black and white movies and photographs and TV shows, it would be pretty hard to imagine what a "black and white" world would look like. For example, if you lived in the 1850s, and if someone asked you whether you dreamed in color or black and whitethe question wouldn't make sense. You'd ask them: "What on Earth do you mean by dreaming in black and white?" Because the only world we knew back then was in full living color.
There's no very plausible reason why creatures who see color shouldn't dream in color. I suspect the question comes up because, for many people, dreams don't have the sensory vividness of waking experience. Unless they are paying particular attention, they may not really notice the colors of the things they dream and assume that if you don't notice colors, it must be because it's black-and-white. Often we recall our dreams many hours after waking when most details are lost by that time. If you try to recall a dream immediately upon waking, I would venture to bet that colors will be remembered. Even if no color is remembered I doubt if the dream would be considered "black and white" but just absent of color.
An excellent research can be found at:
http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/DreamReportRepl011022.pdf This survey found that 62% dream only in color, 23% dream in both color and black and white, 13% couldn't remember, and less than 1% claimed to dream only in black and white.
AOL did a survey with 40,000 participants: The findings were that: 56% of 40,000 respondents claimed to dream only in color, 27% claimed to dream in both color and black and white, 13% claimed they didn't remember, and only 4% claim to only dream in black and white. It seems our informal poll is coming close to the AOL poll although we don't have near the 40,000 participants.
Bev
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