The Color of Our Dreams

Did you dream in color last night, or in black and white? Your answer just might depend on how old you are.

According to this article in the Telegraph, new research suggests that the color of your dreams is determined by the type of television you watched as a child. While almost everyone under 25 years old dream in color, most people over 55 dream only in grayscale.

According to Eva Murzyn, the British psychology student who conducted the study, this means “there could be a critical period in our childhood when watching films has a big impact on the way our dreams are formed” for the rest of our lives. This “critical period” is between 3 and 10 years old, when we’re just developing the ability to dream.

Why does watching something on screen have such effect on our subconscious? Murzyn hypothesizes that, because TV and films are “emotionally engaging and even dreamlike,” we may replicate what we’ve seen on screen in our dreams.

According to the Telegraph, "Miss Murzyn concedes it's still impossible to verify whether the dreams are actually in black-and-white, or whether media exposure somehow alters the way the mind reconstructs the dreams once we wake."

(Photo by Aaron Escobar)