Sleep experts explain why your dreams are so vivid that you remember them long after waking up

Dreams have had a powerful grip on the human mind for millennia. As soon as humans could start writing, they were documenting dreams .

But for all of the tens to hundreds of thousands of hours we spend snoozing over a lifetime, we only remember certain dreams long after waking up. These are called vivid dreams.

What makes some dreams so vivid and memorable may say something about the dream itself, what’s going on in your real life, or a mix of both.