Debate: Does dreaming in black and white mean something different than color dreams?

I used to always dream in full color like a movie, but after a trip to my grandma's house in Fargo back in 2018, my dreams went totally grayscale for like 3 months. I was drinking a lot of that cheap Folgers coffee she kept around, and I swear the caffeine or something was messing with my brain chemistry. Now I'm back to color dreams, but I wonder if it's about your mood or what you eat before bed. Anybody else notice a before-and-after change like that, or am I just overthinking my sleep?

3 comments

3 Comments

avery_ross27d agoMost Upvoted

That thing about caffeine messing with dreams is actually real. I read this neuroscience article last year that said people who drink more than 3 cups of coffee a day report more black and white dreams, something about how caffeine affects the visual cortex during REM sleep. @victor_robinson, you might be onto something with the TV reruns thing because my dreams feel like old movies when they're grayscale too. The study also mentioned that people who watch a lot of old films before bed are more likely to have monochrome dreams, which made me think about my grandma's collection of classic DVDs. Your experience with the Folgers makes total sense now, the timing lines up with that research perfectly. Maybe what you eat or watch in the evening really does flip that switch in your brain.

susanb3427d agoMost Upvoted

Haha well that explains a lot about my weird dreams lately. Your mileage may vary but I had a cup of coffee at like 8pm last night and my dreams were literally in sepia tone, like I was stuck inside an old photograph. My brain's visual cortex must have been running on fumes or something. The funny thing is I tried to watch a black and white movie before bed to test that theory once, but I fell asleep halfway through so my dreams were just me trying to figure out who killed the guy in the fedora. Take this with a grain of salt but the study sounds spot on, maybe I should stick to decaf after dinner if I want my dreams to have any color at all.

victor_robinson27d ago

Betting it's all about what's on your mind before bed, just like how TV reruns look different when you're tired.