Vivid dreams are those dreams which are so clear and lifelike that it may be difficult to distinguish them from reality. Most people are familiar with vivid dreams, and have them at least a few times a month. Other individuals are capable of having vivid dreams every night, or even multiple times in one night. Vivid dreams can be caused by a variety of factors, ranging from diet to health to medication. They also seem to be brought on regularly by stressful life situations. Personally, I feel that most of my vivid dreams are caused by my subconscious mind trying to process an issue or situation in my life that has a great deal of emotional charge for me and that I have not been able to deal with while awake.
It is hard to say whether vivid dreams are a result of certain chemical states in the brain, or whether they are more related to memory and the timing of awakening from the dream. According to dream studies, the most vivid dreams occur just before awakening. Therefore, it is entirely possible that we experience all of our dreams in full, vivid detail, but are only able to remember with any clarity those dreams which occur just before waking. This makes a great deal of sense, since many of the dream herbs which I have worked with, including Calea zacatechichi seem to function by making my sleep lighter and allowing me to wake up more frequently during the night. Since I wake up more frequently, I am able to remember much more detail about my dreams, and it is also easier to enter a lucid dreaming state by maintaining conscious attention when slipping in to a vivid dream.
This theory is more fully supported by a recent dream study from the University of California in San Diego which showed that individuals who experience and remember more vivid dreams are also significantly more capable of recalling information and making logical connections when they are awake. The study found that individuals who passed through several periods of REM sleep during the night had significantly improved memory and cognitive function than those individuals who were not permitted to enter REM sleep. The researchers involved in the study believe that REM sleep encourages neurological changes which allow for the formation of connections between unassociated information in the brain. This allows for improved memory and better problem solving abilities.
The scientists who performed the study further concluded that REM sleep allows individuals to process and put together information they obtain during the day, turning that information in to memories which can be used later on. They also confirmed that individuals who were awoken during REM sleep were able to recall much more vivid dreams than individuals who were awoken during deeper sleep stages. And another study from Harvard Medical School found that volunteers who experienced many vivid dreams during their sleep were up to ten times better at learning complex tasks than those who did not.
So, from these studies, we can see exactly how important REM sleep and vivid dreams are to our cognitive functioning and to our experience. They help our mind to process information on a physical and an emotional level. There are many ways to improve your vivid dreaming, from herbs to meditation, and these are discussed elsewhere on the site. However, the most essential way to make sure that you have plenty of vivid dreams is to ensure that you get at least 7 or 8 hours of sleep every night. REM sleep stages occur more and more frequently and for longer periods of time the longer you are able to sleep. So, if you get plenty of rest, your vivid dreaming periods will increase, you will be able to remember more vivid dreams, and your cognitive health will improve! And, of course, if you are able to remember a great many of your vivid dreams then it will become much, much easier to learn how to become lucid in dreams, and to astral travel with a little extra time and patience!