Most people dream all the time.

But in my adult life I don't have nearly as many dreams (nor or they as powerful - including nightmares, etc.) as I did when I was a kid.

And I've noticed older people tend to have powerful dreams as well. Every year when my Grandmother comes down to stay with us I can usually hear her having a restless sleep due to significant dreaming.

By comparisson my wife is seldom disturbed by powerful dreams and I can't recall many.

I even noticed my dogs dreamed more as puppies and now my one sheppard (12 years old) dreams regularly.

Any thoughts?

I think older folks actually have less REM sleep

Quoted: I think older folks actually have less REM sleep

That hasn't been my observation.

Wonder if anyone has ever studied this.

I dream practally every night. Throughout the next day I can usually recall fragments of 3 or 4 different dreams. I have a friend who thinks I'm weird. He claims to never dream. So I figure it's one of two things, or a combo of them;

1) Everybody dreams, but most don't recall them because they haven't really tried. With practice anyone can recall what they dreamed about.

or

2) I read quite a bit. He does not. I'm into photography, he has no such artistic intrests. Maybe it's a left brain - right brain thing. Or simply it's imagination. He doesn't display a great deal of imagination usually.


Or maybe it's because children and the elderly have less on their minds than working class stiff middle agers.

tag

Heard that people with disturbed sleep tend to remember their dreams more.  You know how you sometimes remember the dream you woke up during?  

My son has pronounced stages of sleep with several extremely light stages; he sometimes wakes from scarey dreams too.  Hence 2 years of sleep deprivation on my part, but no real increase in dream memory retention either.  

Want to dream more often? Have more intense dreams?

Try taking vitamin B-12 consistantly.

Vitamin B 12 improves circadian rhythm sleep disorders in humans. Though, little is known for its underlying mechanism.

According to the literature that I came across, methylcobalamin is the active form of vitamin b12, cobalamin.  It also says, "methylcobalamin is the active formof b12 that is delivered much better to nerve tissues where it functions in accelerating *transmethylation* reactions in the manufacture of nucleic acids, neurotransmitters, and phospholipids".  Vitamin B12 is also important in dreaming."  

You will find that when you supplement your diet with methylcobalamin, your dream recall will increase and with some people, the images are often bordering on real, in other words you may not realize you are dreaming until you wake up.

Benefits:
Increased energy
Restored mental clarity, and help with memory loss
Reduced daily stress and irritability

Doctors know the health benefits of the B vitamin family and have administered vitamin B-12 shots to patients for years—patients who were feeling sluggish, tired, down, or forgetful—and they've seen remarkable results.

Unfortunately, getting the B-12 vitamin your body needs is not easy. Additionally, your ability to absorb the B vitamins from food and oral pills decreases as you age.

Dosage: Buy the 1000 mcg {1 gram}  Sublingual Methylcobalamin tablets and desolve under your tongue.  This is done to bypass the digestive system, providing an infusion of B vitamins directly into the bloodstream, as the body does not readly adsorbe vitamin B-12.

Dangers:
Little to none when in normal dosages. B-12 is a water-soluable vitamin, it does not build up in the body. Be smart and don't take a bunch of tablets at the same time.