The route to recall a dream: theoretical considerations and methodological implications

The goal of this paper is to shed new light on the relation between dream recall and dream experiences by providing a thorough analysis of the process that leads to dream reports. Three crucial steps of this process will be distinguished: dream production (the generation of a conscious experience during sleep), dream encoding (storing a trace of this experience in memory) and dream retrieval (accessing the memory trace upon awakening). The first part of the paper will assess how major theories think about the relationship between dream reports and these distinct steps. The second part will systematise how trait and state factors affecting dream recall—given different theoretical assumptions—might interact with dream production, encoding and retrieval. Understanding how the distinct steps of dream recall can be modulated by different factors is crucial for getting a better grip on how to acquire information about these steps empirically and for drawing methodological conclusions with regard to the tools dream research relies on to collect subjective data about dream experiences. The third part of the paper will analyse how laboratory reports, logs and retrospective scales interact with the different factors that affect the distinct steps leading to dream reports and will argue that prospective methods provide more direct access to data regarding dream production and encoding than retrospective methods, which—due to their inability to provide systematic control over the factors affecting the retrieval stage—screen-off the variability in the production and the encoding of dreams.