【外刊英语精读】梦境还记得吗？

Why Do We Forget So Many of Our Dreams?

我们为什么会忘记梦境？

We only remember a fraction of our dreams, and even those slip away if we don’t try to remember them—here’s why

我们只记得梦的一小部分，而且如果我们不努力去回忆它们，甚至这一小部分也会逐渐消失。本文来带你一探究竟。

If you’ve ever awoken from a vivid dream only to find that you can’t remember the details by the end of breakfast, you’re not alone. People forget most of the dreams they have—though it is possible to train yourself to remember more of them.

如果你曾经从如临其境的梦中醒来，却发现吃完早餐时已经记不清梦的细节，你不是一个人。人们会忘记大部分梦境，但是我们可以训练自己去记住更多的梦。

Dreaming happens mostly (though not always exclusively) during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During this sleep stage, brain activity looks similar to that in a waking brain, with some very important differences. Key among them: during REM sleep, the areas of the brain that transfer memories into long-term storage—as well as the long-term storage areas themselves—are relatively deactivated, says Deirdre Barrett, a dream researcher at Harvard Medical School.

梦通常（但并不总是）发生在快速眼动睡眠期间。在此阶段，大脑活动类似于清醒状态，但有很重要的不同。其中最关键的是：在快速眼动睡眠期间，将记忆转化为长期存储的大脑区域以及长期存储区域本身相对处于非活跃状态，哈佛医学院的梦境研究员迪尔德·巴雷特（Deirdre Barrett）说。

Short-term memory areas are active during REM sleep, but those only hang on to memories for about 30 seconds.

虽然在快速眼动睡眠期间，短时记忆区域会保持活跃，但这些区域只能保留记忆大约30秒。

“You have to wake up from REM sleep, generally, to recall a dream,” Barrett says. If, instead, you pass into the next stage of sleep without rousing, that dream will never enter long-term memory.

“通常情况下，你必须从快速眼动睡眠中醒来才能回忆起梦境，”巴雷特说。如果你没有醒来，而是进入下一个睡眠阶段，那个梦将永远不会进入长期记忆。

There is a lot of individual difference in dream memory, though. Some people almost never remember a dream, and others regularly recall several each night. People who are more introverted and inward-focused tend to remember more dreams, Barrett says, while those who are more extroverted and action-oriented tend to remember fewer.

不过，关于梦境记忆存在很大的个体差异。一些人几乎从不记得梦，而另一些人每晚都能回忆起好几个。巴雷特说，更内向和更专注内心的人往往记住更多的梦，而更外向和更注重行动的人则记住的梦较少。

A few studies that have investigated lucid dreaming—vivid dreams the dreamer remembers very well and feels in control of—suggest that some areas of the brain linked to attention are more active in people who recall more dreams, indicating that basic neurological differences may play a role.

一些研究探讨了清醒梦境——做梦的人能清晰记得而且有控制感的梦境——这些研究表明，在记住梦境更多的人中，与注意力相关的大脑区域更活跃，这表明基本的神经差异可能起到一定作用。

It is possible to train your brain to remember more of your dreams, though, says Leslie Ellis, a clinical counselor in British Columbia. She advises clients who want to remember their dreams to take a moment when they wake up, before they even move their body, to think about what they were just dreaming and remember as much as possible. This moves the dream from short-term memory to long-term memory.

然而，你可以训练你的大脑记住更多的梦境，不列颠哥伦比亚省的临床咨询师莱斯利·埃利斯表示。她建议那些想要记住梦境的客户，在醒来时，甚至在动弹身体之前，花一点时间思考刚才做的梦，并尽可能多地记住。这将把梦境从短期记忆转化为长期记忆。

Dreams are often considered nonsensical in Western culture, Ellis says. Though the narratives may not make much sense, they often hint at emotions that people are processing in their waking lives. “We do dream about the things we kind of don’t want to look at,” she says. “During the day, we can repress a lot of that, but the dreams will bring those things to the surface.”

埃利斯说，在西方文化中，梦通常被认为是毫无意义的。尽管梦境的叙述可能没有多大意义，但它们往往暗示了人们在清醒时的情感。“我们的梦会涉及到那些我们不太愿意去面对的事情，”她表示。“在白天，我们会压抑很多东西，但梦会让这些东西浮出水面。”