Why did we think we dreamed in black and white?

Abstract

In the 1950's, dream researchers commonly thought that dreams were predominantly a black-and-white phenomenon, although both earlier and later treatments of dreaming presume or assert that dreams have color. The first half of the twentieth century saw the rise of black-and-white film media, and it is likely that the emergence of the view that dreams are black-and-white was connected with this change in media technology. If our opinions about basic features of our dreams can change with changes in technology, it seems to follow that our knowledge of the phenomenology of our own dreams is much less secure than we might at first have thought it to be. Eric SchwitzgebelApril 30, 2001 Dream in Black and White, p. Commonly, dreams were compared to paintings or tapestries -typically colored media.What might explain the mid-century eruption of the opinion that dreaming is predominantly a black-and-white phenomenon? It will likely have occurred to the reader that the first half of the twentieth century was the pinnacle of black-and-white media.Black-and-white photography was first made public in the 1830's, and became One possibility, I suppose, is that having all those black-and-white images around caused our dreams to change -that although Epicurus, Aristotle, Freud, and their friends dreamed in color, the average American in 1950 dreamed mostly in black and whiteand now that our media are largely color again, our dreams are returning for the most part to color. Such a view is not wholly preposterous; things in the world around us surely affect the content of our dreams. After seeing a black-and-white film aboutFrankenstein's monster, one might have a nightmare in which his black-and-white figure appears as one's tormentor. Since most romantic movies seen by people living in 1950were black-and-white, perhaps some of those people dreaming of themselves as romantic heroes would paint their dream world in black and white.Most of our dreams, however (at least most of mine) are not modeled on motion pictures -or at least not in so straightforward a way. Every day a person sees her house and family in full color. It would be odd to suppose that whether she dreamed about them in color would depend on what she sees in the cinema or on the television screen. It seems unlikely that something as peripheral to our cognition as photography, film, and television could have as profound an effect as that -that if the media are predominantly enough black-and-white, they can transform the dreams we have of the colored world around us to dreams of black and white.I will assume, then, that it is the reporting of dreams that changed rather than their content. If so, somebody got something seriously wrong. The two most obvious

Reporting dream experience: Why (not) to be skeptical about dream reports

“…Based on a review of historical studies on color in dreams, he found evidence for “an arc of opinion: before scientific psychology, a consensus or assumption that dreams are colored; divided opinions into the early twentieth century; a consensus that dreams typically have little color from about 1930 to 1960; and then a sudden overturning of that consensus in the 1960s” (Schwitzgebel, 2011, p. 5; cf. Schwitzgebel, 2002). …”

“…Schwitzgebel repeatedly (2002; 2011; Schwitzgebel et al, 2006) describes the possibility of a change in dreaming as opposed to a change in dream reporting as unlikely, defending the claim that either all or a certain group of subjects have mistaken opinions about the occurrence of color in their dreams. The deeper point, however, is that because all three interpretations are possible, and given that none of them can be ruled out at the outset, this finding itself undermines, or so it might seem, the transparency assumption with respect to reports of colored dreaming.…”

Visualizing and Visualizing Representations

“…David Davies and Andrew Fisher independently pointed out that in the later research, unlike the earlier research, people were woken from REM sleep, which casts doubt on the comparability of the result. Schwitzgebel has other data—including replicating a 1942 study—which convinces me that, nonetheless, there is an interesting systematic difference between earlier and later reports (, 651).…”

“…It would be odd to suppose that whether she dreamed about them in color would be depend on what she sees in the cinema or on the television screen. (, 653)…”

Design for Experience

“…Therefore, the influence of how we accept certain content is greater than how and at what time the information is provided. This is because there is a difference in the level of prior knowledge or information that every individual possesses (Schwitzgebel 2002).…”