What causes vivid dreams?
While research is still unclear, dreaming has a lot to do with brain chemistry. During the REM phase of sleep (when you dream more vividly) there are different levels of neurotransmitters than when you are awake, particularly an abundance of acetylcholine. Dreams can be more vivid than others depending on many factors that affect neurotransmitters in your brain. Anything from stress, to medication, disease, alcohol, drugs can make your dreams more or less real. Vivid dreams is a side effect of taking medications and withdrawal of some medications. There is also documentation that people with certain medical conditions like bipolar disorder have vivid dreams. If you think about it from a chemistry perspective that is in tune with what i said above, because bipolars have disordered brain chemistry. Even pregnancy can cause vivid dreams (again, hormones affect brain chemistry) I even found information about a supplement that claims to enhance vivid dreaming! It’s called Brilliant Dreams.
