People who are creative, imaginative, and prone to fantasy are more likely to have vivid dreams at night and to remember them when they wake up, according to University of Iowa research.

David Watson, a professor of psychology at the university, said that the more bizarre a dream was, the more likely his volunteers were to remember it. Dream recall varied widely, with a few participants remembering a dream every night and others never remembering a dream throughout the three-month study. On average, participants recalled dreams three or four days per week.

This study, which appears in the May 2003 issue of the journal Personality and Individual Differences, included 193 college students. The volunteers recorded each morning for 14 weeks what time they woke up, what time they had gone to bed the previous night, whether they had consumed alcohol or caffeine within four hours of bedtime, and whether they remembered any dreams upon waking.

Watson found that neither sleep quality nor length of sleep was associated with remembering dreams, although students who maintained inconsistent bedtime schedules tended to report slightly more sleep- and dream-related experiences. There also was a slight tendency for "evening people" to remember more of their dreams.

Most significantly, Watson found that people who are prone to absorption, imaginativeness, daydreaming and fantasizing are particularly likely to remember their dreams.

"There is a fundamental continuity between how people experience the world during the day and at night," he said. "People who are prone to daydreaming and fantasy have less of a barrier between states of sleep and wakefulness and seem to more easily pass between them."