In his study, Watson required 193 college students to record the time that the went to bed, the time that they woke up, whether they consumed alcohol or caffeine 4 hours prior to going to bed, and whether they recalled any of the dreams that they had that night. Participants recorded this information for 14 weeks.
The results of this study showed that there was no correlation between the amount of a sleep a participant had and their recall of dreams. He did find that those who had inconsistent sleep schedules tended to dream more and those who characterized themselves as a “night person” recalled their dreams more often. The most surprising result Watson found was that creative people remember their dreams better.
After thinking about Watson’s research, I realized that it really does not disprove the encoding specificity principle. Yes, he stated that creative people recalled their dreams better but that’s because their lives when they are awake and when they are asleep are similar. Creative people may be more imaginative and fantasize/daydream more. These are states that are characteristics of dreams. This makes creative people’s dream state reflect their waking state, thus improving their dream recall.
The entire research article can be found here:
www.scienze-relazionali.unina.it/didattica/docenti/giuditta/materiali/dream%202003.pdf
If you want to have a good laugh go to this website: http://www.brilliantdreams.com/
This website claims to sell a dream pill that induces dreams and improves your recall of dreams and memory. Who would purchase this product???