Generation raised with black and white TV dreams in monochrome

This one's pretty wild -- recent research in the UK finds that people who grew up in the era of black and white media dream in monochrome about a quarter of the time, while those of us raised with color TV almost always dream in full-on Technicolor. The research suggests that exposure to media between the ages of three and 10 is when the switch is set, since that's when the ability to dream kicks in -- which means we're suddenly terrified our kids are going to wind up dreaming in heavily-compressed SD stretched to the wrong aspect ratio, buffering endlessly before failing out due to a missing plugin. Here's to the future.

[Via Switched]

[Mike @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:20AM]

Well played Nilay, well played.

[Matt @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:35AM]

Oh Nilay, is there nothing your wit cannot do?

[maveric101 @ Oct 22nd 2008 12:15PM]

i seriously lol'ed! nice post.

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:22PM]

Damn, that means I'll dream in engadget comment system for the rest of my life!

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:22PM]

Damn, that means I'll dream in engadget comment system for the rest of my life!

[Dreamaster!!!!1! @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:24PM]

Explains the repeat dreams, huh?

[jK @ Oct 22nd 2008 4:43PM]

Well here in Australia I would have to torrent my dream from America because the dreams aren't brought here quickly enough :(

[strider_mt2k @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:22AM]

Kids from that generation are also very resistant to holding the antenna while the game is on.

Luckily I had a younger sister.

[TheStupidOne @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:25AM]

I guess the premise behind the movie The Network was right, people who were raised on TV dream episodes and think on premise of plots.

I wonder how folks raised all along with the internet will be like?

[Colin Jones @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:02AM]

Quick wit internet come backs and pornographic colour images.

[kal326 @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:44AM]

The better question is what do the people raised in the silent movie era dream like? Dreams are hard enough to try to figure out without having to read the fuzzy white on black writing.

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:34PM]

What I'm looking forward to is dreaming in DVR...

Man, I'd love to be able to pause, rewind and ZOOM in some of my dreams...

Best part? Being able to resume what I missed when the phone rang!

[chrisp @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:31AM]

Curses, the amount of time i spent behind a CGA monitor as a kid playing jerky dos games probably means I dream in 4bit colour at 7FPS.


Oh well, better than a thousand shades of grey i guess :(

[Fubar @ Oct 22nd 2008 6:01PM]

Wait, why are my dreams typing themselves out in amber monochrome? Gah!

[Kizorblade @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:31AM]

That actually made me laugh.

Kudos to you Nilay.

[JohnM @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:30AM]

Please explain the people who have never seen a TV but still dream in B&W?!

The older research showed more towards the level of intelligence.

[--------- @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:29AM]

I think most people dream in both B&W and color, depending on the intensity and or content of the dream. Many if not most dreams aren’t really visual as much as conceptual, and recollections of the dreams are easily influenced by the researcher asking questions.

I’m skeptical…

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:31PM]

I saw... A figure... A, figure in a cloak, no... a... figure in a hoodie, wearing dark, black, glasses!

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:54PM]

I saw a figure in a black turtle neck... hard to see his face..fuzzy... not in blu-ray quality...

Oh, jeez, it's the let's rock event. False alarm

[Wwhat @ Oct 22nd 2008 11:01PM]

I’m sceptical also, apart from the power of suggestion there might also be some lies getting in there I fear.
I wonder how many people dream in mono sound now or non-polyphonic, there's your next survey.
Or how about grainy or interlaced?

[BradS @ Oct 23rd 2008 9:49AM]

@who?:

That was Steve Jobs you were dreaming about. And that was an iNightmare.

[ati @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:34AM]

Right, next generation will dream in 3D. Some research!

[icepop4who @ Oct 22nd 2008 11:11AM]

i dream with a gun stuck out of my face and everything in "very high" settings.

[Eric @ Oct 22nd 2008 11:55AM]

I had a dream last night I was Duke. As in Duke Nukem 3D. And what I "saw" were Duke Nukem 3D quality graphics. Total WTF when I woke up.

[Nomi @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:33AM]

Nice one Nilay!

[Deputy Doffoos @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:34AM]

When will I dream in HD?

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:32PM]

When you update you avatar to a picture that's not fuzzy

[Alex @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:36AM]

Hahaha, very funny. I rather enjoyed this one.

[iEye @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:38AM]

Too bad for those who will dream in 2.8" PMP...

[Ryan @ Oct 22nd 2008 5:00PM]

Are you sure we don't dream in Colorvision?

[All5tars @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:44AM]

That means my little guy is gonna be having HiDef dreams!!! I better not let him watch too many scary films... Might have to stick 100s of Disney stuff on for him between 3 and 10...

[Takashi @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:44AM]

I dream often in white on blackwith a hint of primary color and simple lines. Followed by unexpected blocky, flashing caledoscopic nightmares of colors, a series of straight red lines on black and the sentence (c) 1982 Sinclar Research

Damm you, Clive.

[y3k.nik @ Oct 22nd 2008 8:57AM]

So, if I play Dead Space and Resistance 2 in HD... I will dream about them in HD.... There goes my sleep for the rest of my life, oh dear...

[lgespee @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:02AM]

As long as they will fix the storylines and chronology and not make people turn up in strange places, I think I don't care that much about video quality.

[Backlin @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:09AM]

The "they" part of that is hilarious!

[athousandleaves @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:11AM]

ahahahahahahahah

yes nilay, I wake up from my stretched betamax nightmares thinking exactly this. can I get some tracking?!

[Orpheus @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:13AM]

Uh-huh! So people who always have those dreams where they suddenly become naked were raised on porn! That's the very scientific conclusion that I choose to draw.

[gad get @ Oct 23rd 2008 3:34AM]

What kind of porn features the viewer, naked?

[andy @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:18AM]

good writing, SNL material for weekend update

[PlayStation @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:30AM]

I know what to do. Every day I will be dreaming in black and white and the following day i will be upscaling them all into BluRay quality dreams. wonder what colour bitumen and total darkness will be after upscaling................

[trickards @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:24AM]

Brilliant.

[satyajitters @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:27AM]

Hi ,

Another feature of the present generation.. so to say is that , our (opps I included myself and generalised it...) imagination of the past always seems to be in black and white. Whenever I think of my grandparentsw in their younger days, it always seems to be in black and white!!

[Wwhat @ Oct 22nd 2008 11:07PM]

Has nothing to do with you only knowing it from b&w pictures, nothing at all.

[Pt_Frost @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:28AM]

Maybe our brain is like one complicated PVR. Doomed to replay the recordings of our childhood TV shows in our sleep over and over and over and o....

[GB @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:49AM]

Maybe the dreams of the upcoming Apple-MacBookPro-generation won't include any "B's"... That damn sure is gonna be tough!

[Precurse @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:07AM]

So does that mean if you grew up with 60Hz refresh rates that you would get frequent seizures while dreaming?

[Tim Brazer @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:11AM]

Hahaha, So, true! Great post! 8^)

[hfm @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:26AM]

Sorry sir, you can only return your dream if at least 8 pixels are broken...

[Pradster @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:40AM]

Pure genius Mr Patel, pure epic genius!

[scooters_education @ Oct 22nd 2008 11:08AM]

I never felt compelled to comment before but the wrong aspect ratio/SD content remark was hillarious...