When my siblings and I were growing up – high school age, actually – we used to tease my dad about how old he was. We would tell him that when he was growing up, the world was all black and white. Of course, we were referring to the fact that television was only in black and white when he was younger and we grew up with color television. Once color television came along, the whole world became colorized. Yes, we were being silly. That’s why it was fun.
Tonight, though, I found a story on Discover’s website that shows we may not have been far off the mark. According to a study done, those who watched black and white television as kids are more likely to dream in black and white, even after they are fully grown and have presumably seen color television. Those who watched color T.V. as kids dream in color. Isn’t that wild?
The article says that those who grew up without any television dream only in color, so I guess we’ll have to admit that the world was colorized prior to Dad’s childhood, but we can still tell him that the world was black and white when he was a kid.
This is so interesting. Truly. It made me stop and think what I dream in. I think I was about 7 when we got a colored TV. I remember all the neighbors coming over and watching The Wizard Of Oz at our house. It was a blast. We were one of the first people we knew who got one.
This was great.
That’s really interesting. We didn’t have a color tv until I was about thirteen, but I dream in color. I always wondered when some people would claim that dreams were only in black and white, and I guess this could explain it.
Now I have Peter Gabriel’s song “Biko” going through my mind. There is a line that goes, “When I try to sleep at night, I can only dream in red.”
this isn’t totally related, but when I was living in germany and barely speaking english… EVER… I did start to dream in german. I think I still do sometimes. WEIRD, huh????
Not weird at all, Erin. When I was intensely studying French in college, I dreamt in French a couple of times.