London: It's a finding which may not come as a surprise for your grand father -- people grown up watching black and white TV are likely see colourless dreams, scientists say.
The Japanese study, which interviewed more than 1,300 people twice over a 16-year period from 1993 to 2009 about the brightness of their dreams, found that only one in five people in their 60s recalled having bright, vivid dreams.
In contrast, 80 per cent of those surveyed under the age of 30 confirmed they had dreams rich in colour, the Daily Mail reported. The report titled 'Life Span Differences in Colour Dreaming' explained: "When we inquired among college students whether they dreamt in colour, most answered that their dreams were as fully in colour as is waking life.
"Inquiries among older persons, however, produced the same result as the early research -- dreams were predominantly in black and white."
The findings, published by the American Psychological Association, could be partly linked to younger generations and their experience of watching colour TV since childhood, the researchers said.
"Colour TV may play an important role in that, people in Japan younger than 20 in 1993 and 36 at 2009 have watched colour TV since birth," they said.
However, they argued the explosion in popularity of colour TVs could not solely explain the phenomenon. "If the incidence of colour in dreams were affected
only by media exposure, it would abruptly, instead of gradually, decrease because the most representative coloured media -- colour TV -- became prevalent very quickly in Japan," they added.
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