Why Do We Dream in Color — or Not?

Some people see colors in their dreams, and others don’t. It depends on how our brain works while we’re sleeping.

When you sleep, your brain goes through different stages. In one of them, called rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, most dreaming happens. If your brain is using a part that handles color, like the back of your eyes and the middle of your brain, then you’re more likely to dream in color.

Not everyone uses the same parts of their brain when they dream. Some people don’t use the ones that handle color, so their dreams look like black-and-white movies.