But the two theories seem very hard to distinguish empirically.
You could have people watch only black and white movies for a while and see if they were more likely to report dreams being in black and white. This would work since people today know that entertainment isn’t in black and white. Alternatively, one could take black and white media and project it in some strange color scheme (like say orange and blue) and see if people started dreaming in that.
You could have people watch only black and white movies for a while and see if they were more likely to report dreams being in black and white. This would work since people today know that entertainment isn’t in black and white. Alternatively, one could take black and white media and project it in some strange color scheme (like say orange and blue) and see if people started dreaming in that.
That would distinguish the hypotheses
Watching lots of black and white movies directly causes dreams to lose colour.
Knowing that all movies are black and white corrupts one’s memories about one’s dreams.
But it will not decide between
Watching lots of black and white movies directly causes dreams to lose colour.
Watching lots of black and white movies directly corrupts one’s memories about one’s dreams.