Why are some people's dreams more intricate than others?

I don’t think it’s because some are intricate and other’s aren’t.I think the real issue is memory.When you remember more you tend to think more of your dreams and speculate of their meanings.On the other hand if you don’t have a clear memory of them they seem very simple and almost doesn’t cross your mind unless something reminds you of it and then again you quickly forget if it ever happened.

As Yulia has mentioned, it’s all due to memory of your dream or perhaps you aren’t sleeping deep enough to reach your REM state. Dreams actually last about 5-45mins (throughout your stages (4-5 stages of sleep - it’s like a dream within a dream)), although in reality they feel to be only a few seconds as eileen has stated. That’s because you probably have multiple dreams throughout your sleep and they’re disorientated with one another in your different levels of sleep, leaving you mixed up and only remembering parts. However, most people only remember dreams that occur closer toward the morning when they are about to wake up (something like when memorizing a list of groceries and you only remember the last few items!).

You’re dream is probably deeper than you can imagine! Here’s an experiment you can do, write what you remember every time you wake up for a month and see if there’s a patten, cause those who have only short images and flashes are ones who dream in a series of whenever they sleep. It’s also a practice in helping you remember your dream as you write it down and play it in your head, you’ll find yourself dreaming deeper dreams!

ahahaha this is making me of Inception!