The debate was popular in the late 1950s. Prior to this time, however, in all of the literature that exists that pertains to dreams, the question of color never came up. Freud did not raise it, nor did Jung or any other psychoanalyst of the early twentieth century. Much as our brains effortlessly recreate our outside world with all of its vivid colors. No one hears much about the black and white theory today.
Most people have color TV sets.
Now the only time we might dream in black and white is after spending long weekends watching old movies on cable. When lucid dreamers become aware they are dreaming, their orientation to the dreamscape naturally changes. Usually, whatever tension or immediacy which was present in the dream dissipates, and lucid dreamers are able to relax in the knowledge that the experience, after all, is only a dream. In this state of relaxed awareness, a playful curiosity inevitably develops. Lucid dreamers compare dream objects against waking experience.