Dreams can be pretty fascinating, horrifying, or sometimes just plain bizarre. Have you ever wondered why we dream or what happens when we’re dreaming? I have, so I did my research.
Here’s a list with 17 of the most interesting facts I found about dreams:
1. Everybody Dreams
Every person whether they are adults or babies has not only one but many dreams in one night. Some experts say we dream at least 4 to 6 times a night.
2. You Forget Most of Your Dreams
Studies have shown that 5 minutes after the end of a dream, we have forgotten about 50% of its content and 10 minutes later we’ve forgotten 90% percent of it.
3. Your Brain Can’t Make Up Faces
When we’re dreaming, we see real faces of real people that we have seen throughout our life whether you remember them or not.
4. Not Everybody Dreams in Color
12% of people dream entirely in black and white. The other 88% have full-colored dreams. Recent studies suggest that this may be linked to the switch from black and white TV to color media.
5. Animals Dream Too
Experts say that animals show the same brain waves during dreaming sleep as humans. Just like us, animals go through sleep stages that include cycles of REM and non-REM sleep.
6. Men and Women Dream Differently
While men tend to dream more about other men, around 67% of the characters in a man’s dream are other men, 48% of characters in a woman’s dream are other women.
7. You Are Paralyzed While You’re Dreaming
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a normal stage of sleep characterized by rapid movements of the eyes. REM sleep in adult humans typically occupies 20–25% of total sleep, about 90–120 minutes of a night’s sleep.
During REM sleep the body is paralyzed to prevent you from acting out your dreams. However, this paralysis can continue even after 10 minutes of waking state, this is a condition known as sleep paralysis.
8. You Cannot Read or Tell Time While Dreaming
Deirdre Barrett, an expert on the topic, states that dream research has shown that most people can’t read in their dreams. So if you ever wonder if you’re dreaming or not just try to read something.
9. If You Are Snoring You Can’t Be Dreaming
For this one, I haven’t found any scientific evidence to support it but it is all over the internet so I might as well share it.
10. You Can Experience An Orgasm In Your Dream
And they may feel as strong and pleasurable as real ones. What?!
11. Dreams Are Symbolic
The first person to study dreams was Sigmund Freud. His theory argued that dreams are “wish-fulfillment” or symbolic messages of unconscious or unknown wants and desires.
12. Emotions
Anxiety and negative emotions are most likely to be experienced while dreaming. That’s why we tend to experience more nightmares than pleasant dreams.
13. Dreaming Prevents Psychosis
Dreams help you stay mentally on track. Studies have shown that people who were woken up at the start of each dream showed signs of psychosis after only 3 days.
14. Premonitory Dreams
Between 18% and 38% of people believe that it is possible to have a “precognitive dream”, in which you experience a future sight in your dream. How creepy is that?
15. You Spend About 6 Years Of Your Life Dreaming
As I’ve said before, people usually have several dreams each night, and each one typically lasts between 5 to 20 minutes. This means that during a typical lifetime, people spend an average of six years dreaming according to some researchers.
16. Blind People Can Dream
People who are born blind do not see any images but have dreams equally vivid involving their other senses of sound, smell, touch, and emotion.
17. Dreams Speak Through Our Subconscious
Have you ever had similar dreams occurring over and over again? That might be an undone task or feeling you have in your subconscious mind.
Dreaming is the most extensively studied cognitive state. While some experts believe that dreams have no meaning and serve no function, others believe that our dreams do mean something. What do you think?
