Interesting Facts About Dreams

Dreams can be both fascinating and terrifying at the same time. There are moments when you wake up in the middle of the night, not knowing what to do because you just had a frightful dream. While you may have read many facts behind dreams, there are specific dreams that no expert can explain. 

Why do people dream? Some believe that dreaming is a way of the subconscious to send a message. Others believe that dreaming is the Divine way of showing you what life would be like when you are at the crossroads of your life. 

And yet, there has been no consensus as to why people dream. However, several exciting dream facts have been learned over the years through research about dreams and dreaming. 

Here are some human dreams facts you should take a look at:

Fact 1: Every person dreams

Did you know that babies spend two to three hours of their sleeping time at night somewhere in dreamland, no matter how young they are? Both adults and babies experience dreaming at night, even those who claim they do not dream.

Research shows that people have several dreams at night; each one typically lasts for a good five to twenty minutes. If you count all of that, in a lifetime, a person could spend six years of his life dreaming. 

Fact 2: Most people forget about their dreams

Almost 95% of dreams are forgotten by people as soon as they wake up. There is one theory that claims why dreams are tough to remember. It claims that several changes happen in the brain when a person goes to sleep.

The dreams that occur during sleep are not supported by any information processing part of the brain; that's why there is no storage. This is why no type of memory formation takes place when people dream. 

REM sleep is the stage of sleep when dreaming occurs. 

Fact 3: Some dreams come in black and white

While most people would claim that their dreams are much like how their reality is—full of color—some people have dreams that come in black and white. In some studies, dreamers are awakened to identify the colors that they found in their dreams. Most of them chose soft pastel colors as the hue for the dream they just had. 

Fact 4: Dreaming is different for men and women

Gender plays a huge role in the act of dreaming. Research studies have found a difference in how men and women dream. The difference is mostly focused on the content of their dreams. 

Some studies revealed how men dream of weapons more often than women do. The same studies revealed that women dreamed more of references on clothing and style than men do. 

In another study, men's dreams tend to be more aggressive in terms of physical activity and content. On the other hand, women's dreams contain more content involving exclusions and rejections, in addition to conversations.

Women also tend to have dreams that last longer with more characters involved in them. When it comes to figures that appear in dreams, men tend to have more dreams about men than they do about women. 

Women, on the other hand, tend to dream about both men and women equally. 

Fact 5: Animals may be dreaming too

Many dog lovers believe that when dogs who are asleep wag their tails or move their legs, they are actually dreaming. While it may be hard to tell if this is true, research studies believe that animals may be dreaming too. The process may actually be similar to that of humans. 

At the moment, people know that animals go through various stages of sleep like that of humans. Pretty sure, dreaming for these animals may be part of the whole process too. 

Fact 6: You can be in control of your dream

You may have heard of the term lucid dreaming at one point in your life. It is the kind of dream where you are aware that you are dreaming even though you are completely asleep. Researchers believe that lucid dreaming is a fantastic combination of REM sleep and the state of consciousness.

The best part about lucid dreaming is that your awareness gives you control over your dream's content. Approximately half of the people who experience lucid dreaming remember an instance when they experienced such kind of dreaming. 

Some individuals are lucky to have lucid dreams more often than others. And then there are those who train their minds to have lucid dreams whenever they want to. 

Fact 7: Blind people may have visually rich dreams

A research study involving blind people since birth have found that they still seem to experience a visually-rich dream. The use of imagery in their dreams may still seem possible. This is all based on the movement of their eyes as correlated to the visual dream recall process. 

Although they make fewer eye movements during REM sleep, the blind participants reported the same dream with more visual content and yet the same dream sensations. 

Learning these interesting dream facts can indeed be life-changing. It will make you wonder about what your dream will be like tonight. For some, these facts could make them want to dream again. 

Indeed, dreaming comes with a kind of magical effect on people. It makes them yearn for more and looks forward to what the future may bring. 

Dreaming makes people want to live life to the fullest. It gives them a sense of hope that something better is coming to them, if only they dreamed hard enough for it.