13 Interesting Facts About Dreams
Dreaming is one of the most mysterious and interesting experiences in our lives.
But what do we actually know about dreams?
Here are 13 interesting facts about dreams – enjoy
1. You Forget 90% of Your Dreams
Within 5 minutes of waking, half of your dream is forgotten. Within 10, 90% is gone.
2. Blind People also Dream
People who became blind after birth can see images intheir dreams. People who are born blind do not see any images, but havedreams equally vivid involving their other senses of sound, smell,touch and emotion.
3. Everybody Dreams
Every human being dreams (except in cases of extremepsychological disorder). If you think, you are not dreaming, you justforget your dreams.
4. In Our Dreams We Only See Faces, That We already Know
Our mind is not inventing faces – in our dreams we seereal faces of real people that we have seen during our life but may notknow or remember. We have all seen hundreds of thousands of facesthroughout our lives, so we have an endless supply of characters forour brain to utilize during our dreams.
5. Not Everybody Dreams in Color
A full 12% of sighted people dream exclusively in black and white. Theremaining number dream in full color. Studies from 1915 through to the1950s maintained that the majority of dreams were in black and white,but these results began to change in the 1960s. Today, only 4.4% of thedreams of under-25 year-olds are in black and white. Recent researchhas suggested that those changing results may be linked to the switchfrom black-and-white film and TV to color media.
6. Dreams are Symbolic
If you dream about some particular subject it is notoften that the dream is about that. Dreams speak in a deeply symboliclanguage. Whatever symbol your dream picks on it is most unlikely to bea symbol for itself.
7. Emotions
The most common emotion experienced in dreams is anxiety. Negative emotions are more common than positive ones.
8. You can have four to seven dreams in one night.
On average, you can dream anywhere from one or two hours every night.
9. Animals Dream Too
Studies have been done on many different animals, andthey all show the same brain waves during dreaming sleep as humans.Watch a dog sleeping sometime. The paws move like they are running andthey make yipping sounds as if they are chasing something in a dream.
10. Body Paralysis
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a normal stage ofsleep characterized by rapid movements of the eyes. REM sleep in adulthumans typically occupies 20-25% of total sleep, about 90-120 minutesof a night’s sleep.
During REM sleep the body is paralyzed by a mechanism in the brain inorder to prevent the movements which occur in the dream from causingthe physical body to move. However, it is possible for this mechanismto be triggered before, during, or after normal sleep while the brainawakens.
11. Dream Incorporation
Our mind interprets the external stimuli that our sensesare bombarded with when we are asleep and make them a part of ourdreams. This means that sometimes, in our dreams, we hear a sound fromreality and incorporate it in a way. For example you may be dreamingthat you are in a concert, while your brother is playing a guitarduring your sleep.
12. Men and Women Dream Differently
Men tend to dream more about other men. Around 70% of the characters ina man’s dream are other men. On the other hand, a woman’s dreamcontains almost an equal number of men and women. Aside from that, mengenerally have more aggressive emotions in their dreams than the femalelot.
13. Precognitive Dreams
Results of several surveys across large population setsindicate that between 18% and 38% of people have experienced at leastone precognitive dream and 70% have experienced déjà vu. The percentageof persons that believe precognitive dreaming is possible is evenhigher, ranging from 63% to 98%.
