Nine Fascinating Facts About Dreams
Although there is no clear consensus as to why we dream we do know some interesting things about the dream state
Dreaming is one of the most interesting and mysterious part of our lives. We know that we need sleep to recharge our bodies so that we have the energy to do all the things we want to the next day. However, the purpose of dreaming is less easily understood, especially given how often our dreams are nonsensical or even bizarre.
Throughout history dreams have played a critical role not just in our lives but often as a part of out culture. As far back as Mesopotamia, societies were ruled by the dreams of their leaders, and many rulers and military leaders had their own dream interpreters and would not act without first consulting them. In many eras, dreams were thought to be messages from God and prophets were called upon to interpret them. In fact, it was said that God spoke to all of his prophets with the exception of Moses through dreams (Bamidbar 12:6–8). In the bible, when Pharaoh couldn’t sleep because of concern over the dreams he’d been having, he called for Joseph who interpreted the dreams to mean that there would be seven years of famine followed by seven years of feast, which allowed Egypt to ration food and survive the lean years (Bereisht, 41).
The roots of dream analysis go all the way back to Freud ( and somewhat before though Freud formalized the study). Freud thought the dreams represented a manifestation of our unconscious and a manner of wish fulfillment that we can’t achieve in real life.
Jung valued dreams almost more than anything else in the study of the person and what was beneath their problems that couldn’t be seen. He also believed them to be a crucial part of personality development.
Countless artists, writers, scientists and inventors have gotten their greatest ideas from their dreams. Larry Page came up with Google in a dream while he was a student and after Dr. James Watson dreamt of a double staircase he went on to develop the idea of our DNA having the structure of a double helix spiral. After having a nightmare as a teenager, Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein based on the monster she saw in her dream, Salvatore Dali father of the surrealist movement, came upon the bizarre images depicted in his paintings in dreams and Sir Paul Macartney first heard the melody for the song, ”Yesterday” in a dream.
Even today, we are curious about the meaning of our dreams, attested to by the hundreds of millions of books that have been written on the subject over time.
Dreaming states have become a major area of psychology and there are entire societies, organizations, educational institutions, laboratories, and research institutes dedicated to studying them. It should come as no surprise, then, that there are many fascinating facts about dreams, many that most people don’t know.
1) If you dream you die, you don’t really die in real life
Let’s take care of this myth right off the bat. It’s not clear where this belief came from but many people believe that if they die in their dream, then they also die in real life. The “you” that dies in a dream, is a character you are observing. It may be very distressing to see yourself die in a dream, but it does not suggest impending death for you or a loved one. Many people say that when you die in your dream it indicates that you are ready for something new, a new phase in your life or to leave your past behind. These are all positive things and can help show you that it’s time to do something differently, something that you’ve always wanted to do.
2) We most likely only dream about faces that we have already seen before rather than create new ones.
Although it’s impossible to know for sure since researchers can’t literally observe what’s going on in someone else’s dreams and can only rely on subjective reports from dreamer from what we know about dreams and how our brains function, it is more likely that when asleep our brains use only those faces that we are familiar with for our dreams.
This is because although when awake what goes on in our minds is influenced both by what we encounter externally as well as our memories, while asleep there is almost no external input such that our dreams are made from memories. We may incorporate sounds that are occurring while we sleep into our dream states, but since our eyes are closed we cannot observe any visual stimuli that could be contributed to what we dream about. If there are people you think you don’t know who appear in your dreams, chances are you’ve seen them somewhere even if you don’t realize it.
3) Dreams about sex aren’t as common as people think
According to research using self-reports, only about 18 percent of dreams are erotic related. Men were more likely to have erotic dreams than women, but gender differences are likely explained by the amount of time men think about sex while awake compared to women.
4) Though most people don’t believe they dream in color, they most likely do
It was originally thought that very few people dream in color. This was because when asked, most people say that they don’t. Research shows that when woken in the middle of a dream, 70 percent of people report dreaming in vivid color while 13 percent report dreaming in bland or vague color. This means that only around 17 percent of people dream only in black and white. Yet when asked, only about 25 percent of people say they dream in color. This is apparently another aspect of dreaming that we have a tendency to forget.
An interesting factor that effects this is whether or not you were exposed to black and white television. The majority of those who only were raised with black and white t.v. generally only dream in black and white, while the majority of those raised only with color television dream in color. Those raised with both were the only group that dreamt in both, sometimes in black and white and sometimes in color.
5) We dream all night long
You’re probably aware of the belief that we only dream during discrete instances of REM sleep. Research actually suggests that we dream to some degree all night long. We’re just more aware of the dreams that occur during REM sleep — and even those we often forget But just because you aren’t aware of your dreams doesn’t mean they aren’t occurring.
6) We dream in real time
It’s frequently believed that dreams are very short, seconds in fact, even when they seem like they go on forever. This is not actually true. Research has shown that we roughly dream in time. They are often just a few minutes at the beginning of the night but as our REM periods lengthen the longer we sleep towards the end of the night they may last an hour or longer with our longest dream occurring during the morning hours before we wake up.
7) Men and Women Dream Differently
Research shows that men and women dream differently. Men are more likely to have weapons in their dreams and their dreams are more aggressive and physically active than women’s dreams. Women dream about clothing more, and their dreams are more likely to involve conversation rather than physical actions. Women’s dreams contain more rejection, exclusion, abandonment and bullying than men’s dreams content of their dreams. Women’s dreams are longer than men’s and there are more characters involved. Women dream about both genders equally while men dream about other men about twice as often as they do about women.
8) Everyone dreams — Even people blind since birth
Blind people dream although their dreams may be different from sighted individuals. They type of imagery they experience depends on when they lost their sight. For example, blind people had fewer dreams about personal success or failure and are less likely to dream about aggressive interactions compared to sighted individuals. People who are blind have more negative dreams than positive ones. This makes since as negative dreams often warn us about threats in our environment or reflect common fears. For those who are blind, their negative dreams are often about threats such as being hit by a car or getting lost.
It was originally thought that blind people who lost their vision prior to certain age didn’t dream visually. But newer research has shown that even those who are blind from birth can dream in a visual manner. This has to do with the types of electrical back and forth stimulation that occurs in the brain and is associated with rapid eye movement, a key indicator of dreaming.
Even though it’s been argued that if a person doesn’t know what it is to see, they can’t report a visual dream even if they have them, this has also proven to be untrue. The dream reports of blind individuals are relayed as being just as perceptually vivid as those of sighted individuals and they report as much visual content as those who can see. However, blind individuals also appear to experience greater tactile, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and kinesthetic sensations in their dreams than sighted individual. So a blind person’s dreaming life may be richer than that of a sighted person.
9) Many dreams cut across culture and nationality
While our dreams are often influenced by the family and communities that we grow up in, there are certain dreams that appear to be universal. There are 12 dreams that are believed to be universal:
- Being chased or attacked
- Being ill, injured or dying
- House or other property loss or damage
- Being naked or inappropriately dressed in public
- Natural or manmade disasters
- Falling or drowning
- Being lost, trapped or unable to move
- Poor performance (test, recital, etc)
- Having trouble with your vehicle
- Missing a flight, boat or other transportation
- Machinery, technology or telephone malfunction (more common in women)
- Being haunted by a spirit
The reason that universal dreams are all negative is that they reflect commonalities in our lives that worry us regularly. Other common dreams that many have but which may not be considered universal include both positive and negative themes. These include:
- Being late
- The death of a loved one or
- A dead loved one being alive again
- Flying
- School-related activities (taking exams, studying, going to class)
- Sexual activity
Concluding Thoughts
Experts may not have any definite answers as to the purpose that dreams serve, or why we dream but there’s no doubt dreams have been given to us for a reason. Whether it’s to help us store important memories and things we’ve learned through the day, serve as a source of catharsis, help us process and work through difficult situations, thoughts and feelings, or something more profound, dreams are important for our physical and mental health, creativity and general well-being.
Natalie Frank has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. She specializes in Pediatrics and Behavioral Medicine. Her collection of poetry, Disguised I Breathe, In Love I Hold, can be found here on Amazon.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you might also like these:
You can find links to my other work on Medium and follow me here. Thanks for reading!