Everybody dreams, but everyone dreams differently.

No one doesn’t not dream, with the exception of people who suffer from extreme psychological disorders.  Even if you think you don’t dream it’s just because you’ve forgotten your dreams.

 

Blind people can also dream, but their dreams are not dependent on images.  Their dreams can sometimes be images if the blind person became blind after birth.  Those who were born blind would not see images.  Instead they have vivid dreams that involve their other senses including sound, smell, touch, and emotion.

 

Not only that, but not everyone dreams in color.  Majority of people who can see will dream in color, but 12% of the human population dream only in black and white.  Some of its because these people are colorblind, but it has also been linked to television.  From roughly the early 1900’s to the 1950’s majority of people dreamed in black and white.  As the 1960’s rolled around and colored television popularized more people began to dream in color.

 

You forget 90% of your dreams.

After you’ve woken up and been awake for 5 minutes you have already forgotten half of your dream.  By 10 minutes almost 90% of the dream is forgotten.

 

Dreams can be symbolic of something else.

Whether you’re standing in front of a crowd unable to speak or stuck in a desert with nothing in sight, they all mean something.  The best time to recognize whether or not your dream is symbolic of something else is when it is more out of the ordinary than usual.

 

By now you typically know what you dream about, but if one dream is about something particular and it can be a symbol of something bigger.  Though be cautioned what is focused on in your dream.  It it most likely a symbol for something other than the obvious.  Dreams speak in a symbolic language that can sometimes be hard to understand.

 

The faces in your dreams are faces you’ve seen before.

Your mind cannot invent new faces.  Instead the mind contorts what you’ve seen in real life into these imaginary dreams.  So the faces you see in your dreams are real people you’ve seen in your real, everyday life.  You may not remember them consciously, but your mind stores the face.  So with the hundreds of thousands of faces you have seen you essentially have an endless supply of new faces that make them seem they are made up.

 

Your body is paralyzed when you dream.

If you’ve heard of REM sleep you know this is basically a stage of really deep sleep, but you body is resembling being awake.  During REM sleep the body becomes paralyzed because a signal is sent to the brain to keep the body from moving.

 

You can’t read or tell time in your dreams.

If you have tried to read something in your dream like a book or piece of paper you can’t.  Most people can’t in their dreams.  The same goes for clocks so you are unable to tell the time.  Many lucid dreamers report that each time you look at the clock the time is different each time and hands on a clock don’t appear to move.

 

You can control your dreams.

Sometimes you’re so caught up in a dream that it seems real no matter how out there it is, but believe it or not you can control the outcome of dreams.  Every time you dream you are able to turn, twist, and manipulate your dreams from the moment it starts to when it ends.  This form of dreaming is called “lucid dreaming” because you are aware that you are dreaming.

 

There is a lot of debate as to when you start dreaming.

Some say newborns and toddler cannot dream.  They believe that young children don’t start to dream until they are between 3 or 4 years old.

 

Most scientists that we dream the moment our brain is developed.  It is suggested that dreams of fetuses are composed of sound and touch because of the lack of visual stimulus in the womb.  Most neonatal and newborns spend 80% of their sleep in REM sleep which suggests they spend a lot of time sleeping.

 

Dreams are universal.

Dreams aren’t just restricted to humans.  Dreams are universal in the animal kingdom.  Almost every animal is able to dream and the best example is your dog.  Maybe you’ve seen them twitch or move while they’re sleeping.  Maybe they make noises so next time they do this remember they’re in their own dream world.

 

Dreams are important for your health.

Dreams occur during the REM stage of the sleep cycle.  This stage of sleep is important for your overall health.  If you keep waking up right before REM sleep or in the middle of it you can fall victim to psychotic disorder including hallucinations and irritation.

 

Dreams take up a lot of time.

You dream more than you think you do even if you’re not a dreamer.  On average, you dream roughly one to two hours each night.  During this time you can have a number of dreams ranging from four to seven dreams in one night.  In total you will spend about 6 whole years of your life dreaming.