We spend a large portion of our life sleeping and dreaming. And yet, no matter how common it is to dream, it still remains one of the unsolved mysteries of our human existence. Dreaming is one of those mysterious things in our life that have been researched for ages and yet, here we are knowing almost nothing about the experience. Some say we can interpret the dreams and they bare serious and meaningful information for us, while others claim that dreams are meaningless and they are just working as an emotional brain dump. Some say dreams are ways to connect with other planes of existence, share information and peak into the broader image of our full existence. Others claim that dreams have to do only with the physical and chemical functioning of the brain. No matter if we approach dreams from a spiritual perspective or from a more practical perspective, they still remain an intriguing, interesting experience. In this post we are collecting all the interesting facts about dreams and dreaming.

Fun Facts About Dreams & Dreaming

• The first book on dreams was written in the country of Egypt. It was written around 4000 BC. The study of dreams has evolved a lot since that time, but even the most modern neuroscientist and psychologist studies produce just as many questions as answers.
• Dream interpretation and dream deciphering became part of modern psychology with the work of Sigmund Freud, but it turned out to be harder to research than it seemed at first.
• Many inventors invented things by dreaming about it first. Some scientific breakthroughs, innovations came as ideas to their inventors in their dreams.
• Inception is a 2010 science fiction action film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, is a movie about dreams that was inspired by a lucid dream. There are lots of other popular films and novels inspired by dreams. One outstanding example is The Terminator, based on nightmarish dreams of a metallic man by James Cameron.
• Animals also dream while sleeping. You can often see dogs “running” in the air with their legs, while they sleep. Researchers believe that most animals do have REM sleep stages so probably they do also dream, but how they experience dreams no one can say for sure. Do they also see images, construct full storylines?

Interesting Facts About Dreams & Dreaming

• Brain activity during sleep becomes particularly intense during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is when we dream. We dream for around two hours per night. We spend one-third of our life asleep, meaning the average person will dream for almost six years worth of time in their life.
• We all dream. Even those who cannot remember their dreams are having dreams. Brain scan imagery and studies have confirmed that people enter dream states routinely each night even when they wake up without any memory of the experience. [1]
• We tend to have 4-6 dreams during one night. People with active mental activity, intellectual work, tend to have more dreams than those doing less active brainwork.
• Those dreams are clearer and better remembered that you dream just before awakening in the morning. We tend to forget half of the dreams we see at night within 3-5 minutes of waking up. We forget 90% of our dreams within 10 minutes of waking up
• The rational part of your brain shuts down while you dream. Dream researchers have found that the prefrontal cortex is inactive, it shuts down when you dream. This part of the brain is responsible for the logical, rational thinking and so it makes sense that dream images results to be less organized and more strange and fantastical. In your dreams, all kind of strange fictional things can happen, things that do not follow any discernable earthly logic. You can jump high or you can fly, like there was no gravitation.
• We can have black and white dreams and we can have color dreams as well. Not everyone sees dreams in colors however. Some studies say that before the color tv was invented, people only had black and white dreams and only a few would dream in colors.it is hard to research this , cause we can’t go back and ask them…
• Recurring dreams are dreams that we dream repeatedly. Sometimes years can pass between the repetition of a dream, ( or a partial repetition, like being in the same place), but somehow we know we have been in that dream before.
• Lucid dreaming is when you, the dreamer are sleeping and dreaming, but still you have the awareness that this is a dream. Lucid dreamers can take on an active role in the dream storyline.
• False awakening – during false awakening the dreamer believes they are awake but in fact they are still dreaming. The imagery of the dream seems so real, so similar to the real life places that it makes the dreamer think that they have already awakened.
• According to a study we cannot read, write or see the time on a clock in our dreams.

Resources, Further Readings: 1. Facts about dreams , Amazing facts, 11 Fun Facts About Dreams,

Credits: Photo1- Sleeping and dreaming by Racool Studio,