Dreams are beautifully mysterious. The average person has between 1,460 and 2,190 dreams a year during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep.
These dreams can range from 5 minutes to half an hour long, and it is possible to have multiple dreams in a single night. Typically, upon waking up, you are likely to forget 95 to 99% of your dreams.
There is a lot that is unknown about dreams, but here are some interesting facts about what we do know:
1) Blind People Can Dream:
Eyes don’t matter when it comes to dreaming because blind people can dream too. Instead of seeing images, they experience auditory dreams and use their other senses such as smell or touch. Blind people who were not born blind see images in their dreams, but also report a higher sensitivity in other senses while dreaming.
2) You Only Dream of What You Know:
In our dreams, we only see faces that we already know. The human brain can’t invent the image of people you have never seen. About 48% of people you meet in your dream are unknown to you. Those are not created by your brain, they are faces of real people you have seen somewhere in your life. Ever had a dream where you encounter someone from your childhood that you haven’t seen in years? That’s you brain filling in characters of your dreams.
3) Black and White Dreams:
Yes, few people dream black and white, though most people dream in color. A 2008 study at the University of Dundee found that people who only exposed to black and white television in childhood are more likely to see dreams in black and white. It was revealed that 12% of people dream black and white and the number has gone down to 4.4%.
4) Dreams Are Universal:
You’re not the only one in your house that dreams, our pet’s dreams too. Ever wonder why your dog or cat is often seen twitching their paws?
5) Dreams Inspire Creativity:
Many famous books, songs, and inventions were born in dreams. For instance:
*Frankenstein
*Sewing machine
*The Periodic Table of the Elements
*The Theory of Relativity
*The Theory of Chemical Transition of the Nervous Impulse
*The model of DNA
*The Beatles’ “Yesterday”
*The Twilight Series
*Christopher Nolan’s “Inception”
*Most of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry
*Stephen King’s “Dreamcatcher”
*Richard Linklater’s “Waking Life”
*The idea for Google -Larry Page
*Alternating current generator -Tesla
6) We Forget 90 – 99% of Our Dreams:
Some researchers say that we spend about 6 years nearly one-third of our life asleep. But we can’t remember all those dreams. An average person dream is forgotten in just 10 minutes. Many people claim that they don’t dream at all, but that’s not true, you always dream, you just don’t remember it.
7) Premonition dreams:
Many people are dubious about premonitions, but there are many reported cases where people actually dream about their future. Some of the most famous reported premonition dreams are:
* Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash
* Sinking of the Titanic
* Littleton School Shooting
* Hurricane Katrina
* Abraham Lincoln dreamed of His Assassination
* Mark Twain’s dreamed of his brother’s demise
* Many of the victims of 9/11 had dreams warning them about the catastrophe
* Corporal William M’Kinlay Death Vision.
8) Sexual Difference & Sexual Dreams:
Studies indicate that men get up to 20 erections per dream and women dream about sex as often as men do. Later it was found that men’s dream futures more sexual activity while women’s dream futures more sexual fantasies. Women tend to see more nightmares than men. Also, 67% of characters of men’s dream are other men and 48% of characters in women dream are other women.
