45 Mind-Boggling Facts About Dreams You dream every night, whether you remember it or not

Sometimes they're happy, sometimes sad, sometimes bizarre, and you get a sexy dream once in a while if you're lucky. They're a normal part of sleep — something we're doing with one-third of our life's Trusted Source.

While experts are still divided on the meaning of our dreams, research has provided us with some very eye-opening dream information.

Here are 45 surprising dream facts, ranging from interesting to nightmares stuff.

How we are dreaming

1. REM is the sweet spot

Our most vivid dreams occur during fast eye movement (REM) sleep, which takes about 90 to 120 minutes apart in short episodes throughout the night.

2. Longer dreams take place in the morning hours.

3. Weekends help you remember

that on weekends or days when you sleep in, you are more likely to remember your dreams because every REM sleep episode is longer than the last.

4. Your muscles are paralyzed

During REM sleep, most of your muscles become paralyzed to prevent you from performing your dreams.

5. Pictures are the most common

We dream mostly in pictures, with most dreams with little sound or movement being mainly visual.

6. Recurring dreams have themes

Children's recurring dreams are mostly about:

confrontations with animals or monsters chasing physical aggressions

7. Approximately 12 percent of people dream in black and white. What we're dreaming about

8. Strange is normal

Many of our dreams are strange because during dreaming the part of the brain responsible for making sense of things shuts down.

9. Our day informs our dreams

Most of our dreams are related to the previous day or two thoughts or events.

10. Faces are familiar

According to Stanford University, you probably only dream about faces you've seen in person or on TV.

11. Low stress means happy dreams

If you experience low stress and feel satisfied in your real life, you are more likely to have pleasant dreams.

12 Sexual dreams.

Morning wood doesn't seem to have anything to do with sexy dreams or stimulation. Tumescence of the nocturnal penile causes men to have three to five erections each night, some of which last 30 minutes.

13. Women may have wet dreams that men are not the only ones with wet dreams.

When having a sexual dream, women can release vaginal secretions from excitement and even orgasm.

14. Sex dreams aren't that common

According to research, approximately 4% of men's and women's dreams are about sex.

15. Sex dreams are usually about one thing most dreams about intercourse related to sex are about.

16. Sleep position matters,

if you sleep in front of you, you are more likely to dream of sex.

17. This may also make you dream of other things Sleeping facedown is not only associated with more sex dreams but also dreams of being locked up by hand tools that are naked, smothered and unable to breathe

18. Men dream of variety

Men dream of sex two times more than women with multiple partners.

19. Women dream of celebrities

In comparison to men, women are twice as likely to have sex dreams of public figures.

20. Sleep sex is real Sleep sex,

also known as sexsomnia, is a sleep disorder similar to sleepwalking, except that a person is engaged in sexual behavior such as masturbation or intercourse while sleeping. Powered by Nightmares Rubicon Project and other frightening

21 Children have more nightmares

Nightmares usually start from 3 to 6 years of age and decrease after 10 years of age.

22. Women are more prone to frightening dreams

During their teen and adult years, women have more nightmares than men.

23. Nightmares occur the most frequently in the last third of the night at a similar time at night.

24. If you have recurrent nightmares that occur frequently enough and are sufficiently distressing to affect your ability to function, you may have a condition called a nightmare disorder.

25. Sleep paralysis is something about 8 per cent Trusted Source of the general population experiences sleep paralysis, which is the inability to move between sleep and wake when you are in a state.

26. For example, if you suffer from post-traumatic symptoms, guilt, or blame for their death, you are more likely to experience negative dreams about a lost loved one.

27. During the holidays, the holidays can be rough Grief dreams, which are dreams of deceased loved ones.

28. Night terrors are episodes of intense fear, screaming, and even running around or acting aggressively asleep.

29. Children have them more often Nearly 40% of children have night terrors, although most of them are outgrown by their teens.

30. Adults can still have them Approximately 3 per cent of adults suffer from night terrors.

31. Eating late is not helpful Eating before bed makes nightmares more likely as it increases your metabolism, indicating that your brain is more active.

32. Some medicines, such as antidepressants and narcotics, increase nightmares frequency.

33. According to research, negative emotions take on a toll Confusion, disgust, sadness, and guilt are the driving force behind nightmares more often than fear.

34 Cool random facts. We all see things in their dreams that blind people see images.

35. Fido dreams, too, everybody dreams, even pets.

36. We have forgotten People forget about 95 to 99% of their dreams.

37. We dream a lot of people over the age of ten each night have at least four to six dreams.

38. Some believe that dreams can predict the future, although there is not enough evidence to prove it.

39. We are more commonly dwelling on negative dreams than positive ones.

40. You may be able to control your dreams by using lucid dreaming techniques to learn how to control your dreams.

41. Sleep speaking is usually not nice, according to a 2017 study, swearing is a common occurrence in sleep speaking.

42. Sudden muscle spasms aren't your imagination Hypnic jerks are powerful, sudden jolts, or the feeling of falling as you sleep.

43. Hypnic jerks can be the cause of falling dreams, which is one of the most common dream themes.

44. Tooth dreams may have a greater meaning Dreams about your teeth falling out may be caused by undiagnosed dental irritation, such as bruxism, rather than a premonition of death as suggested by old folklore.

45. While they've been trying to figure it out since the start of time, researchers don't know why we're dreaming or what purpose it serves, if any.

The psychology of dreams Everyone has wondered what their dreams mean at one time or another. Dreaming is the cognitive state studied most extensively. While some experts believe dreams have no meaning and do not serve any function, others believe our dreams are meaningless.

There are a number of theories about what dreams mean, including some of the theories that are more recognized: psychoanalytic theory. Dreams are believed to represent unconscious desires, the fulfilment of desires, and personal conflicts in this theory. Dreams give us a way to fulfil unconscious desires in an unreal setting's safety because it would be unacceptable to act them out in reality.

Theory of activation-synthesis. Popularized in the 1970s, this theory suggests that dreams are just a byproduct of your brain attempting to process random signals from your limbic system that are involved in your memories, emotions, and feelings. Continuous theory of activation.

This is the idea that our brains, even when we're asleep, are continuously storing memories. It suggests that our dreams give our memories a place to hold while making the transition from our short-term memory to our long-term memory. These are just beginning to scratch the surface of the theories of dream interpretation. Here are some other interesting theories about the meaning of dreams: dreams are simulations of threats that help you prepare when faced with real-life threats.

Dreams are the way your brain collects and clears useless day information to make room for the next day's new information. Dreaming goes back to playing dead to fool enemies with an evolutionary defence mechanism. This explains why, while dreaming, our bodies are paralyzed, but our minds remain highly active. There may be no concrete answers from the bottom line experts as to why we dream and what function dreams serve. What we do know is that all dreams are perfectly normal, even our very strange dreams.