- Dreaming Fast Facts
- 5%-10% of adults have nightmares at least once a
month
- Sometimes people who become blind after birth can
see in their dreams
- Only about 0.01% of dreams include a celebrity
- Babies and animals dream
- 83% of boys dreams include aggressive behavior
- 50% of girls dreams include aggressive behavior
- 55% of men's dreams include aggressive behavior
- 34% of woman's dreams include aggressive behavior
- Women are more likely to have dreams that take place
at home or at work
- Men are more likely to have dreams that take place
outdoors
- Everyone dreams
- It is possible to train yourself to remember your
dreams
- Women have more nightmares than men
Does everyone Dream?
Everyone dreams.
However, not everyone remembers their dreams. We typically
begin dreaming about an hour after falling asleep; and we
continue to dream about every 90 minutes throughout the
night. If we wake up in the night the cycle starts all over
again.
There are many ways to develop the ability to remember your
dreams. One way is to meditate about your desire to remember
your dreams just before going to bed. Tell yourself that
you will remember a dream tonight. Do this every night for
a week. Once you begin to have "flashes" or in
other ways begin to remember dreaming, write down what you
remember, what you feel and what the dream reminds you of.
If you awake in the night, quickly jot down a few key words
about what you remember on a notebook kept beside your bed.
This will help you to jog your memory when you wake in the
morning. Whenever possible write down everything you remember
about all your dreams. Keeping a dream journal can be very
enlightening for those who want to use their dreams to help
them in their waking like. Going over your dreams for the
last week or two can help you realize themes that may be
mirrored in your life - things that may need your attention,
or new understandings that you need to become aware of.
When we dream our body is most often in a state of semi-paralization.
This keeps us from acting out our dreams. There are some
types of sleep disorders in which the dreamer acts out all
or part of their dream either by swinging their arms, kicking
or even sleep walking. These conditions are fairly rare.
While we dream our eyelids flutter as our eyes move rapidly
back and fourth. This is referred to as REM or Rapid Eye
Movement sleep.
What does it mean?
Q. I keep having the same dream or have dreams with
the same theme over and over again...
A. Repeated dreams are your unconscious mind's way
of trying to get you to pay attention to something in your
life that needs attention. It may be something you have
been dealing with in an ineffectual way or something that
you need to change in your life. Frightening dreams that
keep occurring may be related to something in your past
that is still eating away at you; so your mind is trying
to tell you that it is time to fully work through
those old issues.
Q. I sometimes have dreams that are so disturbing
that I'm afraid to go back to sleep...
A. The more frightening or hostile the dream is,
the more intense your feelings are about what the dream
represents in your waking life. Your nightmare is trying
to alert you that something is wrong and that the issue
needs immediate attention.
Q. I sometimes have dreams that are so awesome that
I wish I didn't have to wake up...
A. Wonderful dreams can come to you when you are
feeling good about what you are doing, either with your
life in general or with something specific. Pleasant dreams
can be full of symbolic suggestions, telling you how you
can better live your live.
