While the whole reason behind why we dream is still a mystery to researchers, there are several things we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, about dreaming. Let’s take a look!
We want you to think back to a recent dream you remember, if there is one, and think about if you remember reading words or telling the time. The answer to this is more than likely no because most people report that they specifically remember not being able to read words and that every time they looked at a clock the hands were kind of just doing their own thing making it impossible for the person actually having the dream to tell the time.
Have you ever felt that your dreams are so outlandish that something must be wrong? Maybe you’re acting erratically or the details you remember are just nonsense? Well, good news. This is totally normal. The reason being is that the part of your brain that makes sense of things is shut down while you’re asleep.
If you’ve ever had like, a really good idea while you’ve been asleep, you aren’t alone. Google, sewing machines, the DNA double-helix, the periodic table, and so much more came to be simply because someone dreamed them up. Hey, if you can dream it, you can do it, right?
Sometimes our dreams are all about good vibes and sometimes they’re horrifying, and this has a lot to do with stress. Studies show that when we’re experiencing a lot of stress, our dreams reflect that by being a little chaotic, or just plain bad. Contrary to when we’re not experiencing as much stress and our dreams are much more pleasant.
Sleep is fantastic for a number of reasons, one of which has a lot to do with resting our bodies and minds, but our brain is actually more active while we sleep than when we’re awake.
If you’ve ever described the people in your dreams as “I don’t know them in real life, but I knew them in my dream”, that’s actually not too far off because Standford University tells us we only see the faces of people in dreams that we’ve actually seen in real life. So the idea of these faces being familiar to us is pretty accurate.
Here is a haunting little tidbit about our nightmares: they occur roughly around the same time each night, most frequently in the last third of the night.
Have you ever had a dream and then that dream kinda came true? Like in a premonition kind of way? You aren’t alone. Abraham Lincoln actually had a dream about being assassinated. While we might be able to tell the future by way of our dreams, there isn’t quite enough evidence to support that just yet.