Hey! What was your dream yesterday?

The human brain is responsible for many complex creations, every night your consious mind shuts down and every morning you wake up, ready for a brand new day.

But while the conscious part of your mind shuts down, your brain remains very much active throughout the night. Part of this brain activity generates what can sometimes be extremely vivid and even haunting images during the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep – what we know as dreams and nightmares.

Humans tend to have around 3 to 7 dreams a night. We dream around 2 to 3 hours in a whole night, the most interesting fact is 90% of the dream is lost the first minute we wake up and Men tend to dream about men more than women, and women dream about people of both genders.

Ever since humans have existed we have wondered why we dream. Some like Sigmund Freud speculated that dreams were manifestations of our unfulfilled and repressed desires, while others believe that dreams are simply a side effect of our brain’s activity in REM sleep.

According to Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett, at least part of the reason we sleep is to process the thoughts and problems that trouble us during our waking hours. Barrett’s theory posits that the illogical aspects of dreams and the vivid visual images we experience during our dreams provide a way to process the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that isn’t possible during our usual reality.

Interesting Dream Facts

• We roughly spend around 1/3 of our lives sleeping
• People who suffer from a personality disorder lack dream activity
• Our brains tend to be way more active when we sleep, than when we’re awake
• It’s impossible to dream when you’re snoring
• Babies don’t dream of themselves until they reach the age of 3
• Nightmares happen more to kids than adults
• Blind people dream. Their dreams are auditory if they were born blind. If they became blind at an early age, they still dream of what they remember
• Men get erections in their REM sleep and women have an increased blood flow to their vaginas
• You can translate over 5000 dream symbols
• The word “Nightmare” was used a long time ago for a female spirit who besets people at night while sleeping
• On average, dogs sleep around 10 to 13 hours a day
• The colder your house is, the worse your dreams are. They say that if your room is at an average temperature, you have better sleeps
• Your body burns more calories sleeping than it does in the day time
• Information that we learn before we go to bed tends to stick with us longer than information any other time
• If you avoid your sleep for more than 10 days, you will die
• The most frequent scenario is the dreamer plus two other people.
• Mundane activities (such as brushing your teeth) rarely appear in dreams.
• Dreams tend not to be happy events, and the three most common reported emotions are anger, sadness and fear.