5 Things You Should Know About Your Dreams

While dreams are still a mystery to many, including philosophers, psychologists, and even scientists, several reasons and theories have come up explaining why people dream. Most of the time dreams can occur when a person is sleeping, but in a few cases, there are people that dream while they are awake.

Dreams can either be mysterious, scary or even eye-opening causing different reactions such as sadness, happiness, and fear. All these can cause confusion after one wakes up. The brain is one of the major body parts playing a big role in dreams, especially during sleeping time.

Although not much is understood about dreams and sleep, here are a few things that you need to know about your dreams.

Dreams last the entire night

As one sleeps, a state commonly known as rapid eye movement cycle (REM) occurs causing muscles to paralyze. During REM, the eyes and brains are normally active, the eyes moving fast in different directions. This state during your sleep occurs 90 minutes after you fall asleep. REM cycles last about 10 minutes, occurring repetitively, each stage taking longer than the previous and can last for about an hour. Dreams last the entire night, although most of those during REM are intense due to active brain activity.

It’s normal to dream about relationships

It is common to dream about spouses, friends or relatives where the persons involved appear in the dream. The same also happens to people in newer relationships who are still unsure about the relationship or are overly excited.

You might ask yourself, “What does it mean when you dream about your ex?” It is not strange to dream about your ex at some point while sleeping, mostly after you have just entered a new relationship or recently had a breakup. It can mean a number of things depending on the events that take place in the dream, the place and time.

The brain never sleeps while you sleep

While you are sleeping, the brain is usually active collecting all the day’s events and information, processing it and sifting through it. Trying to justify all that happened while you were awake; the brain works tirelessly for the entire night.

You always dream but don’t always remember

There is no point when someone sleeps that they never dream. Although dreams do occur, sometimes people forget what they dreamed about. 90% of dreams are forgotten and if you want to keep track of what you were dreaming of, there are some things that you can do.

Place a notebook beside your bed for taking notes immediately after you wake up from a dream. Certain foods, mostly high-protein foods have been said to keep the brain more active. This results in a stronger memory with clearer dreams while we sleep.

Your body’s reaction to dreams is similar to when you are awake

The body reacts the same way to events that occur in your sleep as it would in reality. This is why sometimes you might wake up breathing heavily, especially after an intense dream.

It might not be fully understood why we dream, but it is clear that a part of us is active through the images, sounds, and feelings we experience during our sleep.