At the end of a long, tiring day, when you finally hit the sack and put the chaotic routine behind, at least for a few hours, you need to deal with something else- the dream world. While positive dreams can leave you excited and kicked about the day to come, nightmares can add to your woes and make you ponder about the possibilities of them coming true. While many claim that dreams often reflect the state of mind of a person, there are also many theories surrounding dreams which are quite intriguing. Many astrologers have even made famous predictions based on the visions which haunted them in a mode of deep sleep. Dreams have also been the subject of various creative endeavors, such as Hollywood movies like ‘Inception’. That aside, here are 20 amazing facts about dreams which you probably didn’t know. A few of these are sure to leave you surprised.
1. Faces We Already Know
Unlike movies and fictitious tales where characters tend to see faces they haven’t seen before in their lives, the truth is poles apart. We tend to see the faces which we come across in our daily lives, such as family members, friends, maids or a chauffeur. Tendency to see a distant friend whom you haven’t met in ages, in your dreams is also quite a possibility.
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2. Sleep Paralysis
This is a common problem which many of us might have encountered numerous times over the years. When you go into a deep sleep mode, your body also enters a state of paralysis and you find it difficult to break free. In case of a nightmare, where perhaps a lion is waiting to pounce on you, your body might try hard to escape or run away from the scene physically, but you feel like you are chained. You also might feel that you are out of breath many a times.
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3. Drugs For Dreaming
Some people are to obsessed with dreams and prefer escaping reality very frequently. Many such people resort to consuming drugs such as Dimethyltryptamine, which is also said to be harmful to health and has been banned by many nations and health organizations. Interestingly, an Indian movie named ‘Lucia’ speaks about one such drug which helps people enter into a world of dreams.
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4. Dreams Have No Color Specifications
Yes, you’ve heard that right, it is not necessary that all your dreams have to be color-filled. Dreams can also be black and white like the movies of the bygone era. It varies from one person to another and various other factors such as his/her state of mind.
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5. Can’t Read Or Check Time
Many people who have got a control over their dreams claim that they have never seen themselves read books or checking the clock while in a dream. Just like how the spinning top in the movie ‘Inception’ helps you differentiate dream from reality, trying to read a book helps you too.
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6. Lucid Dreaming
A few geniuses have mastered the art of controlling their dreams and turn wizards in this magical world. They would do things what only a sorcerer can usually do, like flying miles high in the air, like a bird, or even grab the stars.
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7. Men’s Dreams & Women’s Dreams
Apart from their gender, tastes and their mannerisms, men and women are also different in terms of their dreams in many ways. While a staggering 70% of men spot their male friends and family members in their dreams, women tend to see an equal number of women as well as men from their social circles in their dreams.
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Dreams 7a: Photo Credit
8. Blind People and Animal Dreams
Just because they have lost their vision, doesn’t rule out the chances of blind people experiencing dreams. Every human being does, the difference being blind people hear voices and their dreams are usually auditory. Even your pets dream, have you ever realized that? Remember when your canine moved his paw vigorously while sleeping? Perhaps, he was trying to interact with someone in his dream, just like how you go through a dreaming process.
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9. Dreams Reveal Your State of Mind
If you are constantly having troubles at your workplace, with a colleague, the possibilities of him or her showing up in your dreams is also pretty high or if you attracted to a certain person, they too might pop into your dream.
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10. Premonitions
Premonition dreams are more like predictions of the mind regarding the future. It is believed that Abraham Lincoln apparently foresaw his assassination much before the day the tragedy took place. Shockingly, a few victims of the 9/11 ‘World Trade Center’ attacks of 2001 also experienced the disaster in their dreams, way before falling prey to it.
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11. Several Dreams Per Night
According to researchers, an average human can have several dreams during a single sleep cycle. Many claim that a dream can occur once in every 90 minutes, if a person has hit the sack to sleep for several hours. It is also believed that the first dream can be as short as five minutes, while the last dream, just before the time your body gets ready to wake up, can even be as lengthy as forty five minutes. It is said that on an average, a person can experience more than 1400 and up to 2200 dreams per year.
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12. Dreams & Metabolism
Your body’s rate of metabolism is not affected when you exercise or involve yourself in a physical activity alone. Even when you are in a deep sleep mode and have been dreaming, you shed a lot of calories. It depends on what sort of a dream you have been experiencing.
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13. The Most Common Dream In The World
Wondering which is that one dream which has haunted millions of people across the world? Well, its infidelity, a form of insecurity which has been plaguing the minds of couples across the world for many years now.
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14. Revisiting The Dream
If you have alarmingly woken up from a sweet dream and want to revisit the magical world, you need to lie down in the same position immediately and go back to sleep. The position in which you wake up becomes really important because that’s exactly the position in which you’ve been dreaming in.
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15. Dream Catcher
The premitive Americans introduced to the world certain objects which could influence dreams and could reduce the possibility of experiencing nightmares. One such object is a dream catcher, which is a web, traditionally placed near infants so that they could experience only good dreams.
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16. External Influence On Dreams
If some factor is disturbing your body when you are in a deep sleep mode, the physical disturbance even influences the dreams in certain ways. While dreaming, if your mom shakes you vigorously in a bid to wake you up for school, don’t be surprised if you experience an earthquake in the dream world. One can even hear external voices like that of people yelling in the living room, in a dream, often leaving one puzzled.
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17. Dreams That Led To Awesomeness
Great leaders and creative souls often incorporate the visuals they see in their dreams to their work, giving rise to something phenomenal. The idea of Google struck Larry Page after dreaming about it, the sewing machine and the alternate current generator are also inventions which arose due to dreams. Even scientist James Watson proposed the famous double helical DNA structure based on an image he had witnessed in a dream.
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18. You Dream All The Time
Yes, people who claim that they don’t dream at all are ignorant of the fact that visuals strike their minds during sleep, just like anybody else, but they just don’t remember it.
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19. Nature Of The Room
It is a worldwide belief that the nature of the room influences the kind of dreams we have. Sleeping in rooms which are quite cold apparently increases the probability of a person experiencing nightmares, an experience claimed by millions of people.
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20. People Who Quit Smoking
Dreams also vary greatly depending on the lifestyle of the respective individuals. Chain smokers experience a certain pattern of dreams, but once they kick the habit, the kind of dreams they see also change drastically.
We are sure many of these amazing facts about dreams must have startled you but we are equally sure these interesting quotes on dreams would also expand your horizon about dreams!
