How to Interpret your Dreams

"Last night, I had the strangest dream!" How many conversations in your life have started that way? People are fascinated with the movies that play in their head while they're sleeping. Some believe that dreams can predict the future. Others say that dreams depict real life. Still others believe that dreams are a manifestation of what we want to be.

Interpreting dreams has evolved over the years to what some consider an art form. We spend one-third of our lives sleeping. In the average lifetime, six years is spent dreaming. That's more than 2,100 days spent in a different world! Every night, we dream an average of one to two hours dreaming and usually have 4-7 dreams per night.

Consider some of these other facts about dreams and dreaming:

Everybody dreams. EVERYBODY! Simply because you do not remember your dream does not mean that you did not dream.

Dreams are indispensable. A lack of dream activity can mean protein deficiency or a personality disorder.

Men tend to dream more about other men, while women dream equally about men and women.

People who are giving up smoking have longer and more intense dreams.

Toddlers do not dream about themselves. They do not appear in their own dreams until the age of 3 or 4.

If you are snoring, then you cannot be dreaming.

Blind people do dream. Whether visual images will appear in their dream depends on whether they where blind at birth or became blind later in life. But

vision is not the only sense that constitutes a dream. Sounds, tactility, and smell become hypersensitive for the blind and their dreams are based on these senses.

• Though a few people may not remember dreaming, it is thought that everyone dreams between 3 to 6 times per night.
• It is thought that each dream lasts between 5 to 20 minutes.
• Around 95% of dreams are forgotten by the time a person gets out of bed.
• Dreaming can help you learn and develop long-term memories.
• Women dream more about family, children and indoor settings when compared with men.
• Recalling something from last week that has appeared in your dream is called the "dream-lag effect."
• There is a difference in the quality and quantity of dreams experienced in rapid eye movement and non-rapid eye movement sleep.
• 48% of people that feature in a dream are recognized by the person dreaming.
• Blind people dream more with other sensory components compared with sighted people.
• Both sleep and dream quality are affected by alcohol.

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