10 Facts About Dreams

By Kendra Cherry

1. Everybody Dreams

Men do it. Women do it. Even babies do it. We all dream, even those of us who claim not to. In fact, researchers have found that people usually have several dreams each night, each one lasting for between 5 to 20 minutes. During a typical lifetime, people spend an average of six yearsdreaming!

2. But You Forget Most of Your Dreams

According to estimates by dream researcher J. Allan Hobson, as much as 95 percent of all dreams are quickly forgotten shortly after waking. Why are our dreams so difficult to remember? According to one theory, the changes in the brain that occur during sleep do not support the information processing and storage needed for memory formation to take place. Brain scans of sleeping individuals have shown that the frontal lobes, the area that plays a key role in memory formation, are inactive during REM sleep, the stage in which dreaming occurs.

3. Not All Dreams Are In Color

While approximately 80 percent of all dreams are in color, there are a small percentage of people who claim to only dream in black and white. In studies where dreamers have been awakened and asked to select colors from a chart that match those in their dreams, soft pastel colors are those most frequently chosen.

4. Men and Women Dream Differently

Researchers have found a number of differences between men and women when it comes to the content of their dreams. In one study, men reported more instances of dreaming about aggression than women did. According to dream researcher William Domhoff, women tend to have slightly longer dreams that feature more characters. When it comes to the characters that typically appear in dreams, men dream about other men twice as often as they do about women, while women tend to dream about both sexes equally.

5. Animals Probably Dream

Have you ever watched a sleeping dog wag its tail or move its legs while asleep? While it's hard to say for sure whether the animal is truly dreaming, researchers believe that it is likely that animals do indeed dream. Just like humans, animals go through sleep stages that include cycles of REM and NREM sleep. In one study, a gorilla was taught sign language as a means of communication. At one point, the gorilla signed "sleep pictures," possibly indicating the experience of dreaming.

6. You Can Control Your Dreams

Photo by Emil Bacik

A lucid dream is one in which you are aware that you are dreaming even though you are still asleep. During this type of dream, you can often "direct" or control the content of the dream. Approximately half of all people can remember experiencing at least one instance of lucid dreaming, and some individuals are able to have lucid dreams quite frequently.

7. Negative Emotions Are More Common in Dreams

Over a period of more than forty years, researcher Calvin S. Hall collected more than 50,000 dream accounts from college students. These reports were made available to the public during the 1990s by Hall's student William Domhoff. The dream accounts revealed that many emotions are experienced during dreams including joy, happiness and fear. The most common emotion experienced in dreams was anxiety, and negative emotions in general were much more common than positive ones

8. Blind People Dream

While people who lost their eyesight prior to age five usually do not have visual dreams in adulthood, they still dream. Despite the lack of visuals, the dreams of the blind are just as complex and vivid as those of the sighted. Instead of visual sensations, blind individuals' dreams typically include information from the other senses such as sound, touch, taste, hearing and smell.

9. You Are Paralyzed During Your Dreams

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REM sleep, the stage of sleep during which dreaming occurs, is characterized by paralysis of the voluntary muscles. Why? The phenomenon is known as REM atonia and prevents you from acting out your dreams while you're asleep. Basically, because motor neurons are not stimulated, your body does not move.

In some cases, this paralysis can even carry over into the waking state for as long as ten minutes, a condition known as sleep paralysis. Have you ever woken up from a terrifying dream only to find yourself unable to move? While the experience can be frightening, experts advise that it is perfectly normal and should last only a few minutes before normal muscle control returns.

10. Many Dreams Are Universal

Photo by Abdulaziz Almansour

While dreams are often heavily influenced by our personal experiences, researchers have found that certain themes are very common across different cultures. For example, people from all over the world frequently dream about being chased, being attacked or falling. Other common dream experiences include school events, feeling frozen and unable to move, arriving late, flying and being naked in public.

http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/tp/facts-about-dreams.htm

Psychological Facts About Love

Falling in love is a wonderful experience, but there are so many strange psychological facts about love too. Do you know why you blush or kiss in love? Or why heartbreaks hurt so much?

Love fact #1 Love makes us crazy

For one thing, love causes serotonin levels in the brain to drop, which may lead people to obsess about their lover.

The levels of serotonin, a chemical produced by the body, are also low in people who have obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Next, it ramps up production of the stress hormone cortisol, leading to slightly higher blood pressure and possible loss of sleep.

Scientists at the University of London have found that when people look at their new lover, the neural circuits that are usually in charge of social judgment are suppressed.

All in all, love kind of leaves you obsessive, stressed, and blind!

Love fact #2 Broken hearts always hurt

A new study suggests the psychological hurt of a break up is just as real as a physical injury.

Two areas of the brain that respond to physical pain also become activated when a person is dealing with social or romantic pain, such as being dumped.

The study’s authors at UCLA used an MRI to monitor brain activity in participants while they played a game simulating social rejection.

The researchers believe that the pain of being rejected may have evolved as a motivating force that led humans to seek out social interaction, which is crucial for the survival of most mammals.

Love fact #3 Kiss the right way

Did you know there is a “right” way to kiss? People are more likely to tilt their heads to the right when kissing instead of left, says a report published in the journal, Nature. A scientist from Ruhr University in Germany analyzed 124 pairs of smoochers and found that 65 percent tilt their head toward the right.

Love fact #4 Blushing is best

If we take our cue from apes, rosy cheeks are crucial in the dating game, says a new study. Scientists at Stirling University in Great Britain have found that primates prefer mates with red faces.

A rosy glow might also act as a similar cue in humans, say the British researchers, sending a message of good health. They speculate that it could explain why women use blushers.

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