Dreams
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
Did you know? Sleep disorders affect up
to 70 million people in the United States.
This costs about $100 billion each year in
accidents, medical bills and lost work.
(Statistic from Brain Facts, Society for
Neuroscience, 2002)

Sleepwalking is also known as
"somnambulism"; sleep talking is also
known as Somniloquy.
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Highlights from the National Sleep Foundation's 2001 Sleep in
America telephone survey of 1,004 adults:

63% of the surveyed adults get less than the
recommended eight hours of sleep per night; 31% get less
than seven hours.

40% of surveyed adults in the US report having trouble
staying awake during the day.

Over the last five years, people in the US have worked
more and slept less.

Eight out of ten people said that they would sleep more if
they knew it would improve their health and memory.
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Take Our Quiz!
1. On average, how many years of people's lives do they spend
dreaming?
A. 1 year
B. 2 years
C. 4 years
D. 6 years
2.
2. Dreams only occur during REM sleep.
A. True
B. False
3. What part of the brain is switched off while a person is
dreaming?
A. Visual processing areas
B. Limbic system (emotions and memories)
C. Smell processing areas
D.Frontal lobe (rational thought and encoding memories)
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4. In the recent Leonardo DiCaprio film, Inception, his
character was aware of when he was dreaming and was
able to actively participate in his dreams. This is called:
A. Awake dreaming
B. Lucid dreaming
C. Tripping
D. Altered states
5. When people are snoring, they aren't dreaming.
A. True
B. False
6. If you hold your breath in a dream, you hold your
breath in real life, too.
A. True
B. False
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7. Those who dream in black and white instead of color
are often:
A. Blind
B. Over 55 years of age
C. Babies
D. Male
.
8. Who are particularly good lucid dreamers?
A. Filmmakers
B. Gamers
C. Teachers
D. Children
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9. Nightmares are:
A. More common in women than in men
B. More common in children than in adults
C. Most often about being pursued or attacked
D. All of the above
10. The best way to remember your dreams is:
A. When you go to bed, tell yourself you will
remember your dreams
B. Set your alarm to go off every 90 minutes so
you'll wake up at the end of REM sleep cycles
C. Keep a dream journal next to your bed
D. All of the above
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Take Our Quiz!
Correct Answers
1. On average, how many years of people's lives do they
spend dreaming?
A. 1 year
B. 2 years
C. 4 years
D. 6 years
Source: Discovery Health: Dreams and REM Sleep
2. Dreams only occur during REM sleep.
A. True
B. False
Source: Frequently Asked Questions about Dreaming;
University of California - Santa Cruz
3. What part of the brain is switched off while a person
is dreaming?
A. Visual processing areas
B. Limbic system (emotions and memories)
C. Smell processing areas
D.Frontal lobe (rational thought and encoding memories)
Source: Research gathered
by Amy Hardie
in the making of
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The Edge of Dreaming
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4. In the recent Leonardo DiCaprio film, Inception, his
character was aware of when he was dreaming and was able to
actively participate in his dreams. This is called:
A. Awake dreaming
B. Lucid dreaming
C. Tripping
D. Altered states
Source: "Inception is a clunker, but lucid dreaming is cool“
by John Horgan, Scientific American blog, Aug. 2, 2010.
5. When people are snoring, they aren't dreaming.
A. True
B. False
Source: Discovery Health: Dreams and REM Sleep
6. If you hold your breath in a dream, you hold your breath in
real life, too.
A. True
B. False
Source: Discovery Health: Dreams and REM Sleep
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7. Those who dream in black and white instead of color are often:
A. Blind
B. Over 55 years of age
C. Babies
D. Male
Source: "Black and white TV generation have monochrome dreams"
by Richard Alleyne, The London Telegraph, Oct. 17, 2008.
8. Who are particularly good lucid dreamers?
A. Filmmakers
B. Gamers
C. Teachers
D. Children
Source: "Videogames train you for lucid dreaming?" BoingBoing, May
28, 2010.
9. Nightmares are:
A. More common in women than in men
B. More common in children than in adults
C. Most often about being pursued or attacked
D. All of the above
Source: "How to turnFree
nightmares
intoTemplates
good dreams" by MargaretPage 12
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Talbot, The New Yorker, Nov. 16, 2009.
10. The best way to remember your dreams is:
A. When you go to bed, tell yourself you will
remember your dreams
B. Set your alarm to go off every 90 minutes so
you'll wake up at the end of REM sleep cycles
C. Keep a dream journal next to your bed
D. All of the above
Source: Discovery Health: Dreams and REM Sleep
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Are there people who never
dream?
Only in special, rare cases.
Dreams are most likely during a phase of sleep called
REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Even people who say
they never remember dreams, usually do remember
dreams when lab technicians wake them up during REM
sleep. The main exception seems to be people with rare
kinds of brain damage.
How many minutes does it
15 - 20
take for the average, normal
person to fall asleep?
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Of course, this varies from person to person and from time to
time. If you consistently fall asleep much faster (say, within 5
minutes, every single night), this could be a sign that you are
overly sleepy. If you consistently take more than 30 minutes to fall
asleep, you may have insomnia.
How many hours of sleep should
young people (ages 11 – 17) get
each night?
9-10
Research shows that young people your age don’t perform their
best, and don’t awaken easily without an alarm clock, unless they
get close to ten hours of sleep! Do you get enough sleep?
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How many nightmares does
the average young adult have
in one year?
12
Some people have many nightmares. Others have none.
(Psychological tests show that nightmare sufferers may be more
open, sensitive, and trusting than other people.) The frequency
of nightmares changes with age. Children aged 3-8 are
particularly susceptible to nightmares. The once-a-month figure
(above) comes from research on college students. Most
nightmares are due to stress, illness, trauma, or physical
discomfort.
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How many dreams does the
average person have in one
night?
3-5
This is really a guess. But each night, we typically have 3
– 5 periods of REM sleep. And when scientists wake
people up from REM sleep in sleep labs, most of them
(80%) report that they were dreaming. The number could
actually be much higher, since it is possible to report
dreams from other sleep stages, too. But researchers
say that it is probably impossible to remember all (or
even most!) of your dreams, because your memory just
doesn’t work the same way when you are asleep.
Do blind people dream?
Yes.
The dreams of people blind from birth feature sounds,
touches, emotions, etc. – just like their waking
experience. (People who went blind after age 7 usually
see some visual images in their dreams.)
Which animals dream?
All mammals (except the
spiny anteater).
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If you have a pet, you have probably seen the animal twitch
in its sleep. All mammals experience REM sleep, and
research suggests that during REM, they experience the
same hallucinations that we humans call dreams. But
different species go through the cycles of sleep at different
rates. For instance, cats’ REM periods are only 24 minutes
apart. Opossums’ REM periods are about 90 minutes apart,
the same as ours.
Sleepwalking occurs in which "Slow Wave" sleep / Delta
type of sleep?
sleep
Most sleepwalking happens during the deepest kind of
sleep, Slow Wave Sleep (SWS). Contrary to popular opinion,
it is not harmful to wake up a sleepwalker. However, it may
be hard to do. (People are usually very hard to wake up from
SWS.) Kids often outgrow sleepwalking, although the
problem can linger into adulthood.
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Do people dream
in color? Templates
Yes
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People who pay more attention to color in waking life
(artists, etc.) are more likely to notice the colors in their
dreams. But even people who don’t normally notice color
in their dreams are often able to recall specific dream
colors under certain circumstances (awakened during
REM in a sleep lab, and asked specific color questions
by the technician.)
Is it true that if you die in
your dream, you’ll die in
real life?
No
It is a common superstition, but a false one. Many people
do wake up from dreams or nightmares just before the
unavoidable death of their dream-self. Even in our
dreams, we have a strong survival instinct; many
peoples’ dreaming minds simply will not allow the dream
to continue if death seems certain. But some people do
dream of their own death and live to tell about it.
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What percentage of
American adults say that
they have had a psychic
dream?
66
Reports of psychic dreams are amazingly common.
Scientists often attribute the reports to chance or
coincidence. But those who have experienced these
dreams staunchly believe in psychic phenomenon.
What do you think?
How many major
religions have teachings
that include
Divine/spiritual dreams?
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All.
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The Bible mentions quite a few important dreams, as do the
sacred texts of all major world religions. Most religions teach
that:
Dreams can be a way of communicating with a Higher Power.
Not all dreams should be regarded as messages from God.
What does your religion teach about dreams?
What do the following have in
common? Pregnancy,
psychological trauma, natural
awakening (without an alarm
clock)
Increase dream recall
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What do the following have in
Effects of sleep deprivation
common?
Loss of creative thinking,
irritability, slower reaction times,
difficulty learning new skills
It really is a bad practice to pull "all nighters" before important
exams. It affects the way your brain works, and also may affect its
ability to store knowledge in an orderly way for long-term retrieval.
Your creative thinking and your good mood are usually the first
things to suffer!
What do the following have in
Symptoms of sleep paralysis
common?
(also called an "Old Hag"
Feel awake but unable to move, experience)
may sense an "evil presence" in
the room, may struggle to
breathe
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The Bible mentions quite a few important dreams, as do
the sacred texts of all major world religions. Most
religions teach that:
Dreams can be a way of communicating with a Higher
Power. Not all dreams should be regarded as messages
from God.
What does your religion teach about dreams?
What do the following have
in common? Pregnancy,
psychological trauma,
natural awakening (without
an alarm clock)
Increase dream recall
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People who have been through traumatic experiences such as rape,
wartime combat, or natural disasters, usually notice that their dream
recall increases sharply. The hormonal changes (and/or lighter sleep)
of pregnancy also seem to boost dream recall. Some medications can
cause a sudden surge of dreams. You are much more likely to
remember dreams if you wake up naturally and have an unhurried
morning.
What do the following have in
common?
Worsen sleep
Bright lighting, warm temperature,
cold feet, caffeine, stress
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Even with your eyes closed, some light gets through
your eyelids and sends a subtle "wake-up" signal to your
brain. When the room is hot, it may cause nightmares.
Studies show it takes longer to fall asleep when your feet
are cold. Some people feel that caffeine does not affect
them much, since they can still fall asleep. But research
shows that the quality of caffeinated sleep probably isn’t
as good; there are more arousals and restless
movements. Caffeine can stay in your system and affect
your sleep for 6 hours.
What do the following have
in common?
Improve sleep
Waking up at the same
time every day, milk &
turkey near bedtime,
regular "white" noise
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People who maintain very regular schedules of bedtime and
awakening times tend to sleep better. Milk and turkey
contain an amino acid called tryptophan, which may improve
sleep. Some light sleepers benefit by listening to a very
constant noise (such as an electric fan), which may help
cover up irregular background noises that might otherwise
wake them up.
What do the following have in
common?
Alcohol, marijuana,
Decrease dream frequency
depression
All of these affect REM sleep, and suppress dreams. Oddly
enough, some people may actually feel they dream more
after having alcohol, for example. Why? Because when our
bodies are deprived of REM sleep, they eventually go into
"REM rebound", an intense REM state that tries to "make up
for lost time" in that sleep stage. The resulting dream may be
more memorable (and/or more disturbing!), but in reality, the
body is still not getting enough REM sleep time.
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People have been describing this phenomenon since ancient
times. Scientists have a theory about why it may happen.
Ordinarily, during dreaming sleep, our brain sends a chemical
message that paralyzes our body (which protects us from
acting out our dreams and getting into a lot of trouble!) But
sometimes, for unknown reasons, something goes wrong and
this protective paralysis doesn’t go away when we first wake
up. It’s as if it takes our brain a minute to realize that dreaming
sleep has ended. The hallucinations of dreams may continue,
too, resulting in visions of evil creatures. Why are the visions
almost always scary? Because it is very scary to feel helpless
and paralyzed, which may trigger us to imagine scenes of
malevolent spirits.
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What do the following have in
common?
Characteristics of lucid dreams
Asleep, dreaming, aware that the
dream images are dreams, may
include ability to control the dream
During ordinary dreams, we are not aware that the experience is actually a
dream. No matter how strange or bizarre the dream becomes, we usually
believe it to be real and act accordingly – that is, until we wake up and
realize our error! In lucid dreams, the dreamer suddenly thinks, "Hey – right
now I am dreaming all of this!" Sometimes, this awareness dawns during a
nightmare. We try to make ourselves wake up to end it. Some people
(including sects of Tibetan monks) try to cultivate this mental state.
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What do the following have in
common?
Loud and irregular snoring,
daytime drowsiness, intermittent
pauses in breathing during sleep
Symptoms of sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is a potentially life-threatening breathing disorder
that occurs during sleep. It is about as common as adult
asthma. It is usually treated with a special breathing mask that
is worn during sleep.
What do the following have in
common?
Jerking in sleep, discomfort in
limbs at sleep onset, daytime
drowsiness, difficulty falling
asleep
Symptoms of movementrelated sleep disorders
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Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) and Periodic Limb Movement
in Sleep (PLMS) are movement-related sleep disorders.
Sufferers kick and jerk a lot at night, often rhythmically, and
may experience great discomfort or "restlessness" of the
limbs (especially legs) at night.
What do the following have in
common?
Muscle weakness (especially
with emotion), severe
daytime drowsiness,
hallucinations on the borders
of sleep, sleep paralysis
Symptoms of narcolepsy
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Narcolepsy is a relatively rare sleep disorder, but it often
has a profound effect. People with severe narcolepsy may
fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, or may drop to the
ground during laughter or tears. The onset of symptoms
usually occurs during adolescence or early adulthood.
What do the following have
Symptoms of REM sleep
in common?
behavior disorder (RSBD)
Acting out violent dreams,
thrashing or moving about in
the bed primarily toward the
early morning hours.
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Although it may be mistaken for sleepwalking, RSBD is
actually very different. It is a disorder of REM sleep in which
the normal muscle paralysis of REM does not function
properly. Unfortunately, aggressive or violent dreams seem to
be a part of this syndrome, so it may lead to serious injury for
the sleeper or his/her bed partner. It occurs more often
(although not exclusively) in elderly men who have other
neurological problems.
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