Have you been experiencing strange dreams lately? Well, you’re definitely not alone.
Millions of people from around the world have been home for months now as part of the ongoing efforts to flatten the curve of the coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
To some, this unusual experience and the horrors caused by the pandemic have started to affect their way of life and even their dreams.
The stress, anxiety and mixed emotions that we experience on a day to day basis are being processed by our brain during our sleep. And according to a survey conducted by Deirdre Leigh Barret, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, the incidence of vivid dreams increases as we are currently battling the pandemic.
Other events like the September 11-terror attack also affected the dreams of many American people. Surveys show that dreams become more intense and memorable for a specific duration.
In this article, CDN Digital compiled other interesting facts that we should know about our dreams and what these facts reveal to us.
Dreams are constant while sleeping
This is why there are parts of your dreams that you remember.
If you remember having more than one dream per night, it is actually a sign that you had multiple sleep cycles and you woke up after each one.
REM sleep or rapid eye movement sleep is a part of each sleep cycle. It happens every 90-120 minutes of sleep, and with each of these periods, our REM sleep becomes longer and longer.
It is also possible to have multiple dreams per night, even if you don’t remember any of these.
Your body reacts to dreams
Have you experienced waking up being mad at someone for something they did only to realize that it was just all in a dream?
According to sleep experts, the feelings that we had in our dreams will linger even after we open our eyes.
Our experiences in our dreams register in our body and brain, giving us feelings and emotions like in a real-life scenario.
Dreams can have meaning
According to a study published in the February 2009 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, it’s normal to prepare yourself after having positive or negative dreams.
Stress can affect our dreams. You’re more likely to have pleasant dreams when you are happy and have a less stressful life.
Our dreams are also linked to our thoughts of past or recent events.
Sleeping late can cause nightmares
Frequent nightmares may be a sign that you are not sleeping well and researchers suggest that sleeping habits may be linked to nightmares.
If you’re still sleeping at a time where the stress hormone cortisol peaks in the morning right before we wake up, the cortisol rise could trigger vivid dreams or nightmares.
In some situations, frequent nightmares can also mean you have an underlying medical issue.
Anxiety and depression are two common causes of nightmares, which are also linked to other mood disorders.
READ MORE: Sleep is not for the weak, it’s for your well-being
Other interesting facts about our dreams
- The feeling of falling and trying to catch yourself while sleeping is called a hypnic jerk or a hypnagogic jerk, a common sleep disturbance.
- About 12 percent of people dream in black and white.
- People who are blind can still see images in their dreams.
- You can only dream about faces you’ve already seen in real life or a movie, tv-show or series.
- Dreams are longer in the morning.
- According to research, you forget 50 percent of your dream within five minutes of waking up.
Share your thoughts or experiences and other known facts about dreams in the comment section of this video.
