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Fun facts about sleep and dreaming
Some experts believe dreams occur without reason or purpose; others believe dreams happen for a variety of reasons. From lucid dreams to nightmares, we look at the physical and psychological effects of our nighttime meanderings
When we sleep, our body undergoes a series of physical changes. Our heart rate slightly increases, we begin to breathe faster and our brainwaves adjust to different states of consciousness. While the small muscles around our mouth, fingers and eyes can twitch, our large muscles don't move freely as they normally would. Because of this, we do not act out our dreams.
A dream is an experience that happens during sleep and involves images, sounds, thoughts and other types of sensation. These events typically seem unrealistic and are beyond the control of the dreamer. Sometimes though, people are conscious of their dreams and can alter different aspects of their dreams. Read more about this in lucid dreaming.
We also experience emotional changes during sleep. For example, we may experience a level of sexual arousal so our dreams may have some type of sexual element to them. Additionally, the images, sounds and smells that we have may reflect our emotional state at the time of the dream.
The colour of dreams
Colour can appear in dreams in different ways. There can be a single image in colour (a woman in a red hat for instance), coloured shapes and areas such as yellow or blue squares, or an entire scene that's in natural colour (green grass, blue sky, yellow sun, brown and green trees etc).
Dream researchers (yes, they exist!) have found that although most dreams are in colour, people usually don't see them in colour unless it has to do with something specifically vivid. Studies have shown that when people dream in colour, it is often forgotten.
Most people dream during the state of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. REM sleep is the last step in the four stages of sleep and it is when your eyes begin to move around quickly under your eyelids. It's completely normal for this to occur.
While some experts believe dreams occur without reason or purpose; others believe dreams happen for a variety of reasons. Some say dreams happen because our brains 'twitch' during the night. This is because of the incredible amounts of information we store everyday. Others believe dreams serve as a way for our mind to understand daily events or solve specific problems in our lives.
Sigmund Freud was one of the first people to actually study dreams. He was an active dreamer and believed that dreams were meaningful. After analysing his own dreams, Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1898.
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