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Subscribe Issue Archive Back Today News * + The Latest Breakup Trend and What It Says About Your Ex + 4 Ways Personality Shapes How Couples Deal with Conflict + Why You Underestimate How Much Other People Like You + Get Off Twitter and... Clean the Bathroom? * Essential Reads + My Top 10 Psychology Books of 2018 + Is Solitude Something You Enjoy or a Way of Avoiding Others? + Funding Abstinence: The War on Sex Ed + Is Marrying Your First and Only Lover a Bad Idea? * Trending Topics + Narcissism + Alzheimer's + Bias + Affective Forecasting + Neuroscience + Behavioral Economics + See All Shutterstock Dreaming Nightmares, REM Why We Dream Dreams are the stories the brain tells during sleep--they're a collection of clips, images, feelings, and memories that involuntarily occur during the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of slumber. Humans typically have multiple dreams per night that grow longer as sleep draws to a close. It's hypothesized that everyone dreams, but a small subsection of the population reports that they never remember experiencing dreams. Dreams typically involve elements from waking lives--like known people or familiar locations--but they often take on a fantastical feel. While dreams are frequently interesting, and can allow people to act out certain scenarios that would never be possible in real life, they aren't always positive--negative dreams, referred to as "nightmares," can create feelings of terror, anxiety, or utter despair, and can lead to psychological distress or sleep problems like insomnia. The big question, however, is why humans dream. Though it's been discussed and studied for millennia, it remains one of behavioral science's greatest unanswered questions. Researchers have offered many theories--including memory consolidation or emotional regulation--but a unified one remains, well, a pipe dream. Nevertheless, people continue mining their nighttime reveries for clues to their inner lives, for creative insight, and even for premonitions. yngsa/Shutterstock * 7 Reasons You Should be Interpreting Your Dreams * Do Dreams Really Mean Anything? * How Your Dreams Really Work Dreams What do dreams mean? Humans have puzzled over this question for centuries. The ancient Egyptians believed that dreams were communications from the gods, or prophecies of what was to come. Dream interpretation as a field of psychological study took off in 1899, when Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, laying the foundation for many of his theories of the unconscious mind. Today, many experts disagree with Freud's conclusions--and some don't think that dreams signify anything at all--but most people still wake up after a particularly vivid dream and wonder what it could have been trying to tell them. CONNECTED TOPICS Creativity, Fantasies, Sleep, Unconscious lassedesignen/Shutterstock * When Children Have Nightmares * Nightmares After Trauma * Five Steps to Conquering Nightmares Nightmares Terrifying dreams that rouse someone from sleep--more commonly known as nightmares--more frequently plague children. But adults aren't spared; at least half have occasional nightmares, with less than 10 percent reporting frequent or recurring episodes. Nightmares are often confused with night terrors, but they're not the same: Night terrors are a type of disorder that causes sleeping people to scream, bolt out of bed, or demonstrate symptoms similar to a panic attack. Unlike nightmares, which can leave unpleasant memories or leftover feelings of anxiety, night terrors are usually not remembered the next day, even though its sufferers may appear to be awake during the experience. CONNECTED TOPICS Sleep, Unconscious, Fear Recent Posts Your Guide to Weekend Sleeping By Michael J Breus Ph.D. on December 06, 2018 in Sleep Newzzz Want to know how long you can safely sleep on the weekends without suffering any health consequences? Read on to learn more! How Dreams of Deceased Pets Affect the Dreamers By Preston Ni M.S.B.A. on December 02, 2018 in Communication Success Visitation dreams from deceased pets are unique, powerful, often healing, and sometimes life-changing. How Your Stomach Could Be Impacting Your Sleep By Michael J Breus Ph.D. on November 30, 2018 in Sleep Newzzz We've learned a staggering amount about the microbiome and its relationship to sleep in recent years. 3 Intriguing Connections Between Music and Sleep By Linda Wasmer Andrews on November 29, 2018 in Minding the Body Want to wind down for bedtime? Fend off insomnia? Tap into emotionally positive dreams? Music may help, recent research shows. Try These 7 Helpful Tips To Help With Tinnitus and Sleep By Michael J Breus Ph.D. on November 27, 2018 in Sleep Newzzz If you're having trouble sleeping and you have symptoms that sound like tinnitus, talk with your doctor about both, so you can sleep better--and feel better-- soon. December 30 - January 5 The Moral Foreign-Language Effect The Most Life-Changing Commitment You Could Ever Make The Freudian Symbolism in Your Dreams When Voyeurism Leads to Criminality Evidence That Dreams Help Us Learn By Patrick McNamara Ph.D. on November 25, 2018 in Dream Catcher If you dream about something that you had been studying, you are more likely to learn that material well. 7 Frustrating Sleep Disrupting Symptoms of Diabetes By Michael J Breus Ph.D. on November 22, 2018 in Sleep Newzzz Let's take a closer look at the specific sleep disorders that influence the condition of diabetes. How to Find Inspiration By Neel Burton M.D. on November 21, 2018 in Hide and Seek The psychology and philosophy of inspiration. Advice From an Old Guy By Jack Schafer Ph.D. on November 15, 2018 in Let Their Words Do the Talking Follow your dreams with passion and fervor, but have Plan B just in case. The Complicated Link Between Diabetes and Sleep By Michael J Breus Ph.D. on November 15, 2018 in Sleep Newzzz Sleep has a powerful connection to metabolism, to hormones that regulate appetite and eating patterns, and to the body's use of blood sugar and insulin. More Recent Posts Meet Psychology Today's Bloggers on Dreaming Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and a diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine. He is the author of Beauty Sleep. Joseph A. Buckhalt, Ph.D., is a Wayne T. Smith Distinguished professor and the former director of the School Psychology Program at Auburn University. Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D., a psychologist of religion and director of the Sleep and Dream Database, is a visiting scholar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D., is a Professor Emerita of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her latest book is The Search for Fulfillment. See All Bloggers Dreaming Resources Diagnosis * Nightmares Connected Topics * Circadian Rhythm * Fantasies * Sleep * Stress * Unconscious advertisement Essential Reads * How Your Stomach Could Be Impacting Your Sleep * 7 Frustrating Sleep Disrupting Symptoms of Diabetes * The Complicated Link Between Diabetes and Sleep * Why You Can't Think Straight When You're Sleep Deprived * California Dreaming: Starting the School Day Later advertisement Psychology Today Facebook Twitter Instagram Recent Issues * Psychology Today Magazine November 2018 * * July 2018 * Psychology Today Magazine Cover May 2018 * Psychology Today Magazine March 2018 * Psychology Today Magazine January 2018 Subscribe Today! * About * Privacy * Terms * Australia * Canada * United Kingdom * United States * International Psychology Today © 2018 Sussex Publishers, LLC