Dream FAQs

By Rosemary Ellen Guiley

c. Visionary Living, Inc.

What are the most common dreams?
The most common dreams are flying, falling and losing your teeth. Except for flying dreams, which usually are pleasant, many common dream themes deal symbolically with anxieties and unresolved emotions. Some other common themes are: being nude or partially nude in public; being pursued or attacked by a monster or threatening person; being late and getting lost; losing money and valuables; being unprepared for a test or examination; driving or riding in a car, especially when the road abruptly changes to something unexpected, and missing a train, plane or boat.

Why do dreams communicate in symbols?
Although all of our senses are engaged in dreams, dreams are primarily a visual medium.
Pictures, images and symbols convey far more information that words. They reach us on an intuitive level. We can understand images by making associations with them. What do they remind us of? What emotions to they invoke? How do they fit what is going on in our life?

Do we dream every night?
Scientific research indicates that, with few exceptions, we all dream every night Some people who have suffered trauma to the brain or who have brain illness are known to experience a loss of dreaming. Otherwise, we dream throughout the night, in both rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep.

If I dream every night, why do I not always remember a dream when I wake up?
Some people seem to have a natural ability to remember their dreams in vivid detail. while others struggle to recall them. Stress, food, medication and stimulants can affect sleep patterns, thus potentially disrupting dream time. You can benefit your recall by setting your intention prior to sleep to remember dreams, and by recording whatever you recall, even fragments, as soon as possible upon awakening.

Does everyone dream in color?
Most people – an estimated 75 percent of the adult population – dream in color. A higher percentage of women dream in color than men. It’s not unusual to dream primarily in color and also occasionally have black-and-white dreams.

How long do dreams last?
Most range from a half-minute or so to several minutes in length. Some dreams can run as long as 15 to 20 minutes.

Do men and women dream differently?
Women’s dreams contain more dialogue, social interaction, emotion and detail. Women’s dreams are set indoors more than men’s dreams, which are set more outdoors. Men’s dreams contain more action and more male figures, and less dialogue.

Do dreams change as we age?
Our sleep patterns change as we age. We spend much more time in REM sleep when we are young. Dream recall decreases with age. Our dreams reflect our emotional concerns, which change in different stages of life.

Why do so many dreams seem troublesome rather than happy?
Studies show that about two-thirds of our dreams are unpleasant or negative. Dreams are a source of intuitive guidance for our best interests and healing. They prompt us to act when life gets out of balance. Stresses, anxieties, unfounded fears, self-doubts and repressed feelings all need to be healed. Dreams are helpful in that they bring imbalances to our attention.

Why do some dreams repeat?
Dreams call our attention to something we need to change, and repeat until we do so. Sometimes the very same dream repeats; more often, a theme repeats. Sometimes repeating dreams are nightmarish to the dreamer. Resolving the issue usually brings an end to the repetition.

Are nightmares different from “ordinary dreams”?
A nightmare is any distressing dream, and we all have one from time to time in reaction to stress and anxiety. Some nightmares are caused by psychological problems, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and repressed memories about abuse or negative events. Nightmares related to PTSD, abuse and dissociative disorders are best dealt with in professional therapy.

Do the blind dream?
Blind people dream, but not necessarily with visual imagery. If someone is born blind or sight is lost before age five, visual imagery is absent. Instead dream content includes the other senses, primarily hearing, as well as emotional tones. If sight is lost between ages five and seven, there may be some visual imagery. Visual imagery is retained in dreams if sight is lost after age seven, but gradually decreases with age.

Do animals dream?
The answer to that isn’t known. Animals are observed to have REM sleep, and to twitch and make noises during sleep. Throughout history, human beings have thought animals to dream. The Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Roman historian Pliny believed so, and much later Charles Darwin credited dogs, cats, horses and the “higher animals” with the ability to dream. Recent lab research on young zebra finches showed that the birds exhibited the same brain activity when learning the song of the adult zebra finch as they did during REM sleep, leading to speculation that the birds were dreaming about rehearsing the song.

What is a lucid dream?
A lucid dream involves knowing you’re dreaming while you’re dreaming. In some cases, you can direct the events and outcome of the dream. Lucid dreaming has been linked to enhanced creativity and self-healing. It’s estimated that about 15 percent of the adult population naturally have frequent lucid dreams. Many people can learn to increase their lucid dreaming.

Do we go out-of-body when we dream?
No one knows where consciousness “goes” during sleep and dreaming — or where it “goes” when we’re awake, either. We understand very little about the nature and functions of consciousness and where it “is.” However, since ancient times dreams have been regarded as a place where human awareness can meet spiritual beings and the dead, as well as have real experiences. Barriers and limitations imposed by the rational mind fall away during sleep, and we are free to travel through time and space. Some dreams can be intensely spiritual in nature – we feel we are in the presence of spiritual beings or the Divine, and in otherworldly places. These can be symbolic images – or, according to ancient wisdom – real events.

How common are psychic dreams?
People probably have more psychic dreams than they realize, simply because they don’t pay attention or discuss them with others. Usually we hear about psychic dreams only when they’re dramatic and involve a distressing or tragic event or death. However, parapsychology studies show that precognitive information about future events is more likely to present itself to us in dreams than in any other fashion. Many people who pay attention to their dreams discover that they have “little” precognitive dreams often. These concern upcoming events, situations and encounters with people. Scientific research shows that information can be transmitted telepathically during dreaming, from a person who is awake to a person who is asleep.

Can people have the same dream at the same time?
Mutual dreaming, in which two or more persons share the same dream or same dream elements, is more common than one might think. We seldom discover this because, again, we don’t pay attention to dreams and discuss them with others. Mutual dreaming is more likely to occur between or among people who have a close bond, either genetic or emotional, but can happen between persons who do not have a strong connection to one another. Mutual dreaming has not been explored much in research. It may have something to tell us about the interconnections of human consciousness.

Do sensory stimuli affect dreams?
Sounds, smells, tactile sensations and bodily functions can work their way into dreams and become part of the dream drama. For example, if you lose your bedcovers during the night, you may dream of being in a snow-covered place and feeling cold. A car alarm going off down the street may become a fire engine in a dream. Falling out of bed can appear in a dream in which you are falling from a great height. Sigmund Freud found that by eating anchovies or highly salted foods prior to sleep, he caused himself to dream that he was drinking water. Sensory stimuli should be taken into account, but the dream should not be dismissed as having no other meaning.

Is it safe to work with dreams?
Dreams deal with our true – and often unexpressed or unacknowledged – emotions, and with material in the subconscious. Anytime we examine what is below the surface, unsettling emotions can result. Sometimes it may be advisable to do dreamwork with a therapist. Lay dreamwork, such as in facilitated groups, is beneficial for many people. The prevailing wisdom about dreams is that they are inherently healing in nature, and that they do not bring forth anything we are not ready to examine.

What does sleepwalking have to do with dreams?
Most ordinary sleepwalkers are not necessarily acting out dreams. Some sleepwalking and other actions during sleep are part of a condition called “REM sleep behavior disorder,” or RBD or RSBD. Sufferers of this condition may be physically active while having vivid dreams.

Can dreams be controlled?
Learning how to dream lucidly is one way to direct dreams. Another, more common way – and one used by peoples around the world since ancient times – is to direct dreams through incubation, a process in which we ask dreams to answer a specific question. Techniques for “pro-active dreaming” are given in my book The Dreamer’s Way, published by Berkley Books, 2004.
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Adapted from Dreamspeak: How To Understand the Messages in Your Dreams by Rosemary Ellen Guiley, published by Berkley Books, 2001.