30 People Draw Their Dreams And Others Offer Their Explanations

Everyone dreams, on average around two hours per night, even people who claim not to. Instead of a single dream, people usually have several short dreams every night, with each one usually lasting only between five to 20 minutes.

The reason that most people claim not to dream is that more that 90% of all dreams are forgotten almost instantly after waking. But why? Dreaming occurs during Rapid-Eye Movement (REM) Sleep, if there is a transition from REM to another sleep stage before waking, the dream will usually disappear before you even knew it was there.

Even if you wake during REM sleep, the chemical processes that cause dreams quickly dissipate and the feeling that you were so caught up in quickly fades. Certain triggers throughout the day can cause a recollection of the dream however, for example if you have an experience that reactivates the same area of the brain that created the dream overnight.

A researcher called Calvin S. Hall spent decades studying dreams, collecting over 50,000 dream accounts from college students.

He found that dreams evoke many emotions, but most of them tended to be more on the negative side. The most common emotion experienced in dreams was anxiety. It is not known why we tend to have more negative emotions in dreams than positive ones.

There are some common dreams that we all have, regardless of who we are or where we are from. While obviously, most of our dreams result from our own experiences, some themes unite us all, like being chased, being attacked, or falling (those negative emotions again). Other universal dreams include being stuck and unable to move, arriving late, flying, and being naked in public.

It’s uncertain whether animals dream, but “it seems very likely,” Hugo Spiers, an experimental psychologist at University College London, told National Geographic. We've all seen and heard a dog seemingly having a great time while sleeping, wagging its tail and trying to run with its legs in the air. Just like us, animals have sleep stages that include cycles of REM and non-REM sleep, so it's definitely likely that your pup is indeed dreaming of frisbees in the park and endless butts to sniff.