Dreams And How To Remember Them

Dreams, the voice of our subconscious and the parts of the mind that we try to shut away. They are the imaginative thoughts and sensations we go through when we sleep, and as I'd like to call them, they are the fun little movies you watch in your head before you wake up. In today's post, I will be discussing dreams and how one can remember them.

Fun facts about dreams 

Adding on to my explanation in my introductory paragraph, here are a few interesting facts about dreams. Though some of these are irrelevant to the main topic, I felt that it would be fun to know a little bit more than required, no?

1. Blind people dream too! Their dreams are as vivid, albeit they involve other senses, including their emotions and their sense of smell.
2. Everyone dreams! And by everyone, I do mean everyone! It has been proven that even animals have dreams, so don't be surprised if you hear your kitten mewing or moving its tiny legs during an afternoon siesta.
3. Men and women dream differently. It has been found that men dream about men 70% of the time while women dream about both genders equally, so male dreams are generally more aggressive than female dreams.
4. Not everyone has coloured dreams. 12% of sighted people have been found to dream in black and white, while others dream in full colour. It is still unknown how the colour of a person's dream is relevant to the impact of the dream or the kind of dream it is.
5. Anxiety. The most commonly felt emotion in dreams is anxiety and other negative emotions.
6. You dream in abundance. You can have from four to seven dreams in one night. Imagine that, watching four to seven epic movies in your head before you wake up!
7. You're paralyzed when you dream. This is in order to prevent you from doing whatever it is you're doing in your dream. You don't want yourself flying out of your window, now do you?

And now, some (slightly more) relevant facts  

1. We don't dream of strangers. Well, sort of. The characters that appear in our dreams aren't merely figments of our imagination. In fact, they are people we've seen throughout our lives. For example, the mysterious man following you in your dream could be the shop assistant you met in real life a few days ago.
2. Dreams are deeply symbolic. Dreams are deep. So deep that everything you see in your dream will have some sort of symbolic meaning, with a highly unlikely chance of something having no symbolic meaning at all. For example, dream sunset does not equal to real sunset, but it could symbolize something like the loss of a loved one.
3. Dreams can incorporate external stimuli. For example, you might dream of falling off a building when you're actually just tumbling off the side of your bed.
4. Deja Vu. A survey has found that 18% to 38% of those surveyed have had at least one precognitive dream, with 70% experiencing deja vu. (Precognition, or future sight, involves the prediction of future events that cannot be deduced from present, normal, sense-based information)
5. You will forget 90% of your dreams. Within 5 minutes of waking, you will forget half your dream, and in 10 minutes, 90% of it.

Why we should remember our dreams?

Have you ever heard of Samuel Taylor Coleridge? He was the poet who wrote 'Kubla Khan', a famous poem. Apparently, Samuel dreamt the entire poem (opium-induced, of course), and as he was trying to recall his dream, he was rudely interrupted by a 'Person from Porlock'. When the man left, Samuel could no longer recall the rest of his dream, and the poem was left unfinished.

There are many more advantages to remembering our dreams, from learning more about our subconscious and our needs, to having vague ideas of the future. It is sad to know that most of our dreams that could prove to be useful information for us will be forgotten, so don't you think that it would be great if we could just remember more of them?

How to remember your dreams. 

1.  Tell yourself out loud that you want to remember your dream before sleeping. Making a conscious decision to recall your dreams makes the chances of actually doing so higher.
2. Dream 'journals' - they work! Keep a notepad and a pencil on your bedside table so that you'd be able to record your dreams when you wake up before they vanish. You could also use an audio recorder. Whichever items you use, make sure that you keep them in the same place to avoid any need to search for them. Also, if you decide to use a notepad, remember to leave the front page blank to avoid the need to turn to another page. You have to be a little quick when it comes to this! In addition to this, put this information into a journal so that you'll be able to document whatever you've dreamt of - you may just find a pattern!
   
   Here's a tip: when you're trying to recall a dream, speak in the present continuous tense ("I am going to..." "I will be..."). It helps you recall better. Oh, and remember to use a lamp or a good light-emitting object - writing in the dark could damage your eyes!
   
3. Remind yourself! Try not to let the post-sleep daze woo you into forgetting what you're supposed to be doing! Keep a sticky note or another method of asking your light-headed self what you recently dreamt about. If it's a sticky note, you could stick it onto your alarm clock facing yourself so that it is the first thing you see when you wake up.
4. Get enough sleep. You will be too tired to recall any of your dreams if you're tired to begin with! Too little sleep will also minimize the number of dreams you have. Try to sleep for more than six hours, as people who sleep for six hours or less have a difficult time remembering their dreams.
5. Don't forget your other dreams! If you happen to wake up in the middle of the night after a dream, remember to write it down too! You will be missing out on possibly four or five dreams if you neglect to write them down when you get the chance.
6. Sudden recollections are important too! Sometime during the day, you might just remember something from the dream, most probably triggered by an external factor, so do write whatever you recall down before the memory vanishes.

Have any of you had any interesting dreams you'd like to share? Feel free to tell us about it in the comments below!