Dream On

Flying like Superman. Showing up unprepared for a high school exam years after you've graduated. Being chased through the streets of your hometown.

From our wildest fantasy to our worst nightmare, dreams keep our brains engaged while we sleep. But why do we dream? Here, CAS psychology professor and neuropsychologist Bryan Fantie explains seven things to know about one of science's greatest mysteries.

We all dream.

While some people claim they don't dream, scientific evidence proves that everyone does-and for an average of two hours each night.

"What they should say is that they don't remember that they dream," Fantie said. "Not remembering dreams is really common."

He said you can remember more of your dreams by documenting them in a bedside journal as soon as you wake up. Research indicates that if you don't reach consciousness a few minutes after having a dream, the chances of recalling it later are slim.

Why we dream may be rooted in evolution.

Humans sleep less than other primates and spend the highest ratio of time in rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep-the slumber state when dreams occur and the brain is most active.

In 2015, Duke University researchers David Samson and Charles Nunn suggested this is because of the sleep intensity hypothesis or "the need to fulfill sleep needs in the shortest time possible."

According to Samson and Nunn, early humans developed these unique and more efficient sleeping habits about two million years ago to survive predators and interact socially. Thus dreaming may be an evolutionary spandrel-a byproduct passed down in humans. "It's a function of who and what we are," Fantie said.

Dreams can help us process emotions.

Our most common dreams feature falling or floating, a chase, childhood memories, deceased family members, and ghosts of relationships past, according to a 2022 YouGov poll.

"Things that happened recently and might be emotion-provoking are more likely to come up [in dreams]," Fantie said. "That's what happens when you're awake as well. If you're sitting down and there [are issues] going on in your life, they're going to pop into your head."

We don't know exactly why some dreams are nonsensical.

Have you ever woken up from a fever dream and suddenly realized it made no sense? We don't know why the plot of a dream can be like a Mad Lib gone wrong, but our brain plasticity helps make sense of it in the moment.

"We're always trying to order things," Fantie said. "That's why we look at clouds and we see horses, dragons, and faces. Our brain's function is to make sense out of the universe."

Our brain plasticity is also why we remember more dreams when we're younger and fewer as we age and our brains are less flexible.

Dreams help us categorize and recall memories.

Research has shown that sleep strengthens the neural connections that form memories. "You need sleep to do the housekeeping in your brain," Fantie said.

Those memories also explain why we may dream about certain experiences-like losing a tooth or getting lost. Our brains can pull from those experiences.

Dreams have inspired some of the world's most notable works.

German chemist August Kekulé claimed to have discovered the structure of benzene, a core building block for plastics, pharmaceuticals, and more, after a dream about snakes.

The impetus for the periodic table of elements, analytical geometry, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and James Cameron's The Terminator also came out of dreams.

Inception's depiction of dreaming isn't all fake.

While infiltrating dreams and implanting ideas into someone else's subconscious is Hollywood fiction, it is possible to learn how to lucid dream.

The skill touted in the 2010 Christopher Nolan film requires you to learn how to become aware of your consciousness and explore and control dreams while still asleep.

"You have to want to do it," said Fantie, who started lucid dreaming as a kid. "And you have to develop a habit of doing it. Once you've done it a few times, it starts to become a habit and very natural."

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