Why We Dream

By: Yadira Hernandez

Dreaming is one of the most mysterious and interesting experiences in our lives. But there are somethings that we don't know about why we dream...

The average person has about 1,460 dreams a year which is about 4 dreams per day. The scariest thing (in my opinion) is that an average human being spends about 6 years of their life dreaming! I know right. That is a lot of time! The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology scientist know somethings about dreaming but they don't know everything about them.

Some scientist have theories as to why we dream. One of the theories is that we dream of what we wish we had or something we wish could happen. Even if you had a nightmare it just means that you were just thinking about it way too much so so dreamt about it. Another theory as to why we dream is because of our memories. It could be a memory you forgot, a memory you think about, a bad memory, or a good memory.

Dreams mainly occur in the rapid eye movement stage of sleep. Rapid eye movement sleep, or REM, is one of the five stages of sleep that most people experience nightly. REM is made up of stages 1 to 4 and each stage can last between 5 to 15 minutes. It is  important because it is a restorative part of our sleep cycle. We dream every 90 minutes throughout the night and each cycle of dreaming is longer than the other.  Precognitive dreams are dreams that appear to predict the future through a sixth sense. Judging from research studies dreaming about the future is not uncommon.

So now that you know why we dream, what kind of dreams do you have?  Comment and tell me below!