Benefits of dreaming

Everyone dreamsevery single nightand yet we tend to know so little about our
dreams. Where do they come from? What do they mean? Can we control them and
should we try to interpret them? We spoke to the dream experts to bring you nine
surprising facts about dreams. Read before snoozing.
1. Dreaming can help you learn.
If youre studying for a test or trying to learn a new task, you might consider taking a nap
or heading to bed early rather than hovering over a textbook an hour longer. Heres
why: When the brain dreams, it helps you learn and solve problems, say researchers at
Harvard Medical School. In a study that appeared in a recent issue of Current Biology,
researchers report that dreams are the brains way of processing, integrating and
understanding new information. To improve the quality of your sleepand your brains
ability to learnavoid noise in the bedroom, such as the TV, which may negatively
impact the length and quality of dreams.
2. Just like men, women can have orgasms during dreams.
Did you think only men experience this phenomenon? Not true, says Barbara Bartlik,
MD, a psychiatrist and sex therapist in New York. Warning, further reading may produce
blushing: Women have orgasms during their sleep, just as men do, she says. These
orgasms often accompany erotic dreams, but they also may occur during dreams of a
nonerotic nature. When women dream, she says, its not uncommon for their genitals
to become engorged and lubricated. This occurs during REM sleep, which happens
several times during the night, she says. A similar thing happens to men. Men get
erections during REM sleep, whether or not the man is having an erotic dream.
3. The most common dream? Your spouse is cheating.
If youve ever woken up in a cold sweat after dreaming about your husbands
extramarital escapade with your best friend, youre not alone, says Lauri Quinn
Loewenberg, a dream expert, author and media personality. The most commonly
reported dream is the one where your mate is cheating, she says. Loewenberg
conducted a survey of more than 5,000 people, and found that the infidelity dream is the

nightmare that haunts most peoplesometimes on a recurring basis. It rarely has

anything to do with an actual affair, she explains, but rather the common and universal
fear of being wronged or left alone.
4. You can have severaleven a dozendreams in one night.
Its not just one dream per night, but rather dozens of them, say expertsyou just may
not remember them all. We dream every 90 minutes throughout the night, with each
cycle of dreaming being longer than the previous, explains Loewenberg. The first
dream of the night is about 5 minutes long and the last dream you have before
awakening can be 45 minutes to an hour long. It is estimated that most people have
more than 100,000 dreams in a lifetime.
5. You can linger in a dream after waking.
Have you ever woken up from such a beautiful, perfect dream that you wished you
could go back to sleep to soak it all up (you know, the dream about George Clooney?)?
You can! Just lie stilldont move a muscleand you can remain in a semi-dreamlike
state for a few minutes. The best way to remember your dreams is to simply stay put
when you wake up, says Loewenberg. Remain in the position you woke up in,
because that is the position you were dreaming in. When you move your body, you
disconnect yourself from the dream you were just in seconds ago.
6. Even bizarre dreams can be interpreted.
While it can be hard to believe that an oddball dream about your mother, a circus and a
snowstorm can have any bearing on real life, there may be symbolism and potential
meaning to be mined in every dreamyou just have to look for it, says Harvard-trained
psychotherapist Jeffrey Sumber. "The meaning of our dreams oftentimes relates to
things we are needing to understand about ourselves and the world around us, he
says. Instead of shrugging off strange dreams, think about how they make you feel. We
tend to dismiss these dreams due to the strange components, yet it is the feeling we
have in these dreams that matters most, he explains. Sometimes the circus and the
snowstorm are just fillers that allow us to process the range of emotions we feel about
our mother and give us the necessary distraction so we can actually experience that
spectrum of emotion.

7. Recurring dreams may be your minds way of telling you something.

Do you have the same nightmare over and over again? Loewenberg suggests looking
for underlying messages in recurring dreams so that you can rid yourself of them. For
example, a common recurring nightmare people have involves losing or cracking
their teeth. For this dream, she recommends that people think about what
your teeth and your mouth represent. To the dreaming mind, your teeth, as well as any
part of your mouth, are symbolic of your words, she says. Paying attention to your
teeth dreams helps you to monitor and improve the way you communicate.
8. You can control your dreams.
The premise of the new movie Inception is that people can take the reins of their
dreams and make them what they want them to be. But it may not just be a Hollywood
fantasy. According to the results of a new survey of 3,000 people, dream control, or
lucid dreaming may be a real thing. In fact, 64.9 percent of participants reported being
aware they were dreaming within a dream, and 34 percent said they can sometimes
control what happens in their dreams. Taking charge of the content of your dreams isnt
a skill everyone has, but it can be developed, says Kelly Bulkeley, PhD, a dream
researcher and visiting scholar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkley, California.
The technique is particularly useful for people who suffer from recurringnightmares, he
says. Dr. Bulkeley suggests giving yourself a pep talk of sorts before you go to sleep by
saying: If I have that dream again, Im going to try to remember thats its only a dream,
and be aware of that. When you learn to be aware that you are dreamingwithin a
dreamyou not only have the power to steer yourself away from the monster and into
the arms of Brad Pitt, for instance, but you train your mind to avoid nightmares in the
first place. Lucid dreaming enhances your ability to learn from the dream state, says
Dr. Bulkeley.
9. You dont have to be asleep to dream.
Turns out, you can dream at your desk at work, in the car, even at your kids soccer
game. Wakeful dreamingnot to be confused with daydreamingis real and somewhat
easy to do, says Dr. Bulkeley; it just involves tapping into your active imagination. The
first step is to think about a recent dream you had (preferably a good one!). Find a quiet
contemplative place and bring a dream that you remember back into your waking
awareness and let it unfold, he says. Let the dream re-energize. Wakeful dreaming

can be used as a relaxation tool, but Dr. Bulkeley says it can also help your mind
process a puzzling dream. It creates a more fluid interaction between unconscious
parts of the mind and wakeful parts of the mind, he says.
Sarah Jio is the health and fitness blogger for Glamour.com. Visit her blog, Vitamin G.