Dream On: Top 12 Facts About Dreams

Men do it. Women do it. Even babies do it. We all do it, even those of us who claim not to. In fact, researchers have found that most people do it several times a night, for 5-20 minutes each time.

12. Dreams inspired many of our greatest's works

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The sewing machine, the periodic table, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Kevlar, Insulin, the Twilight Saga, the structural riddle of the benzene molecule and EVEN GOOGLE were all spawned from dreams.

11. The phrase "Pipe Dream" originally referred to crazy & elaborate dreams people had while smoking opium.

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A pipe dream is something typically regarded as an unrealistic hope or fantasy. The phrase can be traced back to the dreams experienced by opium smokers, which were very prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries by the highly literate.

10. You forget 90% of your dreams

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Within 5 minutes of waking, half of your dream if forgotten. Within 10 minutes, 90% of your dream is gone.

Keep a dream journal and pen by your bed to jot down your dreams as soon as you wake up.

Just make sure its hidden well or you'd have a lot of explaining to do to your friend/significant other/random hook-ups, etc.

9. Dreaming increases brain activity

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Sleep is often associated with peace and quiet, but actually our brains are more active during sleep than during the day. Sleep is actually a workout of our most important organ!

8. Gender Roles in Dreams

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Men tend to dream about other men, but women tend to have a more equal representation of men and women. Also,men's dreams tend to be more aggressive while women's dreams last longer and have more characters.

7. Blind People Dream

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While people who lost their eyesight prior to age five usually do not have visual dreams in adulthood, they still dream. Despite the lack of visuals, the dreams of the blind are just as complex and vivid as those of the sighted. Instead of visual sensations, blind individuals' dreams typically include information from the other senses such as sound, touch, taste, hearing and smell.

6. Dreaming Prevents Psycosis

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In a recent sleep study, students who were awakened at the beginning of each dream, but still allowed their 8 hours of sleep, all experienced difficulty in concentration, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis after only 3 days. When finally allowed their REM sleep the student's brains made up for lost time by greatly increasing the percentage of sleep spent in the REM stage.

5. Pets Dream Too

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And its usually hilarious...

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4. Sex.

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Women dream about sex just as often as men. Lucky for women, most won't leave evidence of those sexy dreams on the sheets.

3. You Can Only Dream Faces You've Seen Before

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Often times, faces are vague figures and lack details, but any faces you see in dreams are faces that you've already seen when awake.

So the next time you seen the "man of your dreams" IN your dreams, you've already met him! Awww!!

Warning: This also means that the creepy and terrifying old man you passed in a back alley one night might also pop up in your dreams.

2. In the near future you'll be able to watch your dreams!

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Scientists at UC Berkeley have achieved a major milestone in their quest to create a technology that would let us tap into our brain's imaging systems. They used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models and they succeeded in decoding and reconstructing visual experiences of their test subjects.

1. You will spend 6 years of your life dreaming

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So go drink some tea, grab a blanket and DREAM ON!!!