When we sleep, our dreams often run wild. Whether or not you remember the full story the next morning, odds are you remember a general feeling you felt during the dream.
But even though we all dream, there are some things you probably didn't know. Sort of like, "behind-the-scenes" of dreams, if you will.
These are some interesting facts that will most likely shock even the biggest dreamer out there.
1. Can You Hear Me Now?
Deaf people do not hear in their dreams, but there are still communications had.
"I never actually see people signing or speaking," Gabriel Paulone, a student at Washington D.C.-based school for the deaf, Gallaudet University, said. "It is as if we use extrasensory perception (ESP). It is like we share similar language without having to say something."
Deaf dreamers experience dreams where either everyone knows sign language, or through telepathy.
"It's really cool" Violet Blake said. "It's only in my dreams that I feel that we are all communicating universally."
2. Learning Can Be Fun!
When you dream, your brain doesn't just shut down. Your sub-conscience is honing skills, such as problem-solving, while your body recharges. If you study before you go to sleep, your brain can help retain the information and sometimes even teach you through dreams!
3. The Good Ol' Days
The U.S. National Library of Medicine says 12% of people in the world can only dream in black and white. People who are 25 and younger say they almost never dream in black and white, but people older than 55 say about 25% of their dream are in the old-fashioned style.
4. All Around Me Are Familiar Faces
Studies have shown that it is not possible for people to think of new faces in their dreams. The part of your brain most active during REM sleep is responsible for facial recognition, so any face you see in your dream is a face you've seen in real life, even if it's not someone you recognize.
5. Blind People Can Also Dream
People who are born blind still experience dreams, they're just through other senses. People who lose their sight later in life will still dream visually. Despite the differences in senses, blind people experience dreams with the same intensity people with sight do.
6. Gender Equality
When males dream, the characters involved are usually also male. However, when females dream, they have a more even mixture of genders involved.
7. Your Memory Isn't Great
99% of the dreams you experience are forgotten by the time you wake up, according to the National Dream Foundation. You have multiple dreams on a nightly basis, but usually people can only recall one, if any.
8. Free Your Mind
When you're dreaming, your essentially recharging your creative batteries. According to the American Psychological Association, dreaming mimics the creative process. Creative people can often be stimulated by their dreams.
9. While You Were Sleeping
When you sleep, your mind is actually more active than when you're awake. Your brain is making sense of all the information you learned that day, cleaning out the unnecessary things, and learning to problem-solve.
10. Dream Drug
If you really love dreaming, you're not alone. There are people who enjoy it so much, they never want to wake up. These people take an illegal hallucinogenic called Dimethyltryptamine, which is naturally produced during dreaming. It causes day-long hallucinations.
11. Everything is Not Okay
Dreams mean happy, and nightmares mean scary, right? Wrong. The majority of people dream negatively instead of positively. The three most widely reported emotions felt during dreams are: anger, sadness, and fear.
