Types of Dreams
Have you ever woken up and questioned the types of dreams you’ve had that felt incredibly real ,true to life & wondered, what a dream is all about ?
These are the types of dreams that make you wonder what a dream is and you may find questioning yourself “What does my dream mean?” Or “Do dreams mean anything?”
We humans are curious beings and love to explore the things around us especially the ones that we experience on a regular basis.
People have been trying to find the meaning of dreams for centuries.
In earlier times, people used to think that dreams were a medium between them and God.
Dreams can be full of meanings and hold great importance in our lives so before we talk about the different types of dreams, how about we first discuss what a dream actually is.
What is a Dream?
Dreams are thoughts that we experience in the form of images or stories. It can either be exhilarating or strange. You can experience all types of dreams from romantic ones where you are sitting in a beautiful field of flowers with your lover to scary ones where you are being chased by a scary monster with three heads.
According to a famous psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, dreams are part of your subconscious and if you try to analyze your dream, you can actually find out your hidden and unconscious desires.
Dreams are also signals from your body and brain. There is a purpose & meaning for everything, and your dreams hold some sort of meaning.
Humans dream during their REM sleep. This is the short form of Rapid eye movement and is the deepest stage of dream. Your eyes move quickly during this stage and your brain is extremely active. It generally occurs at a specific time during the night and lasts from a few minutes to over 30 minutes.
During REM, your brain works differently. Prefrontal Cortex that is in control of the rational thoughts becomes dormant and amygdale, the part of brain in control of your emotions becomes active. This explains why we have dreams that don’t even make sense sometimes.
We all experience different and unique dreams but there are some common dreams as well. But before getting into that, let me first tell you about the major types of dreams.
Nightmares
Nightmares are a type of dream that is very vivid and realistic and has a scary twist to it. These are one of the most common dreams experienced by people belonging from every age group. Nightmares are so terrifying that they sometime make you wake up from your dream with a racing heart. These types of dreams have a scary theme and scenarios that makes you terrified and it varies from person to person.
However, there are some common nightmares experienced by a number of people. The most common one is being chased by a scary looking monster. You are not able to run fast enough to escape the scary monster and eventually get caught.
So why we have nightmares? You generally get nightmares after having a late-night snack or a heavy meal. Your metabolism increases after eating and resultantly your brain becomes more active. There are also a number of medications like antidepressant or certain blood pressure medicines that increases the chances of having nightmares.
Nightmares are often linked to your own fears, negative thoughts or some kind of trauma that you have went through in the past.
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Lucid Dreams
If I were to pick a favorite type of dream, I would go for lucid dreams.
A lucid dream is when you are well aware that you are dreaming, and you can control your dream. Once you know that you are dreaming, you can control your dream to a certain extent. It is truly a surreal experience.
You get to control the character, theme and environment of your dream. It provides the ultimate freedom to create your dream world where everything is exactly the way you want it to be.
Having lucid dreams is a very exciting experience. Most people naturally experience lucid dreams, but some people have lucid dreams due to some underlying mental health issue. Some people are talented enough to train their minds to have lucid dreams. This can a fun experience and who would want to miss out on that ?
I mentioned earlier that dreams are a projection of your subconscious. Lucid dreams also give us clues of certain things that you have maybe been avoiding for a long time and the time has now come to address it. The best thing about lucid dreams is that you can wake up in a pleasant and better mood…WOW..!!!
Daydreaming
Daydreaming is a lot more common than we think.
Some studies have shown that 96% of adults daydream at least once a day. They go into a world of fantasy where everything is exactly the way they want it to be.
William James, founder of American psychology in 1890 wrote that “When absorbed in intellectual attention we become so inattentive to outer things as to be ‘absent-minded,’ ‘abstracted,’ or ‘distrait.’ Daydreaming is also a dream however, its duration isn’t that long as the other dreams.
Daydreaming can sometimes turn into a psychological issue which is known as maladaptive daydreaming.
The person indulges into hour long daydreams and during that they have no idea what is going on in their surroundings. This condition could have a very negative impact on the individual’s life. The person is unable to focus on relationships and other daily tasks. So please seek help if you or any of your near and dear ones happen to suffer from such condition.
So these were some of the main categories of dreams. Now let us talk about some of the common dreams that a lot of us see and try to find its meaning.
Dreams about flying
Flying dreams are very common and interesting. All you have to do is to understand meaning of it.
Do you remember when you were little and one of your biggest dreams was to get the ability to fly. Flying is mostly associated with freedom. We are all trapped in a world full of struggle and dreaming about flying gives us a temporary feeling of freedom.
The ground here is the tough realities of life that all of us try to escape. You are most likely to dream about flying when you are going through some issues related to freedom.
Dreaming about flying also comes under the category of lucid dreams. Like we have discussed before that in lucid dreams, you are well aware that you are dreaming, and you can control your dream to a certain extent.
When you can control your flying that means you are in control of a certain situation.
Flying also means that you have reached a higher level of spiritual connection. You have started to connect to your spiritual side and this dream has come as a message.
Dreams of falling
Here is another very common dream experienced by all of us. You remember when you are sleeping and suddenly get a jerk of falling.
It feels like as if you are plummeting to your death but of course that’s not true. It is just a dream but like every other dream, it holds great meaning. Medically speaking, when you fall asleep and start to go into a deeper sleep, your nervous system becomes quit and slower. Your blood pressure and heart rates is lowered.
This transition of falling into a deep sleep provokes a jerk that is in other words known as falling in your dream.
So what is this dream symbol?
You can experience falling dreams when there is something going on in your life that you can’t control.
The situation is getting out of hand maybe. Any type of vulnerability in your personal or social life can make you see such dreams.
This means that you need to face your fears and try to solve them.
What does it mean if you dream of someone?
The most common reason of seeing someone in your dream is that you have been thinking about them a lot or you thought about them before falling asleep.
Our thoughts leave an imprint on the subconscious which is later manifested in the form of dreams. Let me tell you a more interesting thing about this type of dream. When you see someone in a dream.
It is not completely about that person. It is more about the relationship you have with that person.
Dreaming of You – Summary
Well there you have it …..these are some of the most common dreams and their interpretation.
Please keep in mind that the interpretation does vary from person to person.
Everyone has their own meaning of dreams.
Dreams are, in general, your feelings that you have buried deep inside of you.
Sometimes they are easy to understand and sometimes they are not.
Dreams are a blessing ,it brings you out of your current life situation and takes you into a world where anything can happen.
So please ……keep on dreaming.