9 Frequently Asked Questions About Dreams

Everyone dreams.

Some of us remember our dreams almost every morning, while others wake up believing they didn't dream at all. Some dreams disappear within seconds of opening our eyes. Others are so vivid that we can remember them years—or even decades—later.

Dreams can be beautiful, frightening, confusing, funny, emotional, or completely bizarre. We can dream about people we haven't seen in years, visit places that don't exist, talk to people who have passed away, fly through the air, fall from incredible heights, or find ourselves living through situations that would be impossible in waking life.

And somehow, while we're dreaming, much of it seems perfectly normal.

I have always found dreams and dream interpretation fascinating. There is something intriguing about entering an entirely different world every night without ever leaving our beds.

What makes dreams even more interesting is how personal they are. Two people can dream about the same thing and experience completely different emotions and meanings.

Although science continues to study why and how we dream, people have also explored the symbolic and personal meaning of dreams for thousands of years.

Here are nine frequently asked questions about dreams—and some fascinating things to consider the next time you close your eyes.

1. What Is the Significance of Dreams?

The significance of our dreams can be extremely personal.

Our experiences, memories, emotions, relationships, fears, hopes, and everyday lives can all influence what appears in our dreams.

That's one reason I don't believe dream interpretation should always be as simple as opening a dream dictionary, finding a symbol, and accepting someone else's definition of what it means.

Suppose you dream about a dog.

For someone who grew up surrounded by loving dogs, a dog might represent companionship, loyalty, protection, or unconditional love.

For someone who was bitten or frightened by a dog, that exact same symbol could produce fear.

Which interpretation is correct?

Both could be—because the meaning depends on the dreamer.

When analyzing one of your dreams, think about the entire story instead of focusing on a single symbol.

Who was there?

Where were you?

What happened?

Most importantly, how did you feel?

Were you frightened, peaceful, angry, happy, confused, embarrassed, excited, or sad?

Sometimes the emotion behind a dream can tell you more than the actual images.

Dreams often communicate in a strange symbolic language. Whether you see those symbols as messages from your subconscious, your brain processing experiences, spiritual communication, or some combination of these possibilities, your personal connection to the dream matters.

You know your own life better than anyone else.

That makes you an important part of interpreting your dreams.

2. Why Do We Have Recurring Dreams?

Recurring dreams are dreams that repeat themselves.

Sometimes the dream is almost exactly the same every time. Other times, the setting or people may change while the basic theme remains.

Perhaps you're always running away from something.

Maybe you're trying to get somewhere but can never reach your destination.

You might repeatedly dream about an old house, a former relationship, school, work, being lost, missing something important, or being unable to find your way home.

Why does the mind keep returning to the same story?

One possibility is that recurring dreams are connected to emotions, stress, unresolved concerns, or situations that continue occupying our minds.

In traditional dream interpretation, recurring dreams are sometimes viewed as the subconscious repeatedly bringing our attention to something we haven't fully acknowledged or dealt with.

I think recurring dreams are worth paying attention to—not because they necessarily predict that something will happen, but because repetition itself can be interesting.

If you keep having the same dream, write it down.

Don't just record what happened. Write down how you felt during the dream and what was happening in your life when you had it.

Then do the same thing the next time the dream occurs.

Eventually, you might notice a pattern.

Perhaps the dream appears whenever you're under stress. Maybe it happens when you're facing an important decision. Or perhaps a particular person, place, or emotion keeps appearing.

Sometimes understanding the pattern can be more valuable than finding a single interpretation.

3. Are All Dreams in Color?

I once asked my father whether everyone dreamed in color.

His answer stayed with me.

He told me that only creative people dreamed in color and that most people dreamed in black and white.

I always wondered whether that was actually true.

It turns out that dreaming in color is commonly reported, although people can also describe dreams with little noticeable color or dreams they remember as being black and white.

But there's another interesting possibility: We might simply forget the colors.

Dream memories can disappear incredibly quickly.

You can wake up remembering an entire dream and then, five minutes later, struggle to remember what happened.

Unless a color is particularly important—perhaps you're wearing a bright red dress or looking at an intensely blue sky—you might not consciously remember it.

Color is so much a part of everyday life that we don't always stop to notice it.

My father-in-law and my son are color-blind, which also made me curious about the relationship between waking color perception and dreaming. Since our dream worlds are influenced by our individual experiences and perceptions, the way we experience color in dreams may be personal as well.

Try a little experiment.

The next time you wake up remembering a dream, don't immediately get out of bed.

Ask yourself:

What colors did I see?

You might suddenly remember details you would otherwise have forgotten.

4. Do Dogs Dream?

This is one of my favorite questions.

Do dogs dream?

Research into animal sleep gives us good reason to believe that dogs experience dream-like states.

But personally, I never needed a scientist to convince me.

I've owned dogs. I've watched them sleep.

And if you've ever watched a sleeping dog suddenly begin moving its paws, twitching, making little noises, or appearing to run while lying completely still, you've probably wondered what adventure is happening inside that dog's mind.

I watched all three of my dogs do it.

Leelee would sometimes cry while she was sleeping.

It always made me sad to hear her.

Because of her history, I sometimes wondered whether she might be dreaming about her time in the shelter. Of course, I couldn't actually know what she was dreaming about, but as her owner, it was difficult not to wonder.

All three of my dogs sometimes moved their legs as though they were chasing something.

Maybe they were running through a field.

Maybe they were chasing squirrels.

Maybe they were chasing each other.

Then there was Fred.

Fred would sometimes look incredibly happy while he was sleeping.

I liked to imagine Fred was dreaming about eating.

Fred loved to eat.

If Fred could have designed his perfect dream, I'm pretty sure food would have been involved.

Dogs experience different stages of sleep, and researchers have observed sleep patterns that support the idea that dogs dream.

Unfortunately, they can't wake up and tell us what happened.

I'd love to know.

Until dogs learn to talk, we'll just have to wonder where those twitching paws are taking them.

5. Do Men and Women Dream the Same?

Men and women both dream, but researchers studying people's dream reports have found some differences in reported dream content and dream recall.

Some studies have suggested differences in who appears in dreams, the emotions experienced, and how frequently dreams are remembered.

However, those are group averages—not rules about what an individual man or woman will dream.

Our dreams are influenced by far more than gender.

Our personalities, relationships, jobs, families, fears, memories, daily experiences, stress levels, sleep patterns, and countless other factors can become part of our dreams.

That's why I think it's more interesting to compare individuals than to assume everyone within a particular group dreams alike.

Ten people could dream about the ocean and have ten completely different dreams.

One person might be peacefully floating.

Another might be drowning.

Someone else might be standing on a beach.

Another person might be sailing.

The ocean is the same symbol, but the dream isn't the same experience.

That's one of the things that makes dreams so fascinating.

Our dream worlds belong to us.

6. Do People With Autism Dream?

Yes, autistic people dream.

Researchers continue to study sleep and dreaming in autistic people, including differences that may exist in sleep patterns, REM sleep, nightmares, dream recall, and dream content.

But autism encompasses a wide range of individual experiences.

One autistic person might remember vivid dreams regularly, while another may rarely remember dreaming. Of course, the same can be true among people who aren't autistic.

The important thing is that being autistic does not mean a person is incapable of dreaming.

Our understanding of autism has changed enormously over time, and some older assumptions about autistic people's inner experiences have been challenged as researchers have learned more and—equally importantly—as autistic people have described their own experiences.

Dreams are part of the complex world of human consciousness, and there is still a great deal we don't understand about them.

7. Why Do We Remember Bad Dreams More Often Than Pleasant Dreams?

Why can we forget a wonderful dream almost immediately but remember a terrifying nightmare for years?

One possible reason is emotion.

Nightmares can create powerful emotional reactions.

Fear. Panic. Anxiety. Sadness.

You might wake up suddenly with your heart pounding and immediately begin thinking about what you just experienced.

That sudden awakening can give your mind an opportunity to hold onto the dream.

Compare that to a peaceful dream.

You may sleep right through it and continue into another dream or another stage of sleep. By the time you wake up, the pleasant dream may already be disappearing from your memory.

A nightmare can demand your attention.

You wake up and think:

What was THAT?

Then you replay it in your mind.

The more you think about something, the more likely you are to remember it.

That may help explain why frightening dreams sometimes stick with us.

If you want to remember more pleasant dreams, keep a notebook beside your bed.

When you wake up, remain still for a moment before getting out of bed or reaching for your phone.

Try to remember what you were just experiencing.

Where were you?

Who was there?

What were you feeling?

Write down whatever you remember—even if it's only a few words.

Those few words might unlock the rest of the dream later.

8. What Does It Mean to Dream About Dreaming?

Have you ever dreamed that you woke up?

You open your eyes. You get out of bed. Maybe you walk into another room or begin your morning routine.

Everything seems completely normal.

Then suddenly—you wake up.

For real this time.

It can be an incredibly strange experience.

This type of experience is sometimes called a false awakening.

You may believe you've awakened even though you're still dreaming.

Sometimes people even experience multiple layers of this, creating the feeling of a dream within a dream.

From a dream-interpretation perspective, a dream within a dream could be explored as a symbol of uncertainty, hidden emotions, confusion, or feeling as though there are multiple layers to something happening in your life.

Some people might interpret it as the subconscious trying to keep their attention on a particular subject.

But it doesn't have to have one universal meaning.

It could also simply be one of the fascinating experiences created by the sleeping brain.

If you experience a dream within a dream, don't focus only on the fact that you dreamed you were dreaming.

Look at the rest of the experience.

What was happening?

What were you trying to do?

Who was with you?

How did you feel when you thought you woke up?

And how did you feel when you actually woke up?

Those details might tell you much more about what the dream means to you.

9. Will I Really Die If I Hit the Ground in a Falling Dream?

This may be one of the oldest dream myths around.

The story goes something like this:

If you're falling in a dream, you have to wake up before you hit the ground because if you hit the ground in the dream, you'll die in real life.

Thankfully, that isn't true.

People have dreamed about falling and hitting the ground and lived to tell the story.

So why do so many people believe this?

One reason may be that falling dreams often end with the dreamer suddenly waking up.

There is also something called a hypnic jerk, which can occur as you're falling asleep.

You may be drifting off when suddenly you feel as though you're falling.

Your body jerks.

Your eyes open.

For a second, you might wonder what just happened.

It's an incredibly convincing sensation.

Falling dreams can also be interesting to interpret.

Some people associate them with feeling out of control, uncertain, insecure, overwhelmed, or afraid of failure.

But again, there isn't one interpretation that applies to everyone.

Maybe you love falling in your dreams.

Perhaps falling turns into flying.

Your personal feelings about the experience matter.

One thing you don't need to worry about, however, is dying because you reached the ground.

That's a myth.

Why Are We So Fascinated by Dreams?

Perhaps the biggest question isn't why we dream.

Maybe it's why we're so fascinated by our dreams.

Think about how extraordinary dreaming really is.

You close your eyes and fall asleep.

Then suddenly you're somewhere else.

You may be a child again.

You may talk to someone you haven't seen in twenty years.

You may visit a house that you've never seen in waking life but somehow know every room inside.

You may talk to someone who has passed away and wake up feeling as though you actually spent time with them.

You may fly.

You may fall.

You may run without getting anywhere.

You may experience an entire adventure and then discover that only a short amount of time has passed.

Then you wake up in your own bed.

And sometimes the dream feels more vivid than an ordinary memory.

Scientists continue to investigate what dreaming does for the brain and how dreams relate to memory, emotions, learning, and sleep.

At the same time, people continue to explore dreams from psychological, symbolic, creative, and spiritual perspectives.

Maybe that is why dreams have fascinated human beings for so long.

They are deeply personal, yet almost everyone experiences them.

Start Paying Attention to Your Dreams

If you're curious about your own dreams, try keeping a dream journal.

You don't need anything elaborate.

Keep a notebook and pen beside your bed.

As soon as you wake up, write down everything you remember.

Don't worry about spelling, grammar, or whether the dream makes sense.

Dreams rarely make perfect sense.

Write down people, places, colors, objects, conversations, animals, numbers, emotions, and anything else that stands out.

Most importantly, write down how the dream made you feel.

Over time, read through your entries.

You may begin noticing recurring themes.

Maybe certain people appear repeatedly.

Perhaps you frequently dream about houses, animals, water, driving, getting lost, flying, falling, or returning to places from your childhood.

Those patterns can make exploring your dreams even more interesting.

We may never completely understand why we dream or what every dream means.

Maybe that's part of their appeal.

Every night when we close our eyes, we have the opportunity to enter a world created somewhere within our own minds.

And when morning comes, we get to ask one of the most intriguing questions of all:

What did that dream mean?

Thank you for reading 9 Frequently Asked Questions About Dreams. I hope I've answered a few of your questions—and perhaps given you a few new things to think about the next time you wake up remembering a dream.

Sweet dreams.