The 10 Types Of Dreams (and Their Characteristics)
We spend a good part of our lives sleeping and, while we sleep, we are presented with all kinds of visions, images and scenes, in other words, we dream.
Dreams are very diverse. We can dream about practically anything, situation, person… There are those who claim to have dreamed the same thing as someone they know, others who have had premonitions or that a relative who has gone to the afterlife has shown themselves to them in their dream world to ask them to finish their dreams. Wills.
We could make a practically infinite list of different types of dreams according to what is shown to us in them; However, we have chosen to create a classification of dreams based on their nature. Let’s find out what types of dreams exist
We spend about 25 years of our lives sleeping. Of all that time we sleep, it is inevitable that at some point we dream, and it is estimated that we spend about 8 years of our lives immersed in our dream world. What we dream varies from person to person and of course, as they say, “dreams are dreams.”
But what do we understand by dream? The most precise and scientific definition is that They are projections of images that our brain generates and that we “see” while we are sleeping a moment in which our mind seems to rest but in which, at the same time, we remain in a state of consciousness, although disconnected from what is happening around us.
Although we sleep to rest, this does not mean that we turn off our brain. Our brain never stops (it would be very worrying if it did) and, in fact, it has been seen that during the night our mind can be most active.
Our sleep is divided into two phases: REM and non-REM phase. The REM phase (“rapid eyes movements”) is the one in which rapid eye movements occur. This phase represents about 25% of the sleep cycle, entering it about 4 or 5 times each night, doing so for the first time about 90 minutes after falling asleep. On the other hand, the non-REM phase represents about 75% of sleep cycles and is the stage without rapid eye movements.
It is during the REM phase in which memory is consolidated, being the moment in which what will become part of long-term memory is selected. In other words, While we are in the REM phase we forget or retain information that has been captured during wakefulness, information that we can dream about
Everyone is free to attribute meaning to their dreams. Regardless of what they may mean, it is a fact that dreams are fascinating because, despite being so everyday, they also continue to be sources of mystery and big questions, something that has motivated some people to try to interpret them. , while science is not very optimistic about whether they really have any real meaning.
The diversity of dreams that we can have is immense, since By relying on our imagination, we can dream about anything, any situation and anyone We can be both protagonists of our dreams and have another person, real or invented, take center stage. Whatever we dream about, the truth is that dreams can be classified based on how they present themselves and their nature. We can talk about different types of dreams, which are what we will see below.
Types of dreams (explained)
Now that we have understood what dreams are, let’s talk about what types exist. The categories that we will see below do not make up an official classification, but rather a grouping of the different groups in which we can encompass those visions that appear to us while we sleep.
1. Conventional dreams
conventional dreams They are the most common, those that deal with topics from our daily lives or that interest us In them, people, experiences and things that are part of our daily lives take center stage, even though when we wake up, we generally forget their content.
We may dream about our family, about going on a trip to a new place, flying, being chased, taking an ESO math exam… anything and any situation can appear in them, but they have in common that they are more or less situations. conventional, typical.
2. Recurring dreams
Recurring dreams are those that are repeated several times, both in the same night and on different nights
These are curious daydreams that are lived more or less exactly the same over and over again, repeating the same actions, with the same people and the same situations each time. They are not always exact copies of each other, but the degree of alteration is usually minuscule.
3. Nightmares
The nigthmares They are unpleasant dreams in which situations of danger, panic and discomfort may appear For this reason, they constitute one of the most popular types of dreams.
We do not like to have these types of dreams, something evident in the strongly negative emotional response they generate, especially in the form of fear, sadness and anxiety. They are dreams that induce us to be terrified…
What causes them is very varied, but among the main causes we have experienced traumatic events, being sick, having had a heavy dinner, having bad eating habits, sleeping little, being under medication or suffering from a sleep disorder. They can also appear without apparent cause and, if we have nightmares from time to time, we should not worry because everyone has them from time to time.
lucid dreams They are daydreams in which we are fully aware that we are dreaming As a general rule, we wake up the moment we realize we are dreaming, although this is not always the case and, as surprising as it may seem, we can train and practice the skill of turning our dreams into lucid ones.
It is striking to know that there are people who have such lucid dreams that they are not simply aware that they are dreaming, but they can also control the dream, what it is about and what they do while they are dreaming it. During lucid dreams we can control our body, thoughts and events within the dream.
5. Precognitive dreams
Some call them precognitive dreams, but by proxy we can call them prophetic dreams or dream premonitions. They are those daydreams in which we see something that, after some time since we had the dream, what we dream of seems to have become reality
They are dreams that one could call mystical, paranormal, visions that predict the future, although science is more in favor of considering that it is simply a coincidence, that we have dreamed of something and, later, it has happened as it also could not have happened.
There are those who say that rather than being prophecies, what really happens is that our subconscious prepares itself for something that is probably going to happen, without us realizing it. Our subconscious “speaks” to us in dreams, making us dream about it and, after a while, what it had predicted would most likely happen happens.
But precognitive dreams are not the only seemingly paranormal dreams said to exist. There are many people who report having had mystical experiences while they slept, in which they stated that they had tuned into the minds of other people or that they had been visited by ghosts from the other world. Among these we have:
Telepathic dreams: dreaming that they communicate with us, be it a person or something.
Shared dreams: two or more people dreaming about the same thing at the same time.
Visitation dreams: dreaming that a loved one who has died visits us while we sleep, in a very lucid way, to transmit their will to us before leaving for the afterlife.
Related article: “Déjà Vu: the strange sensation of experiencing something that has already been experienced before”
6. False awakenings
Sometimes it happens that we dream about life itself. We wake up, check the time on our cell phone, make ourselves some tea, take a shower and boom! We discover that we are still in bed and all that has not happened
This is called false awakening, a type of dream in which we see, with total lucidity, how we wake up and start the day like every morning and then realize that in reality it was our subconscious that played a trick on us. . They are dreams in which we dream that we wake up. Curious, right?
“Daydreams” involve dreaming while we are awake. There are those who say that they are dreams, while others consider that they are not, because the person is awake Whatever they are, what is clear is that they are related to dreams and we can consider them as a special type within them.
We say that a person has a “daydream” when they perceive immediate reality in a diluted way, as if they were having a very poorly lucid dream despite being awake. It is as if she were in a kind of hypnotic trance, receiving visual stimuli but capturing them in an unreal way, as if they were hallucinations or something foreign to her.
8. Healing dreams
Healing dreams are those in which we are immersed in a situation in which we have the gift of being able to heal other people, whether through telepathy, telekinesis or magical gift. They are dreams that express our desire to be able to help others to cure potentially fatal diseases or want to solve a problem, disorder or illness that we are suffering from.
9. Metaphorical dreams
Metaphorical dreams, also called symbolic, are those daydreams that represent something in our life in the form of a situation that represents it, but not directly For example, let’s say that a person is going through a very difficult time, in which everything is difficult for them. While sleeping, he may dream that he is climbing a mountain, a geographical feature that represents the difficulties of his daily life.
Metaphorical dreams are preferred by psychological and parapsychological currents that consider that dreams can be interpreted. In fact, those who support dream interpretation consider practically anything we dream about as metaphorical dreams. Everyone is free to believe if what we dream really has some symbolism or if it is nothing more than simple images and random scenes…
10. Creative and inspiring dreams
There are some dreams that are very inspiring and, in addition, bring with them creative ideas or the answer to problems in our daily lives for which we have not been able to find a solution while we were awake They are dreams that, at the moment of waking up, are lived as if they had been revelations.
A famous case of this type of dream was experienced by Paul McCartney, who claims that one day he dreamed of a melody that, with a few adjustments, would become the famous song “Yesterday” by the Beatles. Another example is what happened to James Watson, who dreamed of two snakes coiling around each other, a revelation that would become his DNA model for which he would win the Nobel Prize.
