Patrick McNamara, associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine, spoke about the most common dreams in men, women and children, explaining how our dreams change with age. The scientist also writes that people with disabilities can usually walk and hear in their sleep, Aeon reports.
According to a study by the American, women equally often dream of people of both sexes, but men are much more likely to see other men in their dreams. McNamara notes that our most vivid dreams are during REM sleep. The plots of such visions are usually intense and even aggressive. They contain many references to childhood.
This is partly due to the fact that REM sleep is characterized by increased brain activity and rapid eye movements. In the morning the duration of "action episodes" can reach 45 minutes, which is comparable to the duration of a series of TV shows.
McNamara writes that the most emotionally intense dreams we see in childhood. Kids often dream of relatives and peers, and in nightmares they see monsters and scary animals. In adolescence, dreams begin to resemble a kind of romantic comedy: a person dreams of friends and lovers. Interestingly, social connections between them may not be built in the same way as in life.
In adulthood, a person often dreams about creativity and various daily activities. The elderly dream of otherworldly forces and loved ones who have passed away.
It is interesting that the dreams of paralyzed, deaf-dumb or people with disabilities are practically no different from those of healthy people. Patients told doctors that they could hear, speak, walk, run, swim, and even fly in their sleep.
