The 10 types of dreams (and their characteristics)

We spend a good part of our life 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 as an acquaintance of theirs, others who have had premonitions or that a relative who went to the afterlife has shown him in his dream world to ask him to finish his last wills.

We could make a practically infinite list of different kinds 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.

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What are dreams and how can they be classified?

We spend about 25 years of our life sleeping. Of all that time we sleep, it is inevitable that at some point we dream, being the estimate 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, 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 very active.

Our sleep is divided into two phases: REM and non-REM phase. The REM phase (“rapid eyes movements”) is 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 it for the first time about 90 minutes after falling asleep. In contrast, the non-REM phase represents about 75% of sleep cycles and is the phase without rapid eye movements.

It is during the REM phase that 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 REM phase we forget or retain information that has been captured during wakefulness, information with which we can dream.

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 are also sources of mystery and great questions, something that has been what has motivated some people to try to interpret them, while science is not very optimistic about whether they really have a real meaning.

The diversity of dreams that we can have is immense, since by relying on our imagination, we can dream of anything, any situation, and anyone. We can be both protagonists of our dreams and make it another person, real or invented, who takes center stage. Whatever we dream of, the truth is that dreams can be classified according to how they occur and their nature. We can talk about different types of dreams, which are the ones we will see below.

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The 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 are presented to us while we slept.

1. Conventional dreams

Conventional dreams are those most common, those that deal with issues of our daily life or that interest us. People, experiences and things that are part of our day to day take center stage, despite the fact that when we get up, we generally forget their content.

We may dream of our family, of going on a trip to a new place, flying, being chased, taking a math test. of the ESO... anything and situation can appear in them, but they have in common that they are more or less conventional situations, typical.

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2. Recurring dreams

Recurring dreams are those that are repeated several times, both on the same night and on different nights.

These are curious daydreams that are experienced more or less exactly the same over and over again, repeating the same actions, being the same people and having the same situations each time. They are not always exact copies of each other, but the degree of alteration is usually miniscule.

3. Nightmares

The nigthmares They are unpleasant dreams in which situations of danger, panic and discomfort can appear. For this reason, they constitute one of the most popular types of dreams.

We do not like having these types of dreams, something evidenced in the strongly negative emotional response they generate, especially in the form of fear, sadness and anxiety. They are dreams that induce us to have terror ...

What causes them is very varied, but among the main causes we have experienced traumatic events, being sick, having eaten a large dinner, having bad eating habits, sleeping little, being on medication or suffering from a disorder of the sleep. They can also appear without apparent cause and, if we have nightmares very occasionally, we should not worry because everyone has them at times.

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4. Lucid dreaming

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 that we are dreaming, although this is not always thus and, surprising as it may seem, we can train and practice the ability to turn our dreams into lucid ones.

It is striking to know that there are people who have dreams so lucid that it is not that they are simply conscious that they are dreaming, but they can also control the dream, what it goes about and what they do while they are dreaming it. During lucid dreams we can control our body, thoughts and events within the dream.

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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 a while since we had the dream, what we dream seems to have come true.

They are dreams that one could well say mystical, paranormal, visions that predict the future although science is more in favor of consider that it is simply a coincidence, that we have dreamed of something and then it has happened as it might not have happened done.

There are those who say that more than being prophecies, what actually happens is that our subconscious prepares for something that is probably going to happen, without our realizing it. Our subconscious "speaks" to us in dreams causing us to dream about it and, after a while, what we had anticipated would most likely happen happens.

But precognitive dreams aren't the only seemingly paranormal dreams said to exist. There are many people who report having mystical experiences while sleeping, in which claimed that they had tuned into other people's minds or been visited by specters of the another world. Among these we have:

• Telepathic dreams: dreaming that they communicate with us, be it a person or something.
• Shared dreams: that two or more people dream of 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 convey his will to us before leaving for the afterlife.

• Related article: "Déjà Vu: the strange sensation of living something already lived previously"

6. False awakenings

Sometimes it happens that we dream of life itself. We wake up, check the time on our cell phone, make some tea, take a shower, and bang! We find out 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 to later realize that it has actually been our subconscious that has made us a trick. They are dreams in which we dream that we wake up. Curious, right?

7. Daydreams

The "daydreams" ("day dreams" in English) 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 he perceives the immediate reality in a diluted way, as if he were having a very 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 alien 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, either through telepathy, telekinesis or the gift magical. Are dreams that express our desire to be able to help others, of curing life-threatening diseases or wanting to solve a problem, disorder or disease that we are suffering from.

9. Metaphorical dreams

Metaphorical dreams, also called symbolic dreams, are those daydreams that represent something of our life in the form of a situation that represents it, but not directly. For example, let's say a person is going through a very difficult time, in which everything is uphill. When you sleep, you may dream that you are climbing a mountain, a landform that represents the difficulties of your day to day life.

Metaphorical dreams are preferred by psychological and parapsychological currents who consider that dreams can be interpreted. In fact, those who are in favor of the interpretation of dreams consider as metaphorical dreams almost anything we dream about. Everyone is free to believe if what we dream really has some symbolism or 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, they bring with them creative ideas or the answer to our day-to-day problems for which we have not been able to find a solution while we were awake. They are dreams that, when waking up, are lived as if they had been revelations.

A famous case of this type of dream was the one experienced by Paul McCartney, who claims that one day he dreamed with 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 between them, a revelation that would become his model of the DNA for which he would win the Nobel Prize.