How Long Do Dreams Last?

Dreams have a way of distorting your sense of time. An adult can dream between four and six times a night, and every dream lasts between 5 and 45 minutes. Some estimates suggest we dream for only 90 minutes a night.

There is no way to determine if a person is sleeping apart from our bodily responses while at rest: rapid eye movement, an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, quick shallow breaths, and fluctuating body temperatures.

In this article, we discuss the sleep cycle and when you dream. We also explore why we don’t remember our dreams and why we dream.

What is a Dream?

For the sake of clarity, when we say the word dream, we’re referring to the vivid dreams people experience during REM sleep or Rapid Eye Movement where the body is paralyzed, but the brain remains relatively active.

The truth is, we don’t know why we dream.

There is Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams, which suggests dreams are our brain’s way of warning us of something going on in our real lives. A recurring bad dream could indicate there is something wrong in your real life, and different dreams with recurring themes can show a subconscious desire, motivation, or thought.

Mostly, you shouldn’t worry about recurring dreams; however, recurring negative vivid dreams can cause sleep deprivation and other health problems such as day time sleepiness, mood problems, not wanting to sleep, suicidal thoughts, or suicide attempts.

Psychology Today states some scientists believe dreams exist to “process intense emotion” or consolidate a day’s information and store it for long term memory. Calvin S. Hall, Ph.D., collected over 50,000 dreams from college students and determined it was common for a sleeper to experience intense emotion when they dream.

Lucid Dreams

A lucid dream is one where you’re aware that you’re dreaming. Research indicates that lucid dreaming is accompanied by heightened activity in brain regions that are typically quiet during sleep.

Lucid dreaming exists in a state between REM sleep and wakefulness.
Some lucid dreamers can control their dreams, altering the narrative, so to speak.

While this can be a useful approach, especially during a nightmare, many dream experts suggest that it’s better to allow your dreams to unfold naturally.

Nightmares

Nightmares are dreams that evoke feelings of fear, anxiety, or sadness. You might wake up feeling terrified or even crying. But remember, it’s just a bad dream, and even unsettling dreams have value.

They can help release negative emotions, easing tension in your waking life.
If you repeatedly experience the same nightmare, your subconscious might be trying to communicate something important. Pay attention to it.

If you’re unable to understand why you’re having these nightmares, consider speaking with a mental health professional. They can help you identify the root cause and provide strategies to help you feel more at ease.

No matter how frightening a nightmare may seem, remember that it’s not real and is unlikely to happen in reality.

Duration and Impact of Nightmares

Can you recall experiencing a nightmare? According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, between 50 and 85 percent of adults report having had a nightmare at some point.

There isn’t a clear consensus on how long a typical nightmare lasts, but experts observe that nightmares generally occur during the later stages of REM sleep, often in the final third of the night.

Women are more likely than men to report having nightmares. Various factors, including stress, anxiety, and certain medications, can contribute to their occurrence.

While anyone can have an occasional, heart-pounding nightmare, some individuals experience frequent episodes of nightmare-filled sleep.

These nightmares can sometimes be linked to PTSD, though others might not have an obvious cause.

Nightmare disorders are relatively uncommon: About 4 percent of adults are affected, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. However, research indicates that up to 71 percent of individuals who have experienced trauma may suffer from recurring nightmares.

Fortunately, there are treatment options available for those with nightmare disorder, such as image rehearsal therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. If you believe you might be affected, it’s advisable to consult your doctor.

Does Everyone Experience Dreams?

Just as everyone sleeps, dreaming is a nearly universal experience. While some individuals claim they don’t dream, scientists find it challenging to determine whether this is due to poor dream recall or an actual inability to dream. Brain damage to the parietal lobe can prevent the formation of dreams.

In young children, dream reports tend to develop alongside their memory and sense of self. As people age, many older adults spend less time in REM sleep and often find it harder to remember their dreams.

For those who are blind, dreams may feature a higher proportion of sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations rather than visual imagery.

What Influences the Length of Dreams?

Studies suggest that REM dreams tend to be longer than those that occur during NREM sleep. REM dreams are also more likely to be bizarre, emotional, and narrative-driven, while NREM dreams are often less detailed and resemble fragmented thoughts, though there are exceptions.

As the night progresses, dream reports generally become more detailed. In one study, participants were awakened after five or 10 minutes of REM sleep, both earlier and later in the night.

How long do dreams last? The longest and most complex dream stories were reported after 10 minutes of REM sleep later in the night, with some individuals even describing dreams that were divided into different episodes.

Why Do Dreams Seem to Last Longer?

How long do dreams last? Researchers have proposed several theories to explain why dreams often feel longer than they actually are.

One theory suggests that brain activity during REM sleep might be slower compared to waking life due to the brain being at a lower temperature, causing dream sequences to unfold at a slower pace.

Another theory is that, although most muscles are paralyzed during REM sleep, the brain understands that some actions require more effort than others.

Without feedback from the muscles, the brain compensates by allocating more time to actions it perceives as physically demanding. Supporting this theory, a study found that lucid dreamers took proportionally longer to do squats than to perform a simple counting exercise.

However, the findings are mixed, and further research is needed.

Sleep Cycle

Sleep cycles last about 90 minutes. An adult should get about five to six sleep cycles a night for a total of seven to nine hours of sleep.

In a sleep cycle, you go through three NREM (or non-REM) sleep stages before getting to one REM stage of sleep, which is when you typically dream complex ideas, though simpler dreams in NREM sleep are possible.

“While dreaming is a universal human experience, we still know little about how and why we dream,” says Dr.Nayantara Santhi. “Of course studies looking at brain activity during dreaming are beginning to offer insights.

During the early stages of dream research, it was thought that dreaming occurred only during REM sleep, but we now know that it also occurs during NREM sleep.”

The first stage of NREM sleep takes place a few minutes after falling asleep and lasts for about five to ten minutes. During this stage, your eye movement will slow, and your body will fall into a relaxed state. Stage one is the light form of sleep. Quiet noises, movement, and bright light can wake you.

During the second stage of NREM sleep, you are harder to wake. You could come back to alertness if you were to hear a loud noise, although you would wake up feeling drowsy. During this stage, your brain activity slows down.

The third stage of NREM sleep marks the beginning of deep sleep. Your eyes are still, your muscles are inactive, and you won’t respond to stimuli within the room, making it harder to wake.

REM sleep makes up 20 percent of our sleep. REM sleep can last between 5 and 45 minutes, with each REM cycle longer than the last. Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, a dream expert and author, said, “The first dream of the night is about five minutes long, and the last dream you have before awakening can be 45 minutes to an hour long.”

A sleeper in REM sleep won’t wake easily. Your muscles and eyes do not move during this stage, although your body is working to repair tissue damage.

Dream Recall

We dream as we sleep, yet some people remember their dream better than others— about 95% of sleepers forget their dreams. Sleep deprivation can greatly influence how much of your dream you remember, as lack of sleep decreases the time spent in REM sleep.

Strategies for Dream Recall

If you’re a deep sleeper who doesn’t wake up until morning, you may find it harder to recall your dreams compared to those who wake up multiple times during the night. Here are some tips to help you remember your dreams:

• Wake up naturally to enhance dream recall.
• Set an intention before bed to remember your dreams.
• Reflect on your dream immediately after waking to aid later recall.

Understanding Your Dreams

If you’re interested in exploring your dreams or uncovering their possible meanings, consider starting a dream journal.

• Keep a notebook by your bed to record dreams immediately after waking.
• Write down every detail and emotion without judgment.
• Assign a title to each dream for easy reference and insight.

Are Dreams a Glimpse Into the Future?

There are instances where dreams seem to predict real-life events. When this happens, experts suggest it’s usually because of:

• Coincidence
• Bad memory
• Unconscious connections with information you already know
• However, dreams can sometimes inspire actions that might influence future outcomes.

Interesting Facts About Sleep

• Blind people may experience visual imagery in their dreams.
• The paralysis experienced during REM sleep may carry over into wakefulness, particularly if a sleeper is suddenly awakened. While this sleep paralysis is normal during REM sleep, it’s considered a disorder when it persists outside of it.
• Many of the same kinds of dreams are experienced by people from different walks of life and cultures. People often dream of someone chasing or attacking them, falling, arriving late, or flying.
• Some people become aware that they are dreaming. This is called lucid dreaming, which is when the sleeper is caught in a brain state between REM sleep and wakefulness.
• Daydreaming is a real thing. REM sleep isn’t needed—just an active imagination and contemplation.

Conclusion

There are more theories about dreaming than there are facts.

If you can’t remember your dreams but want to, we suggest going to bed with a sleep journal on your bedside table and focus on getting good sleep; however, there’s a chance you won’t remember all your dream content as you can have an average of four to six dreams in a single night.