07 August 2023 , 15:01
697
0
As you wake up from a dream, it can feel like a bizarre and surreal moment, trying to convince yourself that what just happened wasn't true. Dreaming is something we all do - but sometimes dreams can reoccur and they're a good telltale as to what's going on in our subconscious mind. Sleep experts and psychologists can spend hours analysing dreams and what they really mean and it can take you a while to shake off the memories of what happened - leaving us wondering what the meaning behind it was.
Sleep experts at MattressNextDay have revealed what the most common dream we have is, and after conducting a large-scale study and analysing dream-related Google searches. They have found that Brits' most common dream is thinking their teeth have fallen out - most commonly to happen in April.
Whilst we might forget most of our dreams once we wake up, thought to be because of what happens to us during the rapid eye movement sleep stage (REM). Dreaming of your teeth falling out has been the one to keep people up and Googling what it can mean. Other common dreams we may have are - falling into a hole, being chased, being naked in public and being chased too.
Commenting on this, the dreams expert Inbaal Honigman explained: "Teeth are a sign of life's ages and stages. We are born with none, go through two sets in childhood and adulthood, and start to lose them again in old age. Dreaming about losing teeth is natural since it's a rite of passage that we've all gone through. It's a dream that symbolises loss, like leaving a relationship behind or even moving house."
It's estimated we can dream up to six times a night, for up to two hours a time, and f you're curious about delving deeper into dreams and working out what they might mean, a dream decoder and spirituality expert has shared her top tips for doing just this with The Mirror.
Housebound ex-serviceman enjoys special window visit from physio's horse
Theresa Cheung has been researching and writing about dreams for the last 25 years and is best known for her book, The Dream Dictionary. She believes that dream 'decoding' can be like a "free form of therapy" as it allows you space to understand yourself better.
"The first way to interpret them is to ask yourself how does this scenario make you feel and the purpose of that is to help you understand yourself better. All counselling and therapy try to do is to help you understand who you are - and your dreams are doing that for free every single night.
"The big stumbling block people have is that they don't understand their dreams because dreams speak in a different language and the first task you have to do is try and work it out. The language is very basic to who we are as human beings, it's all symbols and metaphors and figurative language association."