Giant Horror Rabbit at Thorpe Park

Last night I had a dream that I had to choose whether I was going to go on Strictly Come Dancing, or Dancing on Ice.

This was unusual for a number of reasons:
a) I can't dance.
b) Usually my dreams involve me accidentally killing someone's pet and then going on holiday.
c) I don't watch Dancing on Ice.
d) When I had the riveting morning conversation with my father his voice took on a grave quality as he said, 'I hope you chose Strictly.'

I thought that instead of recounting the dream to you (because that would be so interesting) I thought I'd do a bit of research into dreams. Because they're weird and can give you the willies (a term I've never used before and hopefully never will again).

The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology and it has been scientifically proven that all mammals dream. We know that dreams have been a sort of fascination for humans over the years- philosophy, science, ice breakers- but I think it's strange to think that all mammals dream. If you were a sloth, what would you dream about? Or a cat? Cats get up to 16 hours of sleep a day (the lucky buggers)- and seeing as people spend an average of about two hours dreaming a night (and dreams almost always occur) you'd think that the feline subconscious had run out of stuff to talk about.

And as it turns out, males and females actually dream about pretty much the same things (which is boring, but hey ho). A survey showed that 73% of men and 74% of women have dreamed of falling.

Our ideas about dreaming have changed over time. Whilst now you may only sit there pretending to listen as your husband (with his monstrously bad morning breath) details how he went on a roller coaster with Frank from Donnie Darko and ate a banana and ham sandwich, if you were living in the Greek or Roman periods you'd think it was either a direct message from the Gods, or from the dead (spooky). 


A Hungarian psychoanalyst by the name of Sándor Ferenczi (died 1933) proposed that the dream, when told may communicate something that is not being said outright. For example, as you husband recounts his giant horror rabbit unusual sandwich escapades at Thorpe Park, you may say, 'I had a dream last night too. And you were there. And it was 6am- very early: morning. And you were eating horse poo. Strange, huh?' 


A small minority of people say they only dream in black and white. These are probably the hipsters of the dream world. Because coloured dreams are way too mainstream.