The mystery behind recurring dreams and nightmares

We all dream but some of us have a specific dream or nightmare over and over again - a new study tries to find out why.

Calvin Kai-Ching Yu out to analyse not only what dreams are most common, but also what dreams recur regularly, reports Discovery News.

The most common dream is being chased. Teeth falling out, losing control of a vehicle, flying and not being able to find a toilet make up about half of the most commonly recurring dream themes.

But dreams also have a darker side. Traits common in psychotic and schizophrenic patients, such as delusions of grandiosity, persecution and religion, are very common in dreams.
 
In fact, delusions such as "being tracked" and "becoming a celebrity" occurred more prevalently than common dream motifs such as "teeth falling out" and the classic "being nude."

Yu also found that over 80% participants had the age-old school/teacher/studying trope. Over half of the sample also repeatedly dreamed of "searching for a certain place" and "falling."

"Eating delicious foods" was the fifth most regularly dreamed theme, higher ranked than flying or being chased.

The study found that dream prevalence, recurrence and regularity do not always correspond. On the contrary, most had never dreamed of being physically attacked, but those who had were regularly dreaming of it. Likewise, "teeth falling out" rated significantly higher on regularity than on prevalence or recurrence.

One half of participants had dreamt of having a love affair with a celebrity. Romance trumps sex here, because only 22%dreamed of having a sexual relationship with a celebrity.