Dreams have always fascinated man. Ancient priests consulted oracles and shrines for guidance to make sense of dreams. Our ancestors believed that dreams were messages from the gods, and interpreters of dreams were visited much as doctors are today. Times may have changed, but the fascination of dreams remains. Many famous people have put forward theories of dream interpretation. Sigmund Freud thought that much of what we dream is in some way sexual. Carl Jung recognized that man has other deep desires to drive him. In his fascinating book An Experiment with Time, Professor Dunne put forward the idea that all time is like a river and can be navigated backwards or forwards in the vessel of dreams.

Sleep is the road to dreamland. On average, we sleep a third of each day; by the time we're 75, we have slept for 25 years - and dreamt for 10. That's a lot of dreaming! Recent studies show that dreams take place in a real-life time span. Simple things like shopping or eating take just as long in a dream as they do in reality. In more complicated dreams, however, you simply see the edited highlights. Studies show that it's possible to dream with your eyes open, when the brain becomes overloaded with the toxins created by fatigue. In extreme exhaustion, when someone succumbs to the need for sleep, the dream can be cut short by a built-in desire to survive, for example, if he started dreaming at the wheel.

When we fall asleep each night, a complex series of changes in our consciousness occurs. Deepest sleep comes upon us almost immediately, followed by a shorter period of lighter sleep in which our eyeballs dart beneath closed lids. This period of Rapid Eye Movement or REM is when we dream. It happens about five times in an eight hour period. We usually wake up after the last one, and naturally these are the dreams we remember the best. There is some evidence that women dream for longer periods than men. Perhaps they simply enjoy there dreams more!