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Surprise! The Most Common Dream of All
The most common dream of all isn't the one where you're naked in the middle of a crowd. And it's not the one about missing the final exam after you forgot to attend class the entire semester. The most common dream of all is about being chased, according to Veronica Tonay, a clinical psychologist and lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz who has spent years studying other people's dreams.
"Sometimes people will have lots of dreams about being chased, and they will think that means something terrible about them," Tonay told ABC News columnist Lee Dye. "Typically, people have a dream where someone or something is coming after them, and they don't know what it is," she says. "Later, they will have a dream in which they see who it is, and still later they recognize it as someone they know."
The meaning of the dream: Very often in "the chase" dream, there is a scene that has nothing to do with reliving the past or the approach of some dreadful encounter. The dream might be repeated during the night, changing slightly each time. And as the dream evolves, Tonay says it can lead us to dream about ourselves acting in a way we don't ordinarily act. That is, it's not a dream about someone trying to get us. It's a dream about ourselves. "There's some part of themselves that they are not in touch with or they are trying to deny, and it's coming after them," she told ABC News.
Our dreams are very complex and often reveal the fears and phobias in our lives. But Tonay says they are rarely as sinister as they may seem at first glance. "Dreams are extremely useful. They're messages from yourself, really," she explained to ABC News. "Nobody really knows why we dream, but it's obviously a necessary biological process because we all do it, every one of us, and it might have some survival purpose behind it."
The most common dream of all isn't the one where you're naked in the middle of a crowd. And it's not the one about missing the final exam after you forgot to attend class the entire semester. The most common dream of all is about being chased, according to Veronica Tonay, a clinical psychologist and lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz who has spent years studying other people's dreams.
"Sometimes people will have lots of dreams about being chased, and they will think that means something terrible about them," Tonay told ABC News columnist Lee Dye. "Typically, people have a dream where someone or something is coming after them, and they don't know what it is," she says. "Later, they will have a dream in which they see who it is, and still later they recognize it as someone they know."
The meaning of the dream: Very often in "the chase" dream, there is a scene that has nothing to do with reliving the past or the approach of some dreadful encounter. The dream might be repeated during the night, changing slightly each time. And as the dream evolves, Tonay says it can lead us to dream about ourselves acting in a way we don't ordinarily act. That is, it's not a dream about someone trying to get us. It's a dream about ourselves. "There's some part of themselves that they are not in touch with or they are trying to deny, and it's coming after them," she told ABC News.
Our dreams are very complex and often reveal the fears and phobias in our lives. But Tonay says they are rarely as sinister as they may seem at first glance. "Dreams are extremely useful. They're messages from yourself, really," she explained to ABC News. "Nobody really knows why we dream, but it's obviously a necessary biological process because we all do it, every one of us, and it might have some survival purpose behind it."