Dreaming About Kids’ Dream Sleep

I’ve been wondering how it is to sleep like a baby…literally. When you look at them, especially the infants, they seem to look like angels when sleeping…so calm, peaceful and quiet. This is why simply watching a baby sleep can instantly touch your heart and bring out a sweet smile on your face.

I’ve been actually thinking about what is going on with them as they sleep? Do they experience the same experience that we, adults go through as we sleep? This is why when I went with my sister and niece to the pediatrician, I had this impulse to ask a lot of questions that have been crossing my head eversince.

First thing that I brought up is - “do infants dream, or does dreaming start at a certain age?” My little hypothesis is yes, they do dream because often, you can see them smile as they sleep and I find it so innocently cute. However, I also thought that for infants who are yet to be exposed to the world, what will they dream about? Surprisingly, the doctor said that infants do dream. Young babies in fact have more dreaming periods than adults do. If with adults, 25% of the sleeping time is spent on dreaming, full term infants spend of 50% of their time for this. Premature infants even have more – for them its 80%. As a the baby grows up reaching the age of 3, it drops to 33%.

So what about the dream? With adults, all I know is that dreams are inspired by previous experiences and unconscious desires that are also driven by past experiences. I feel that it largely depends on what we have been exposed to…so how would it be for infants? Logically, I was thinking about the amniotic fluid, placenta and the nearby organs that they’ve been exposed to for 9 months when hypothesizing about the content of their dream. Experts say that no one can exactly know what babies dream about because they cannot verbalize it yet at that stage but they say that it can be event or sensation worth crying or smiling about or is meaningful to dream about. Some of the pleasant experiences that babies can dream of are parents’ faces, the contentment of a full tummy, a warm bath, and memories of playing and laughing. According to studies, dream periods are actually more vivid and active for them.

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