Personally, I am a sleep fanatic. Its one of my favorite hobbies and one that I have been too busy to pursue lately. However, we know that everyone experiences dreams while they are asleep and often remember them upon waking up. These dreams can sometimes be of events that we have experienced of people we have met or they can be the complete opposite. The privilege that we have when we dream, however, is that we can sometimes remember our dreams and discuss their content with others. But what about babies? Do babies dream even when they have no memories of events or people? I sought to answer this question as it poses an interesting topic for thought.

An article found on Live Science included information from David Foulks who is the world leading expert in pediatric dreaming. Foulks explained that if an organism can perceive reality, then it is prone to imagination and can therefore dream. However, the interesting question that is posed is do babies dream since they have a limited pool of experiences and their brains are still very immature. At this thought Foulks explained that most babies experience a dreamless sleep for the first few years of their lives.

We have all had experiences where we wake up from a dreamless sleep. However, for babies they often display REM sleep which has been proven because researchers can literally see infants rapid eye movements under their eyelids. Dr Charles Pollak described REM behavior as, “an evolutionary old type of sleep that occurs at all life stages, including infancy, and even before infancy, in fetal life.” Now that it has been established that babies do in fact dream, the next major question that I asked was what do babies dream about?

Face of sleeping baby 

In order to answer this question, Dr Pollak related it to trying to determine what your pet dog or cat dreams about. Since we obviously cannot communicate with infants, we will never truly understand or know what they are dreaming about. However, we can assume that it is most likely infantile things. There have been some studies conducted in an attempt to interpret dreams through the REM movements of the eyes. However, this is very difficult to do and only small assumption can be made. For example looking up at a building would be accompanied by vertical eye movement.

Another explanation from Life News explained that a study conducted by scientific research group Roffwarg and Associates began their research believing they would find that babies do not have REM sleep because they do not dream. However, their study led to a rejection of the null hypothesis that there was nothing there as they found that not only do babies dream but they do so on the first day of being born.

In conclusion, babies do, in fact, experience dreams in their sleep. However, they are likely not the same type of dreams that you or I experience but most likely only things an infant would recollect. Although most people understand that dreams are created from past experiences and interactions, they can also come from the simple lives of infants. Science cannot currently understand what exactly babies are dreaming about, but with the enhancement of technology, perhaps one day we can do so.