• The melody for the Beatles' song "Yesterday" came to Paul McCartney in a dream in 1965. "I liked the melody a lot," he said, "but because I'd dreamed it, I couldn't believe I'd written it."
• Author Stephen King gets many of the ideas for his novels from his dreams. "I've always used dreams the way you'd use mirrors to look at something you couldn't see headon."
• German psychologist Paul Tholey trained the German Olympic ski jumping team to rehearse new moves in their dreams to avoid the risk of injur y.

Almost ever yone has dreams (or nightmares) like these from time to time. About 90 minutes after falling asleep, our eyes move back and forth under our eyelids and we begin a light sleep called REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. The body's heart rate and blood pressure increase, muscles relax, breathing becomes rapid and shallow, the brain becomes more active, and we dream. While dreaming in REM sleep, our bodies are essentially paralyzed by the body's release of glycerine from the brain stem. Scientists believe this paralysis happens so that we don't, for example, kick out during a soccer-themed dream.

We all dream several times a night, as we cycle between REM and NREM (non-REM) sleep. Most dreams last between five and 30 minutes. Whether we remember dreaming or not, we usually experience four to six dreams each night, which averages two hours of dreaming. (We forget between 95 and 99 percent of our dreams.) Although scientists don't understand exactly why we dream, they believe REM sleep is especially important for memory, learning, and processing and organizing experiences.

INTERPRETING DREAMS
In one of the most famous dreams in the Torah, Yaakov saw “a ladder…and behold, angels of God went up and down on it; and behold, God was standing over him” (Bereishit 28:12–13). The angels climbing up and down the ladder represent the nations of the world that have risen in power, oppressed us throughout history, and then fallen. The dream, however, inspires hope because it communicates God’s eternal promise to protect Yaakov and Am Yisrael.