Sleep and dreams:
the real faux

Sleep myths are persistent, and for good reason: most contain a grain of truth. They're not repeated out of stupidity, but because they describe something real, poorly explained. Here are ten of them, with the verdict, then the explanation.

None of these beliefs deserves mockery of those who hold them. Many, I believed them myself.

i.“Some people never dream”

Everyone dreams, including people who claim they never see anything at night. What varies is not the dream: it's the souvenir. For a dream to be remembered, the information must pass into long-term memory, which requires not falling back asleep immediately.

The consequence is counterintuitive, and reassuring: good sleepers remember fewer dreams. Saying 'I never dream' often signals good quality sleep, not a lack of it. Recall, however, can be trained: keep a journal, wake up a little earlier to emerge from a REM phase, take thirty seconds before moving.

ii.“You can catch up on sleep on the weekend”

After a few short nights, sleeping more does indeed recover some of the fatigue. The feeling of being recharged is not an illusion.

On the other hand, a chronic debt, established over months or years, is not resolved by sleeping in. And the shift of several hours on Saturday disorients the circadian rhythm, which must then readjust. Regularity trumps compensation.

iii.“A full moon prevents sleep”

Some studies note a slight decrease in sleep quality on those nights. The effect is weak, not systematic, and two explanations are enough to account for it, neither of which is magical.

• Light. Especially in the countryside, especially without shutters. It disrupts the secretion of melatonin, the hormone that signals nighttime.
• The nocebo effect. Expecting to sleep poorly is often enough to sleep poorly. You watch, you check the time, you get annoyed.

That takes nothing away from what the lune represents for those who time their actions by it. Here, on the farm, we sow by it. Simply, what one observes in a garden and what one measures in a sleep lab do not match up.

iv.“It is dangerous to wake a sleepwalker”

No danger. The person will be disoriented for a few moments, exactly like anyone pulled from deep sleep, then they'll come to their senses. It's best to gently guide you back in bed rather than shaking it.

The real risk was never waking up: it's the environment. Stairs, windows, front doors. That's where attention is needed, not in the fear of saying a word.

v.“Sleep before midnight counts double”

There is nothing magical about midnight, and your biological clock doesn't consult yours. What is true, however, is that the deep slow-wave sleep, the most restorative, concentrates in early night. Going to bed early mechanically gives you more deep sleep.

The right way to put it is: these are the first hours of votre night that matter most, regardless of the time on the clock. A night worker follows the same rule, with a shift.

vi."A glass of alcohol helps you sleep"

Alcohol makes falling asleep easier, which perfectly explains the belief: immediate experience confirms it. The problem comes later, when no one is looking.

It suppresses REM sleep in the first part of the night, then triggers a rebound effect : awakenings, agitated dreams, fragmented sleep in the second half. You fall asleep faster and sleep less well. The night's balance is negative.

vii.“Screens in the evening keep you from sleeping”

Light, especially blue light, delays melatonin secretion. This is established, and it's the part everyone knows.

The nuance is often forgotten, and it weighs at least as heavily: the contenu. A news feed, a gripping series, or a lively discussion maintain cognitive wakefulness long after the screen is off. A warm light filter on exciting content therefore doesn't fix much.

viii.“Dreaming of losing your teeth foretells a death”

No data supports this belief, which is nonetheless one of the most widespread and anxiety-inducing. Stating it clearly helps: dreaming of losing your dents doesn't predict anything at all.

Reasonable readings are elsewhere. This motif is often linked to anxiety about appearance and the gaze of others, or to a period of transition. The neurologist Isabelle Arnulf, who heads the sleep disorders department at Pitié-Salpêtrière, suggests a more subtle clue: the motif would refer to sensations experienced around six or eight years old, with the loss of baby teeth, a moment when you lose a part of yourself while growing. In adults, it could be linked to the feeling of aging.

And what if the dream is about a fragile loved one? The rational explanation is that you may have unconsciously perceived this fragility. The dream follows the perception, it doesn't precede it.

ix.“Lucid dreaming is esotericism”

This is perhaps the most important point on this list. The lucid dream, the fact of knowing you're dreaming while you're dreaming, is lab-verified since the 1970s-80s and has been the subject of scientific publications.

The demonstration is ingenious. In REM sleep, the body is paralyzed, but the eye muscles continue to function. A sleeper who has become lucid can therefore execute a pre-agreed sequence of eye movements, which appears on the recording. Keith Hearne, a British researcher, obtained the first documented report in the mid-1970s; Stephen LaBerge, psychophysiologist at Stanford, publishes and popularizes the method around 1980. The term itself is older: the Dutch psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden forged it in 1913.

What belongs to belief are certain interpretations given to it (astral travel, shared worlds), not the phenomenon.

x.“You can get stuck in a dream”

The experience of false awakening in a row is truly unsettling: you get up, make coffee, wake up, get up again, and it starts over. Some people have three or four in a row.

But the episode is bounded. You always end up waking up. Stress and stimulants taken in the evening (caffeine, nicotine) encourage these loops, and that's often where you should start if they come back often.

xi.How to sort yourself

Since new ones will always circulate, here is the method I apply. First, search who says it and in what capacity: a neurologist who runs a sleep department and an anonymous website don't carry the same weight. Then, distinguish three statuses: what is established (muscle atonia, the existence of lucid dreaming), which is research hypothesis (the dream fabricated at micro-awakening, threat simulation), and what pertains to the croyance. Confusing the three is the most common mistake.

Finally, be wary of claims that promise a single meaning. There is no universal dream dictionary: the same symbol can mean opposite things depending on the person who dreamed it. What our dictionary offers are leads, never verdicts.