Dreaming is the subjective experience of remembered and imaginary images, sounds/voices, words, thoughts or sensations during sleep, usually not being able to influence this. The scientific discipline of dream research is oneirology. Dreaming has been associated with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, a lighter form of sleep that occurs during the latter portion of the sleep cycle, characterized by rapid horizontal eye movements, stimulation of the pons, increased respiratory and heart rate, and temporary paralysis of the body. However, this association has been questioned since it may be that dream recall after REM sleep is common and because dreams are more easily recalled after waking from light REM sleep.

It also occurs in other phases of sleep, though dream recall is more difficult. Hypnogogia, which occurs spontaneously during the approach to sleep, is thought to be related to dreaming. Dreams are also associated with male erection about as frequently as with REM sleep.

Dreams are full of imagery. This imagery ranges from the banal to the surreal; in fact, dreams often provoke artistic and other forms of inspiration. Forms of dreams include the frightening or upsetting nightmare, and erotic dreams with sexual images and nocturnal emission.

Most scientists believe that dreams occur in all humans with about equal frequency per amount of sleep. Therefore, if individuals feel that they did not dream or that they only had one dream in any given night, it is because their memory of the dream has faded. This "memory erasure" aspect of the dream state is mostly found when a person naturally awakes via a smooth transition from REM sleep through delta sleep to the awake state.

If an individual proceeds through the delta state after REM sleep, forgetting the dream that accompanied REM sleep is more likely. On the other hand, if a person is awoken directly from REM sleep (e.g. by an alarm clock), they are much more likely to remember the dream from that REM cycle. Still, it is most likely that not all dreams will be remembered because they occur in REM cycles, which are interrupted by periods of delta sleep which in turn have a tendency to cause the memory of previous dreams to fade.

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