One night you're battling demons, and the next you're were having a fight with your best friend, somewhere along the way you remember standing in condensed-milk rain. Share a dream with someone and you begin to sound like you were cast in a hilarious unscripted reality show.

Teneille, a sixth-former at Signal Hill Secondary thinks it happens to her too often. Her dreams are so real she can even return to them if her sleep is interrupted during the night.

"All five senses are active when I dream ... I can smell, taste, feel. Some scare me so bad, I don't stick when it comes to wondering about and finding out their meaning. I remember dropping to my knees and praying after I had terrible, terrible dreams."

There are others, she said, that are just pointless and pathetic. While she does not think all her dreams hold a message, Teneille said they have made her much more careful about her words, actions and thoughts during the day.

Dreams can be weird, fantastic and creative all at the same time. Every night, scenes not yet captured by the best Hollywood directors make it to the big screen in your head. Researchers say on average, a person spends at least 20 percent of their sleep in rapid eye movement (REM), where dreaming takes place. Signals travel from the base of the brain to an area responsible for memory and learning, which is why familiar scenes are often a feature of life in dreamland.

Dreams have a way of invading your most peaceful hours, yet some disappear as quickly as the darkness at sunrise.

The ebb and flow of a person's sleep pattern allows a person to have more than one dream during REM sleep. REM usually occurs every 90 minutes in a sleep cycle.

Freudian psychologists are particularly interested in those dreams that create an intense emotional response. They work along with patients to discover whether there are any messages in their dreams taking into account their history and experiences.

According to psychologist Marcia Tappin-Boxill, a person is more likely to remember a dream if it has some significance. Nightmares in particular, can come from unresolved trauma from the past or having some deep hidden fears which then becomes a part of your dream life.

"It has to do with recall. Dreams are subjective, for instance, one person can dream one thing and it can mean something different to them. We don't have a listing of particular characterizations to assume what it is," Tappin-Boxill said.

If you awoke suddenly, covered in perspiration or hyperventilating, these could be signs of some type of trauma revisited, said the psychologist of over 15 years.

The best way to stop having disturbing dreams is to resolve the problem with a trained professional or by addressing the fear personally. Essentially, this is what the mind tries to do in a sleep state, she added.

One pioneer in sleep research put it like this, "Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of the week" and it is probably why most people get a mix of confusion, embarrassment, and excitement when they wake up and remember where their mind might have taken them the night before.

Renaldo Matamoro, a sixth-former at CIC, said his dreams do not come easily.  Occasionally, when he does, it's something so out of character he wonders if it has anything to do with his love for rap music.

"When I dream is usually something freaky like running from the police, to getting stab."

St. James Secondary fourth-former LaTisha Parkinson said her dreams sometimes go beyond her experiences. Once she dreamt she'd lost a seven-year-old son and awoke in tears.

"It was the most painful thing ever ... I felt very sad for the whole day."

But sometimes, a person can actually see their dream come true in a matter of days. Bishop Anstey East fourth-former, Chantelle Duncan said her dreams sometimes give her a vision of the not too distant future and can make her cautious or eager for the outcome in the days that follow. She said her déjà vu also points back to her dreams.

But some dreams are just a series of random images. If you can't remember dreaming it could mean the images flashing during your sleep lacked a recognizable pattern, or that your sleep did not reach the REM phase. The non-dreamer usually awakes feeling less rested than someone who has slept and dreamt.

In TT, the ability to remember a dream is crucial to the popular game Play Whe. The most outrageous dream will not set off an outburst of laughter or embarrassment but instead, serves as a clue to the 'mark' for the day.

Some dream interpretations are more universally known. Often they relate to a pregnancy/birth, death or marriage. A wedding means someone will die and fish means someone is pregnant.

Verne Titte said his friends told him dreaming a river of cool aid meant his life was sweet, while sixth-former Brandon Ragbirsingh said dreams of a baby's sex before it is born are usually spot on.

For the superstitious, dreams of snakes are held as a sign of a lurking enemy and telling your dream to someone will prevent it from coimng true.

Chelsea Bhajan said for a long time she believed it to be true.

"When I was younger I had a dream that I came third in SEA and I was so excited I told my Daddy but then it didn't come true and I always thought it was because I told him," she said.

As a Christian, psychologist Tappin-Boxill, said she understands the value people place on the metaphysical when it comes to interpreting dreams. The Bible recounts instances where God used dreams to speak to man, she said. It is an area she is not likely to dismiss entirely.

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