Scientists reveal why you almost never dream of smartphones

Dreams can feature any number of wild and wacky scenarios, but there is one thing you will almost never see: your smartphone.Despite spending huge parts of the day on our phones, research shows that dreamers are very rarely able to use phones or other technology.According to data from the Sleep and Dream Database, phones appear in just one to five per cent of all dreams.Even when a phone does make an appearance, the vast majority of these visions involve the phone being lost or malfunctioning in some way.This poses a serious puzzle for scientists, because our dreams are supposed to reflect the things that have happened to us in the day.Dr Kelly Bulkeley, dream researcher and director of the Sleep and Dream Database, told the Daily Mail: 'In light of the near-ubiquitous daily use of cell phones, this seems like a dramatic under-representation of cell phones in dream content.'To the extent that dream content is continuous with people's emotional concerns in waking life, this is a puzzling discontinuity.'Dreams might feature any number of wild and wacky scenarios, but people very rarely report being able to use their smartphones Scientists say that the amount of time we spend on our phones doesn't match up with how rarely they appear in our dreams (stock image) A recent analysis of 16,000 reported dreams found that phones only appear in about 3.55 per cent of women's dreams and 2.69 per cent of men's dreams.Likewise, young people tend to dream about smartphones and technology slightly more often than older people.However, even so-called 'high-frequency cell phone dreamers' are not dreaming about phones in around 95 per cent of their dreams.Compared to how often fantastical themes such as flying or being chased by monsters occur in dreams, that is a striking difference.We tend to have a strong bias towards remembering the most bizarre, novel, and emotional aspects of dreams, which might explain why phones generally don't get reported.However, when scientists try to overcome this 'recall bias' by waking people up in the middle of dreams and asking them to record what they remember, phones and tech still don't come up.How the content of our dreams is determined, and why certain things don't appear, is still a subject of active scientific research.However, there are some strong potential theories which could explain why phones tend to be absent.One explanation for that difference comes from the idea that the content of our dreams is related to emotional importance.Researchers suggest that dreams appear less frequently in dreams because we are less emotionally interested in the phones themselves than in the content on them The 13 most common dreams in the UK Falling – 53%Unable to run – 42%Partner cheating – 22%Someone dying – 21%Teeth falling out – 21% Snogging a celebrity – 20%Exam you haven't revised for – 19%Flying – 18%Friends/family being mean – 16%Being late – 15%Finding money – 14%Unable to find the toilet – 12%Naked in public – 12% Dr Bulkeley says: 'If dream content is a reliable index of emotional importance, then the answer would have to be that people generally don't feel their phones are emotionally important to them.'That seems strange to say about a device that is practically welded to most people's hands, but people don't really care about the physical object of their phones; they care about what their phones enable them to see and hear.'In a similar way, people often dream about movies or TV shows but rarely imagine themselves watching a movie or TV screens.Phones themselves simply aren't as important as the emotional connections to people and events that they allow us to have in our waking life.This might also explain why dreams about lost phones are more common than dreams about phones working correctly, since the fear of losing a phone is more emotionally impactful.'If someone dreams often of a cell phone or smartphone, I'd ask first: are they normal or problematic use dreams,' says Dr Bulkeley.'If the cell phone appears normally in the dream, it probably doesn't mean much; it's just part of the background of daily life. If there's a problem with the phone, I'd ask what aspect of myself is represented by the malfunctioning feature.'Another theory suggests that we don't dream about smartphones due to something called the 'compensation hypothesis'.Professor Caroline Holton, sleep cognition expert at Lincoln Bishop University, told the Daily Mail: 'If something happened in the day that's been troubling us, but we haven't spent enough time thinking about it, then it's probably going to come up in our dreams because it needs a bit of extra processing.'But if I've spent eight hours in front of the computer when I'm awake, I really don't need to spend any more time on it when I'm awake.' Scientists have found that the areas of the brain associated with language (red and blue) are less active while we dream, which might explain why we can't use our phones in dreams However, this doesn't explain one of the strangest things about how phones and technology pop up in our dreams.If you are one of the rare people who has dreamt about using a phone, you might have been surprised to find that the screen was full of incomprehensible squiggles rather than the normal text.This is actually a very common feature of dreams about all forms of writing, with people very rarely finding legible text in their nighttime visions.'This seems to reflect a focus away from higher-order cognition, and a focus towards our emotions,' says Professor Horton.Brain scans show that, while we are sleeping, the areas of our brains responsible for logic and reasoning seem to shut down, with very little activity.Professor Horton adds: 'Our dreaming brain is more creative and emotional than it is rational and detailed.'Similarly, people very rarely report being able to write or type in their dreams, because these actions require too much logical thinking for our dreaming brains to handle.When we do encounter written information or a phone screen, our brains don't bother including all the small, rationally ordered details that make it legible.Research suggest that dreams evolved as a defence mechanism to prepare us to face threats. This is why we dream of running away from threats and falling more than our smartphonesIn fact, Professor Horton suggests that the conspicuous absence of phones could hint at the true purpose of dreaming.Research has shown that the connections our brain builds during dreaming are critical for long-term learning, rest, and emotional regulation.Scientists even suggest that the fantastic scenarios our minds conjure during sleep evolved to help us practice dealing with problems in waking life.For example, if we dream about being chased by a monster, then we might be better equipped to escape a threatening situation in reality.However, building those new connections requires dreams to let go of reality and all the trivial details of waking life, phones included.Professor Horton says: 'I think this probably reflects that what we're not doing in dreaming is thinking and computing things in a logical fashion.'Sleep allows us to separate from our waking environment, and we sleep well when we feel safe enough to switch off from that.'We're deliberately suspending the external reality in favour of allowing the brain to have a bit of a play.' How to interpret your dreams – good or bad Though these interpretations might give you an idea of what's behind your nightmares, the meaning of dreams will vary according to your own personal associations and experiences.Here, Sarah Bick, a clinical and cognitive hypnotherapist working with the subconscious mind at Inna Therapies, details how to interpret your own unique dreams, bad or good:Write down the dream in detail as soon as you wake.Make free associations to what each of the dream elements mean to you. Don't research it, rather ask yourself what comes to mind first when you think of, say, a rabbit. Fast, white, magician, magic? Or perhaps underground, family, babies, running away?Connect the dream to what is happening in your own life. What resonates as being true for you?Interpret the dream, combining what you've written into a coherent message, until it gives you an 'aha' moment. Dreams rarely go over material that is resolved, rather that which is yet to be solved.