Do Babies Dream While They're Sleeping?

While watching your little one snooze, you may wonder what's going through their mind. Do those fluttering eyelids, loud sighs, and limb twitches mean they're dreaming?

It's comforting to believe they're imagining your warm embrace. However, experts don't know if it's possible for newborns or infants to dream, at least not in the visual or thematic way that children and adults do.

Keep reading to learn if babies dream and what they might experience during REM sleep.

Do Babies Dream?

We may never know for sure if babies dream, says Parents advisor Jodi Mindell, PhD, associate director of the Sleep Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Dream researchers depend on study volunteers to tell them if, when, and what they dream about—and babies aren't quite up to the task.

We do know, however, that adult dreaming mostly occurs during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. According to the Sleep Foundation, newborns spend 50% of their snooze time in REM. That's more than twice as much time as adults spend in REM sleep.

"It would be a logical assumption that babies do dream and that it has something to do with their brain development since they spend so much time in this stage of sleep," says Dr. Mindell.

Still, some neuroscientists doubt babies can dream at all. They claim infants' brains are too immature to form these abstract thoughts and images. Instead, they believe REM sleep serves a different purpose: allowing the brain to form pathways and promoting cognitive development.

For example, in sleep laboratory studies, dreaming is absent even as late as preschool age. Researchers say that's because young children do not have the capacity for conscious mental imagery that they can later recall.

What Do Babies Dream About?

Since babies don't have the cognitive ability to reflect on past events or imagine future scenarios, it's unlikely babies dream about anything. However, researchers have documented dream recall from young children.

David Foulkes' pioneering research in the 1970s on children and dreams still dominates today's understanding. His research found that preschool-age kids' dreams involved mostly static imagery with little or no movement.

However, between ages 5 and 7, movement and social interaction began appearing in children's dreams, and between ages 7 and 8, dream reports became more frequent, lasted longer, and were more complex. By 9 to 11, dreams appeared to be more like what adults experience.

However, more recent research indicates that young children's dream landscapes may be more active than previously thought. For example, a 2015 study evaluating 4-8 year-olds' dreams found the following:

• Kids were active agents in their dreams.
• Kids saw human characters, especially family members in their dreams.
• Animal characters were common in preschoolers' dreams.
• Kids of all ages reported motion in their dreams.
• Kids experienced social interactions that involved aggression or friendliness in their dreams.
• Kids experienced emotions in their dreams.

Researchers hypothesize that cognitive development influences a child's ability to process dreams and that as a child matures, they can recall dreams better.

Do Babies Have Nightmares?

Chances are, your baby isn't having nightmares since they don't grasp the meaning of fear yet. "We suspect bad dreams don't happen until kids are 2 or 3 and have a better notion of being afraid and an active imagination that can conjure up boogeymen," says Dr. Mindell.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), nightmares peak between 3 and 12 years of age. Night terrors, on the other hand, are different from nightmares in that children are unaware of them during and after the fact. They occur most commonly in preschool-aged kids.

Still, it can be disconcerting to watch your baby twitch, flail their limbs, or make noises while sleeping. Don't worry, though. It's developmentally appropriate for babies to move around and make sounds while sleeping.

If they're moving around a lot, most likely, what you see is due to the Moro reflex, an involuntary motor reflex also called a startle reflex. According to the AAP, this reflex occurs naturally in newborns, peaks around 1 month, and starts to go away after 2 months.

Babies also wake up frequently from naps and nighttime sleep due to hunger, wet or dirty diapers, and simply having a shorter sleep cycle. So, you'll likely see a bit of movement as they come in and out of sleep.

However, if you ever notice anything while your baby is sleeping that worries you or you have any questions or concerns about your baby's sleep, consult a health care provider.