How often does a person dream each night?

People dream four to six times a night. They dream while they are in the REM stage of sleep, which means rapid eye movement stage in one’s sleep. Sleepers go into the REM stage about every 90 minutes. The first dream of the night may last about ten minutes. Each dream gets a little longer. The last dream of the night may be an hour long.
    People need their dreams. Younger children spend more time dreaming. Babies spend almost half of their sleep in the REM stage.
    One experiment showed that everyone needs to dream. Doctors gave some people sleeping pills. These sleeping pills didn’t let them go to REM sleep. After a few nights without dreams, they began to feel bad.
    They became angry easily, they worried a lot, and they wanted to fight with everyone. Then they stopped taking the sleeping pills. They all began to dream all night for a few nights to catch up.
    Why do people dream? Dreams give them time to find the answers to some of their problems. If they think they will have difficult problems the next day, they may spend more time on REM sleep the night before. In their dreams, they may find an answer to their problems.