Follow your dreams

Sleep could kill you faster than hunger — and other wild and dreamy facts

Credit: Javardh

We do it every night, yet sleep is still one of the most mysterious parts of human life. But thanks to science, we have uncovered some of the strangest truths about what happens when we close our eyes, from sleepwalking to lucid dreaming. Here are 12 weird and wild facts about sleep and dreams, backed by real research.

Credit: Maeghan Smulders

Brain scans show that the brain remains active during sleep, especially during REM cycles. It continues to organize memories, regulate emotions, and solve problems even when you're unconscious.

Credit: Jr Korpa

Within 5 minutes of waking, about half of a dream is forgotten. After 10 minutes, 90% vanishes. Scientists believe dream recall fades quickly because the brain’s memory-forming regions are less active while dreaming. So, next time you have a crazy dream, write it down!

Credit: Bruce Christianson

Dreams about falling often occur in the first stages of sleep and may coincide with muscle spasms called hypnic jerks. This sudden contraction is believed to be a primal reflex—ironically, an evolutionary adaptation meant to prevent falling while asleep.

Credit: Jorge Flores

Even if you don’t remember them, strangers’ faces in dreams are real faces you’ve seen before. The brain doesn’t invent faces; it pulls from your memory bank, often from fleeting encounters you don’t consciously recall.

Credit: Mykyta Kravčenko

It might be tempting to pull an all-nighter to meet deadlines, but chronic sleep loss causes severe immune dysfunction and organ failure, making it deadlier than starvation. In lab studies, rats deprived of sleep died in about 3 weeks, while those without food lasted around 4.

Credit: minh đô

Contrary to popular belief, if you’re snoring, you’re unlikely to be dreaming at that moment. Dreaming typically happens during REM sleep when muscles are relaxed, making loud snoring less common compared to deeper non-REM stages.

Credit: Dewang Gupta

Some sleepwalkers can drive, cook, or even play musical instruments while asleep. During sleepwalking episodes, the brain’s motor control areas are active, but consciousness remains switched off.

Credit: CDC

Even those born blind dream, but their dreams are filled with other senses like sound, touch, smell, and emotion. Studies show that blind individuals experience more vivid sensory dreams. Their brain compensates by enhancing non-visual experiences in sleep.

Credit: Stellar_speck

Lucid dreaming is when you become aware you’re dreaming and can sometimes control the dream. Studies using EEGs show that lucid dreamers activate the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s decision-making area, during sleep.

Credit: Mehran Biabani

During sleep paralysis, you’re awake but unable to move or speak—and if that isn’t terrifying enough, it often comes with vivid hallucinations. Despite this, it’s a harmless phenomenon that occurs when the brain wakes during REM sleep while the body remains paralyzed—a safety feature that normally prevents you from acting out dreams.

Credit: Jonas Leupe

Studies have found a correlation between night owl tendencies and higher intelligence scores. However, being a night owl also increases risk for depression, metabolic issues, and heart disease.

Credit: Noah Martinez

Most dreams condense time, but certain dreams—especially during lucid dreaming—can unfold in real-time, matching waking perception. A 2021 study confirmed that people can answer questions with facial twitches or eye movements while actively dreaming.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy

10 ways of saying "a piece of cake" around the world

Credit: Pablo Arroyo

We all love those moments when something is so easy that we say, "It’s a piece of cake!" But did you know that this phrase exists in many different languages, each with its own unique twist? People around the world have found creative ways to express just how easy something can be. In this article, we’ll take a fun journey around the globe and explore 10 different ways to say "a piece of cake" in other languages.

Credit: Alejandra Coral

People often say that French is the most romantic language in the world—Paris is the city of love, after all. But hear this: in French, if something is "as easy as sticking your fingers in the nose," or simple comme bonjour, it means it’s a breeze to do. Not very romantic of them, is it?

The full expression is facile comme de mettre les doigts dans le nez, which literally translates to "as easy as putting your fingers in your nose." Yes, the phrase is as playful as it is descriptive. However, we strongly recommend you stick to just saying it—no need to actually act it out!

Credit: Rachel Park

Breakfast is the first and most important meal of the day, it gives us the necessary energy to tackle the to-dos ahead. However, in Japanese, some things are considered so easy that you don’t even need breakfast to accomplish them. You can simply do it 朝飯前 (No, we don’t know Japanese either, so here’s how to pronounce it: asameshimae).

This phrase means that a task is so easy, you could do it "before breakfast." No energy needed, no preparation required—if it’s asameshimae, you’ve got it covered without breaking a sweat. After all, what’s easier than something you can do on an empty stomach?

Credit: George Kendall

If you ask a professional biologist, they’ll probably be able to tell you how smart a hedgehog is. But we’re not professional biologists—so we don’t know. What we do know is that in Russia, there’s a saying that describes certain tasks as so easy, they’re "understandable to a hedgehog" (ежу понятно, or yezhu ponyatno).

The phrase can be used for tasks or statements—basically, anything so straightforward that even a hedgehog could grasp it. So when something is crystal clear, it’s not just easy—it’s hedgehog-easy!

Credit: Marine Le Gac

Finding a hair in your food is never ideal. But if we had to choose, we’d rather find it in butter than in stew. Why? Well, here’s the Turkish guarantee—removing a hair from butter is actually quite simple.

The Turkish expression tereyağından kıl çeker gibi means something is "as easy as pulling a hair from butter."

Just imagine: a hair sliding out of soft butter with no resistance, no struggle. According to this Turkish simile, the task isn’t just simple—it’s smooth and effortless. We do hope the saying stays figurative… but hey, worse things have happened!

Credit: JM Lova

We have to agree with this one; few things in life are as easy as breathing. I mean, it takes literally nothing from you and gives you nothing less than life!

In Welsh, when something is mor hawdd â anadlu, it’s as effortless as taking in a breath of air. That’s the literal translation of the phrase.

Breathing is the most natural, instinctive thing we do, so this expression perfectly captures the idea of something being second nature. When life hands you an easy task, just take a breath—and remember how simple things can be.

Credit: Crazy Cake

We’re not sure what the deal is with languages and butter, but it seems to be the universal image of simplicity. Just like the Turks, the Greeks also use butter to metaphorically describe an easy task.

The Greek phrase σαν βούτυρο στο ψωμί (pronounced san voutyro sto psomi) translates to "as butter spread on bread." Just as butter smoothly spreads over a slice of bread, this expression describes something that’s effortlessly simple. And if you think about it, it’s true—some things just go smoothly, like butter on bread.

Credit: Matthew Hamilton

If you’re reading this around lunch or dinner time, we bet you’re already getting hungry with all these food similes we’ve mentioned. Maybe now’s the time for some chicken soup—just to see what the Portuguese mean.

In Portuguese, the phrase é sopa, which literally means "it’s soup," is used to describe something that’s super easy. More specifically, _é canja_—"it’s chicken soup"—adds a layer of comfort and familiarity to the expression. When something is é canja, you know you’re in for a task as simple and soothing as sipping a warm bowl of soup.

Credit: Pete Wright

In Latvian, if something is tik viegli, kā paņemt konfekti no bērna, it’s "as easy as taking candy from a child." This expression emphasizes just how effortless a task can be, though it does carry a cheeky hint of slyness. It’s a light-hearted way of describing a situation where the difficulty is virtually nonexistent.

While you’d (hopefully) never actually take candy from a child, the phrase perfectly captures the idea of something being laughably easy.

Credit: Daiga Ellaby

We’re almost at the end, and we couldn’t resist including an expression like this one. In Chinese, the phrase 易如反掌 (don’t sweat it, the pronunciation is yì rú fǎnzhǎng) means something like "as easy as turning your hand over."

This expression suggests that the task requires just a simple movement, like flipping your hand from palm up to palm down. Funny how one of the most complex languages to learn has an expression like this!

Credit: Barbara Chowaniec

Let’s finish this article with yet another food-related expression. But this time, it’s not butter or cake—it’s jam.

In Croatian, when something is k’o pekmez, translated as "as simple as jam," it means the task is easy to do, with no complications or fuss.

Butter and jam have more than one thing in common: they’re smooth, sweet, eaten at breakfast, and both are used to describe simple tasks. When life gives you something easy, think of it as "as simple as jam."