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Filling up your gas tank may feel like second nature, but have you ever stopped to wonder how gas stations actually set their prices? It’s just one of many fascinating behind-the-scenes details about these petrol providers. 

You may also be surprised to learn that these businesses don’t make the majority of their profit from gasoline, or where you can find America’s giant gas stations with more than 100 pumps. Here are five facts about gas stations that will fuel your thirst for knowledge.

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Four Factors Largely Determine the Cost of Gasoline

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the price of retail gasoline is determined by a combination of four factors: the price of crude oil, taxes, refining costs and profits, and distribution and marketing costs. Crude oil makes up more than half the cost of regular gasoline; in January 2026, it accounted for 51%, with refining costs making up 20%, taxes 18%, and distribution and marketing costs 11%. The total cost of diesel, on the other hand, was 41% crude oil, 24% distribution and marketing costs, 18% refining costs, and 17% taxes.

Each of those four factors is impacted by additional subfactors. According to the American Petroleum Institute, the price of crude oil can be affected by global supply and demand, geopolitical developments, available inventories, and transportation costs, just to name a few. Then there are taxes, which combine the federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon with local gasoline taxes (adding as little as $0.0895 per gallon in Alaska up to $0.7092 in California).

Refining costs are affected by operational costs at gasoline refineries, while distribution and marketing costs take into account the cost of transport, delivery, plus the overhead costs of running a gas station. Based on those ever-changing parameters, gas stations typically adjust their gas prices several times per week.

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The World’s Largest Gas Stations Contain 120 Pumps

Buc-ee’s is a popular Texas-based U.S. gas station and convenience store chain that’s renowned for its pristine bathrooms, mouthwatering brisket, and seemingly endless line of gas pumps. Two Buc-ee’s franchises currently hold the record for the most gas pumps at 120. One is in Luling, Texas, where the 120 pumps are accompanied by a 75,593-square-foot retail space. The other location with 120 fueling slots is located in Sevierville, Tennessee.

Two other planned locations will soon be co-record holders: One opens in June 2026 in Goodyear, Arizona, while another location with 120 gas pumps is planned to open in Oak Creek, Wisconsin in early 2027.

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Most U.S. Gas Stations Make Less Than Half Their Profit From Gasoline

An estimated 80% of retail gasoline in the U.S. is sold at gas stations that also include a convenience store. And the sales from those stores actually make up most of the profits. While fuel sales account for 65% of the total sales at retail gas stations, the owners turn a profit of only $0.03 to $0.07 off each gallon of gas they sell. Those thin margins mean fuel sales account for just 38.8% of a gas station’s actual profit, according to a 2025 study from the National Association of Convenience Stores.

The study found that 38.9% of a gas station/convenience store business’ sales comes from food and drink sales, but with much higher profit margins. More than 73% of those sales are from prepared foods such as pizza, wraps, and sandwiches. That’s followed by packaged beverages, then snacks such as beef jerky and nuts, and finally sales from tobacco, merchandise, ATM fees, lottery tickets, and other common gas station purchases.

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KFC Started in a Gas Station

Though it’s become a global fast food juggernaut with more than 30,000 locations, Kentucky Fried Chicken started as a humble one-man operation out of a Kentucky gas station. In 1930, Harland Sanders — aka Colonel Sanders — was brought in to run a Shell gas station located on U.S. Route 25 near a place called North Corbin. But Sanders didn’t just sell gasoline; he also began whipping up fried chicken for hungry drivers.

The Colonel converted a storeroom into a dining area capable of seating six people and started selling meals such as steak, country ham, and his ultra-popular fried chicken. In 1937, the service station was converted into Sanders Café, which burned down in 1939, though it was later rebuilt as a restaurant and motel complex in 1940. 

Sanders remained there until 1956, when he left the business to begin franchising KFC locations. The original locational was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 and has since been repurposed into the Sanders Café and Museum. Vintage gas pumps on site pay homage to KFC’s roots, though the pumps themselves are no longer operational.

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It’s Illegal To Pump Your Own Gas in New Jersey

In 1968, it was illegal to pump your own gas in 23 states, as doing so was considered a fire hazard. But almost all those self-service bans were repealed, with Oregon being the most recent state to do so in August 2023. This leaves just one state that bans pumping your own gasoline to this day: New Jersey.

If you’re looking to fill up in the Garden State, you have no choice but to let attendants pump your gasoline. The reason for this can be found in the Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act of 1949, which states, “Because of the fire hazards associated with dispensing fuel, it is in the public interest that gasoline station operators have the control needed over that activity to ensure compliance with appropriate safety procedures.” 

New Jersey gas stations that allow customers to pump their gas are fined $250 for their first offense and up to $500 for each subsequent offense.

Bennett Kleinman
Staff Writer

Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.

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For humans, death is an inescapable fact of life — but in the rest of the animal kingdom, mortality isn’t always as inevitable as it is for us. While it’s true that all living things eventually die one way or another, nature has produced a handful of creatures that have a very different (and very lengthy) relationship with aging, living so long as to seem nearly immortal. 

The word “immortal,” of course, comes with a caveat here. No known animal is truly indestructible, and all creatures can fall prey to disease, predators, or simply bad luck. But a handful of creatures have essentially found a way around dying from old age alone. Here’s a look at some of the longest-living animals on Earth and how they achieve such incredible staying power. 

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Immortal Jellyfish 

The appropriately named immortal jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii) is a tiny creature — about the size of a nail on a human’s little finger — that’s theoretically capable of living forever. When it “dies” — through environmental stress, predation, or sickness — the immortal jellyfish sinks to the ocean floor and begins to decay. This would spell the end for most other forms of life, but at that point the immortal jellyfish begins to regenerate its cells. It doesn’t become a new adult jellyfish (known as a medusa), but rather it reverts to an earlier stage of life called the polyp stage. 

The jellyfish basically reprograms its own cells, rewinding the biological clock to the very beginning of its life cycle. The “reincarnated” polyp then produces new medusae that are genetically identical to the previous adult jellyfish. The process, known as transdifferentiation, is incredibly rare — and can, in theory, repeat indefinitely.

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Planarian Flatworms

Planarian flatworms are another fairly unspectacular-looking creature whose otherwise primitive nature conceals an amazing ability to regenerate. These flatworms  come in a variety of shapes and sizes and are found almost everywhere on Earth, including in freshwater, seawater, and on land. 

Planarians are packed full of special stem cells called neoblasts, which can transform into almost any other type of cell in the body. So if a planarian is cut into pieces, even tiny fragments — as small as just 1/200th of the original organism — can regrow everything it needs to survive, including a new head and a working nervous system.

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Hydras

Not to be confused with the many-headed serpent from Greek mythology, Hydras are minuscule freshwater creatures related to sea anemones and jellyfish. They look like tiny tubes with a mouth and tentacles at one end — not exactly something you’d be particularly amazed by if you saw it in a pond. But Hydras are incredible little creatures, especially when it comes to their mortality

Hydras’ stem cells are in a continuous state of renewal, so the creature shows no signs of aging. When kept safe and in isolation (e.g., away from predators, adverse weather extremes, and disease), they can theoretically regenerate endlessly by continuously replacing their own bodily tissues. Hence the name “Hydra,” which references the mythological creature that could regenerate its own head when one was cut off. 

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Turtles and Tortoises

While not biologically immortal, many species of turtles and tortoises show little evidence of age-related decline. Unlike many animals, their risk of dying isn’t related to their age and doesn’t increase year to year. 

Environment is a major factor in the lifespan of these creatures. In captivity, away from the risks of living in the wild, tortoises in particular age at a glacially slow pace. The world’s oldest known tortoise, Jonathan, is estimated to have hatched in 1832 and was still alive as of 2026. 

One of the key factors in this impressive longevity is taking things slowly: Generally speaking, longevity increases as metabolic rate drops. Recent research also suggests that tortoises and turtles may have gene variants that grant enhanced immune response, DNA repair, and cancer suppression —all of which can add up to a very long life.

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Lobsters

Lobsters are also not biologically immortal, but they do occupy a fascinating middle ground in the longevity debate. Research suggests that lobsters don’t weaken, slow down, or even lose fertility as they age. They also have indeterminate growth, meaning they have no terminal size and thus continue growing throughout their lives. 

These animals show none of the typical signs of senescence (the gradual deterioration of functional characteristics in most living organisms) and can even regenerate limbs if they lose them, thanks to an enzyme called telomerase. Humans and other animals also produce telomerase, but lobsters have an infinite supply throughout their cells, which is basically an onboard cellular fountain of youth. 

But there is a catch: As they get older and continually bigger, lobsters are significantly more likely to die from exhaustion during molting — the process in which they replace their shells due to their ever-increasing size. So, rather than shuffling off this mortal coil through aging, many lobsters eventually succumb to the energy demands of being too big. 

Tony Dunnell
Writer

Tony is an English writer of nonfiction and fiction living on the edge of the Amazon jungle.

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Whether you prefer it drizzled on popcorn, baked in a pie crust, or melted down a stack of pancakes, there’s no shortage of ways to enjoy butter. But beyond its decadent flavor, there’s much to be discussed about this culinary mainstay.

For instance, did you know that butter is often sold in different shapes depending on where it’s sold? Or why it has a yellow hue, despite milk being white? Allow us to butter you up with six facts about this tasty, spreadable treat.

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Butter’s Yellow Color Comes From an Animal’s Diet

Given that butter is made from milk, it’s natural to wonder why butter typically appears more yellow than white. It has to do with the pigment beta-carotene, which is prevalent in grass and wildflowers. The more of those plants a cow or other milk-producing animal consumes, the more beta-carotene it has in its system. For this reason, butter made from grass-fed animals is typically more yellow than butter from grain-fed ones, as grain contains less of the pigment.

It’s also worth noting that beta-carotene is stored in milk fat, which further explains why butter is yellow and milk is white. Those fats typically make up at least 80% of traditional dairy butter, while a standard glass of whole milk, for instance, contains just 3.25%. The rest of the milk is made of water and proteins, diluting the fat’s yellow hue. When combined, the fats, water, and protein globules reflect light in a way that makes milk appear white.

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The Largest Butter Sculpture Weighed More Than 2 Tons

The largest butter sculpture ever created weighed a staggering 4,077 pounds and 13.54 ounces. It was made by Sharon BuMann — an artist known, in part, for creating annual butter sculptures for the State Fair of Texas. In September 2013, BuMann’s record sculpture was inspired by Big Tex — a 55-foot tall cowboy statue at Fair Park in Dallas that was destroyed by an electrical fire in 2012 but was resurrected the following year. 

Her statue paid homage to Big Tex’s return, depicting the towering Texan seated and being welcomed home by children. As mandated by the Guinness World Records, BuMann’s sculpture had no internal nor external support mechanisms and was completely freestanding.

To build the sculpture, BuMann worked in a refrigerated room set to 37 degrees Fahrenheit, with the sculpting process taking more than three weeks to complete. She was able to compile all that butter in part because many fairs recycle butter sculptures year after year. In the case of the State Fair of Texas, the butter is frozen in 5-gallon buckets to be used for sculptures the following year.

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Packaged Butter Is Shaped Differently East and West of the Rockies

If you purchase a standard package of butter in the grocery store, odds are it’ll be shaped differently depending on if you’re located east or west of the Rocky Mountains. Butter sold east of the Rockies is often packaged in the form of an Elgin stick — a long, narrow, 4-ounce rectangular prism named for the town of Elgin, Illinois, which was once known as the “Butter Capitol of the World.” Butter sold west of the Rockies, meanwhile, comes in wider and shorter packages referred to as “western stubbies,” referring to its shortened appearance.

The difference is due to different types of machines used in each region to manufacture butter. For many decades, the Midwest led the U.S. in butter production, and machines in that region sliced the product into the narrower Elgin sticks.

During the 1960s, however, California surpassed the Midwest in butter production, and companies in the West used different machines that molded butter into stubbier packages. Butter manufacturers in the Eastern U.S. stuck to their traditional ways and machines, continuing to sell long sticks of butter to this day.

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The Oldest Butter Dates Back 4,500 Years

In her 2017 book Butter: A Rich History, author Elaine Khosrova theorizes that butter originated around 8,000 BCE in Africa. But the earliest definitive known evidence of butter comes from an ancient Sumerian tablet dating around 2,500 BCE, which was uncovered at the al-ʿUbayd archaeological site in modern-day Iraq.

The bas-relief depicts a herd of cows and group of people performing various dairy-related activities. One man is shown milking a cow, another churning that milk into butter, and three other men are seen preparing and storing the clarified butter — known in Arabic as samn.

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A “Butter Tax” Helped Fund a Catholic Church

One of the most striking features of the Rouen Cathedral, a Catholic church located in Normandy, France, is the Tour de Beurre, which translates to “Butter Tower.” The moniker comes from the fact that the tower’s construction was partially funded by butter-loving French Catholics who paid the church in exchange for the right to eat the fatty treat.

In the 15th century, butter was deemed a sinful indulgence by the Catholic Church, which banned its consumption during Lent, a 40-day Christian period of repentance and fasting that precedes Easter. But there was a way around this prohibition: Pope Innocent VIII permitted Catholics to pay a fee for the right to eat butter at any time of year. 

Some cultures were less interested in paying, since their cuisines relied less on butter and more on other fats such as olive oil. But many French people, who relied more heavily on butter in their cooking, jumped at the chance to bypass the ban. The price was six livres tournois — a medieval French coin.

The church generated so much revenue during this time it was able to fund the construction of the Tour de Beurre. The ban on butter was later relaxed per the 1917 Code of Canon Law.

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Bog Butter Can Be Thousands of Years Old

Ireland and Scotland are known for natural formations called peat bogs — highly dense wetlands containing partially decayed vegetation. The low levels of oxygen, coupled with the plentiful acids and cool temperatures, make the bogs natural refrigerators of sorts. As far back as the first century CE, locals have used those peat bogs for making and preserving butter, giving rise to what’s known today as “bog butter.”

Bog butter is a waxy substance often made from dairy (and sometimes tallow) contained within wooden containers, baskets, or animal hides. Many unearthed samples date back hundreds or even thousands of years and have a white, lumpy appearance coupled with a pungent smell akin to strong cheese. 

The reason for bog butter’s creation is debated. In a 1997 paper published in The Journal of Irish Archaeology, author Caroline Earwood suggests that bogs were not only a natural means to refrigerate butter, but that they also helped to hide valuable butter from thieves. Others, however, theorize that bog butter was intended as a ceremonial gift to the gods.

In 2014, Irish celebrity chef Kevin Thornton tasted some thousands-year-old bog butter in an effort to replicate the dish for his own restaurants. He described the taste as such: “There’s fermentation, but it’s not fermentation because it’s gone way beyond that. Then you get this taste coming down or right up through your nose.”

Bennett Kleinman
Staff Writer

Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.

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Have you ever spent a sick day lying on the couch watching The Price Is Right, absolutely certain you could guess the exact price of that dinette set and win the showcase? Or maybe you’ve considered auditioning for Jeopardy! convinced you would go home a winner. 

You may also have wondered where all that cash and all those prizes come from. Understanding the behind-the-scenes economics of game shows reveals a surprisingly clever structure that keeps the lights on, the prizes rolling, and audiences glued to the screen.

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The Prize Pool Is Budgeted For

Most game shows are fairly inexpensive to produce compared to other network television programs — typically costing about $1 million per hour, far less than many scripted dramas, which can run several million dollars per episode, or prestige streaming series that often exceed $10 million an episode. A portion of that game show production budget is specifically set aside for prizes, meaning  every cash award, car, or vacation has already been factored into the costs before the cameras even start rolling. 

Big-budget shows such as Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy! can dedicate $4 million to $8 million dollars in contestant winnings over the course of a typical season of 200 to 230 episodes — but the average episode payouts are usually far more modest than viewers might assume. 

Typical Jeopardy! games, for example, often pay out in the range of $20,000 to $30,000 total, although championship runs and tournament episodes can push winnings higher. Smaller shows often have more modest budgets, which is why you may see $100 gift cards or small electronics as prizes on local game shows.

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Insurance Policies Cover the Big Wins

When shows dangle truly massive prizes — think the million-dollar jackpots on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? — the production is not actually risking that full amount out of pocket. Instead, the show relies on prize indemnity insurance

The show pays a premium, and if a contestant hits the top prize, the insurance company covers the payout. It’s a bit like insuring a lottery ticket because the risk is spread out, predictable, and manageable, even when the headline number sounds enormous. This approach is common not just for cash jackpots, but also for high-value prizes such as luxury cars or extravagant vacation packages.

Insurance gives producers the freedom to design bigger, flashier games and all-or-nothing bonus rounds. It’s what allows those nail-biting, “one question away” moments to exist in the first place. Otherwise, shows would have to scale way back on the high-stakes drama. Just think: If Who Wants to Be a Millionaire had to cap its prizes at $50,000, the tension would fizzle. 

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Sponsors Pitch In

Of course, not all winnings are cold, hard cash. Many game shows use sponsorships to provide cars, electronics, and vacation packages as prizes. A car company may supply vehicles to the show at no cost for the free advertising, while a resort may offer free trips in exchange for on-air promotion.

Even cash prizes sometimes have sponsorship angles. Some shows offer “bonus rounds” funded by advertisers, meaning the big jackpot may actually be paid by a third-party brand rather than the show itself. In those cases, the prize is technically a marketing expense for the sponsor, cleverly disguised as part of the game.

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Winning Comes at a Price

Winning on a game show sounds glamorous, but contestants quickly learn it’s not always as lucrative as it initially seems. In the United States, game show winnings are considered taxable income by the IRS. Cash prizes are taxed at regular income rates, and non-cash prizes are assigned a fair-market value for taxation. 

This means if you win a $50,000 car, you could owe $10,000 to $15,000 in combined federal and state taxes, depending on where you live and your income bracket. And because shows often use the manufacturer’s suggested retail price when valuing prizes, contestants can end up being taxed on an amount higher than what the item would actually sell for in the real world. 

Taxes also influence how shows structure prize payouts: While many prizes are awarded immediately, larger jackpots may be paid in installments or structured over time to help contestants better manage the tax hit and avoid receiving a large sum all at once. Sometimes, contestants even find they’re better off turning down their winnings to avoid a tax burden that could push them into a higher tax bracket. In those cases, the prize goes back to the sponsor or the production company keeps the money for the next lucky winner.

Kristina Wright
Writer

Kristina is a coffee-fueled writer living happily ever after with her family in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia.

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If you’ve ever owned a pet, you’ve probably had moments where you’ve thought your animal seemed almost human in its mannerisms and behavior. And you’re not alone: Researchers have documented behaviors across the animal kingdom that feel surprisingly similar to those of humans, from emotionally driven actions such as holding grudges to passing knowledge and skills down through generations. 

While scientists once viewed animal behavior as mostly driven by instinct, it seems we may only be starting to understand their social and emotional complexity. Here are a few examples of surprising humanlike behaviors exhibited by our fellow animals.

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Elephants Call Each Other By Name

Elephants are famous for their intelligence, but their social lives may be even more sophisticated than previously thought. In fact, research suggests that they actually appear to address one another using distinct, name-like calls. 

Wild African elephants use specific low-frequency rumbles that seem to refer to particular individuals. In experiments using recorded audio, elephants responded more strongly when they heard the call associated with themselves, suggesting they can recognize when they’re being called.

What sets elephants apart from other vocal animals is how those calls function: Rather than simply imitating the recipient of the sound, the way dolphins or parrots do, the sounds appear to act as separate labels, similar to human names. This kind of communication requires the ability to learn and use new sounds in a flexible way — a rarity in the animal world.

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Rats Show Each Other Compassion

Rats are often dismissed as purely instinctual and driven by survival, but they’ve actually displayed behavior that prioritizes helping others. One widely cited study found that they would help rescue a fellow rat who was trapped in a plastic tube before taking food that was simultaneously available to them. 

Another study took things a bit further and found much the same: Rats were placed in pairs with one animal forced to swim in a shallow pool while another stayed dry on a platform nearby. The dry rat could choose between opening a door to rescue the other rat or retrieving a piece of chocolate. Results showed they chose to help the other rat in distress first 50% to 80% of the time.

Interestingly, rats that had previously experienced the stressful swimming condition were even quicker to help others. While this was first believed to demonstrate a level of empathy, later research across repeated trials suggests this behavior may strengthen as rats become more familiar with the situation, becoming increasingly eager to help a trapped companion rather than simply avoid the situation. This is a pattern seen across many social species, including humans; our social bonds, as you undoubtedly know, often shape our decision-making.

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Orcas Pass Down Generational Knowledge

If you’ve spent any time learning recipes in your family’s kitchen or perfecting fishing techniques on childhood trips, you’ll know those aren’t the kinds of traditions you can learn in textbooks. Not unlike the way that type of knowledge is passed down through generations in humans, orcas’ tight-knit matrilineal communities have a similar culture. 

Older whales, for example, guide younger pod members through specific hunting techniques such as coordinated wave-washing, a specific method for capturing prey in which orcas work together to create powerful waves and knock prey off ice floes. Different orca pods even develop their own distinct hunting styles, even when they live in overlapping regions and encounter the same types of food. 

And this goes beyond survival techniques: Research suggests cultures among different populations can also shape how groups socialize, play, and even how they choose mates and reproduce. Those cultural behaviors aren’t universal behaviours shared by all orcas, though; it seems that what an orca knows depends heavily on who it grows up with and not necessarily what it’s hardwired to do.

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Crows Hold Grudges for Years

Crows can recognize human faces, and while that’s impressive enough on its own, it’s not quite the whole story. They also remember those faces long after a negative encounter. 

In one study, researchers wearing masks captured and released wild crows while wearing specific masks so the birds would associate particular faces with the encounter. Later, when researchers wearing those same masks walked through the area, they were scolded with caws and mobbed by dive-bombs from those same birds, sometimes years later. 

The sentiment spread, too: Even crows who were absent from the original encounter responded aggressively to the masked faces after witnessing how other crows reacted. Zoologist John Marzluff, the University of Washington professor in charge of the catch-and-release project, conducted years of follow-up observations tracking how long the birds continued reacting to people wearing the masks from the initial encounter and estimated that the angered crows stayed mad for as long as 17 years.

Neuroscientists think this is likely because crows have a region of the brain that works much like the mammalian amygdala, the part involved in processing emotions,  particularly fear and threat responses.

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Chimpanzees Wage Organized Conflicts

Chimpanzees are known to live in large, humanlike social groups, and they sometimes defend them quite aggressively. Neighboring chimp communities have been known to wage coordinated raids into each other’s territory, most famously in the Gombe Stream population studied by Jane Goodall in the mid-1970s. Over time, those encounters can escalate into sustained territorial conflict, and one group can gradually expand its territory at the expense of another. 

This chaos is actually controlled competition with clear alliances, and yes, it feels all too familiar. Humans, of course, similarly draw boundaries and compete with our neighboring communities,  even if our conflicts differ in scale and complexity. 

But conflict is, of course, just one part of chimpanzee society. Humans’ closest living relatives are also incredibly physically affectionate: They form long-term social and familial bonds, are doting caregivers, and are even known to laugh, reflecting an advanced level of social intelligence.

Nicole Villeneuve
Writer

Nicole is a writer, thrift store lover, and group-chat meme spammer based in Ontario, Canada.

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There’s something magical about standing under a steady stream of warm water, letting it pour over your shoulders while your mind drifts off. That problem you’ve been wrestling with at work suddenly seems simple, an elusive song lyric comes together in your head, or you finally know how to resolve a personal conflict. For some reason, taking a shower seems to jumpstart creativity, and scientists have been trying to understand why for years.

While the shower may seem like just a place to clean yourself, it’s actually a perfect environment for what neuroscientists call the alpha brain state. This is a type of relaxed but alert mental mode where your mind can wander freely, form connections more easily, and generate ideas without the usual self-censorship or stress that can block creativity. Essentially, your brain slips into the optimal zone for insight without you even realizing it.

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What Is Alpha Brain State?

The alpha brain state is a type of brainwave pattern that occurs when you’re calm, awake, and lightly focused — think: daydreaming, meditation, or just lying back and letting your thoughts drift. Brainwaves are measured in hertz (cycles per second), and alpha waves typically occur between 8 and 12 hertz. In this state, your brain is relaxed enough to allow original connections between ideas to surface, yet attentive enough that your mind can notice them.

This mental state is closely tied to  creativity. When you’re stressed, your prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for logical thinking and decision-making — tends to dominate, shutting down lateral thinking. But in the alpha state, your brain lets go of that tight control. 

Mind wandering, often dismissed as simply daydreaming, is a critical aspect of shower creativity. In the alpha state, your attention drifts naturally from one idea to another, forming unexpected associations and engendering communications between neural pathways that don’t typically interact with each other during more focused thinking. Neuroscientists have found that creative breakthroughs often happen during periods of low cognitive demand, when the mind is free to explore rather than being constrained by rules or distractions.

Showers naturally encourage this type of mental drift. The warm water, enclosed space, and familiar routine reduce cognitive load and help the mind relax. In a sense, the shower becomes a personal idea lab where you’re relaxed enough to generate new ideas but present enough to notice them.

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Why the Shower?

Showers combine several factors that naturally promote alpha waves. First, there’s the warmth and gentle pressure of water on your skin, which relaxes your muscles and lowers stress hormones such as cortisol. Relaxation alone is enough to encourage alpha wave activity, but the repetitive, rhythmic nature of showering encourages your mind to drift.

The shower is also a sensory environment that’s both soothing and relatively free from distractions. The brain experiences repetitive, predictable sensations — warm water, steady sound, and familiar routines — that require very little active focus. 

This kind of low-stimulus environment encourages the brain’s default mode network (DMN) to become more active. The DMN is the system associated with resting, daydreaming, memory, and mind-wandering, and it allows the brain to make unforeseen connections between ideas, which can lead to sudden bursts of creative insight.

Creativity often happens in stages, one of which is incubation. Incubation is when you step away from a problem, let your brain process it in the background, and allow connections to form subconsciously. A shower is basically a built-in incubation session. While you’re focused on shampooing your hair or washing your face, your brain is working in the background, juggling ideas and exploring solutions without your conscious awareness.

Studies on problem-solving and creativity consistently show that people who take breaks or engage in low-effort, repetitive tasks — such as walking, showering, or washing dishes — often experience sudden “aha” moments. Your brain essentially uses its downtime to work smarter, not harder, and the shower is one of the easiest places for that to happen.

The time of day can also influence and amplify your shower-inspired insights. Many people notice they get their best ideas in the morning, possibly because sleep primes the brain for creativity. During REM sleep, your mind naturally forms connections between distant ideas. When you step into the shower soon after waking, your alpha waves are already more active, and the relaxed environment encourages them to flourish further.

Evening showers can also be beneficial, though, especially if you’ve spent the day bombarded with stress. Showers help you transition into a more reflective, relaxed state, making it easier to synthesize the day’s experiences into creative thoughts.

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How to Maximize Your Creativity

If you want to make your shower the ultimate idea incubator, it helps to be intentional about achieving this alpha brain state. For example, avoid listening to podcasts or audiobooks while showering and instead allow a calm, uninterrupted flow of thought. Simply focusing on the relaxing sensations of the water and letting your mind roam can spark solutions to complex problems.

Another trick is to set a mental “problem statement” before stepping into the shower. Think about a challenge or project, then deliberately set it aside. Your brain will continue processing it in the background while you go through the familiar, automatic rhythms of bathing. By the time you step out, you may have a fresh perspective that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

Creativity often thrives under low pressure, relaxation, and mental freedom. While structured thinking and deadlines are important, too much focus can sometimes block innovation. Recognizing the role of alpha states, mind wandering, and incubation can help you carve out intentional moments of creative downtime — whether it’s in the shower, while walking, or during other low-effort tasks.

So next time you hit a mental block, remember that some of your best ideas may come from letting your thoughts drift and giving your alpha brain waves the chance to shine.

Kristina Wright
Writer

Kristina is a coffee-fueled writer living happily ever after with her family in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia.

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On a bright summer day, you can look up at the peak of a towering mountain and see it capped with snow and ice. But if that peak is in direct sunlight — and thousands of feet closer to the sun than we are on the ground — why is it covered in snow? Here’s a look at what’s going on up there, and why a mountaintop is so much colder than the ground below. 

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What the Sun Actually Does

The sun, on average, is about 93 million miles from Earth. Mount Everest, the highest mountain on our planet, is about 5.5 miles tall. So when it comes to distance from the sun, the relative difference between a mountaintop and a valley floor is so infinitesimally small that it’s essentially unmeasurable. In other words, being a mile or so closer to the sun has no significant effect on the temperature at the top of a mountain. 

This is because sunlight doesn’t work the way you might assume. When solar radiation reaches Earth, about 30% of the solar energy is reflected back into space, while the rest is absorbed into Earth’s atmosphere. But that energy passes through the relatively thin atmosphere largely without warming it. The atmosphere is mostly transparent to incoming solar radiation; what sunlight actually heats is the surface of the Earth — the land, oceans, rocks, and soil beneath our feet. 

Once the ground absorbs the solar energy, it then re-radiates the energy as infrared heat, warming the air from the bottom up. This is a key part of why the lowest layers of the atmosphere — at ground level — are the warmest, and why temperature drops steadily as you gain altitude. 

The air near a mountain’s base has been warmed by the surrounding land and lower atmosphere. As the air rises, it cools and the heat dissipates. A mountain’s summit is far from the heat source, and the air has very little to warm it — hence the chilly temperatures and peaks covered in ice and snow. 

The rate of change in temperature experienced while moving up through the Earth’s atmosphere is known as the lapse rate. On average, the normal lapse rate is 18.8 degrees Fahrenheit per mile of altitude gained. That rate isn’t perfectly uniform — atmospheric conditions, humidity, and local geography can all cause variations — but it’s fairly reliable as a general rule.

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The Effects of Thin Air

Another reason mountaintops are often covered in snow is the thinness of high-altitude air. Due to the pull of gravity, air pressure decreases with altitude; there are fewer gas molecules in the atmosphere as you go higher up, so the air becomes much thinner. And fewer molecules in the air means less capacity to absorb and retain heat.

Dense air holds heat quite effectively, but at the summit of a tall mountain the air is thin, dry, and contains far fewer of the greenhouse gases — particularly water vapor — that give lower-altitude air its heat-trapping ability. Any heat that does arrive at higher altitudes rapidly dissipates and can be lost back into space. To put it simply, high-altitude air is a very poor blanket.

While the sun can feel intensely bright at the top of a mountain, and the risk of sunburn increases greatly because there’s more direct solar radiation with less atmospheric filtering (and therefore higher UV levels), solar radiation directly warming the skin isn’t the same as warm air. So, while a mountaineer can stand in blazing sunshine at the very top of a peak, they can still be surrounded by snow and ice in temperatures well below freezing.

Tony Dunnell
Writer

Tony is an English writer of nonfiction and fiction living on the edge of the Amazon jungle.

Original photo by © spyrakotstock.adobe.com

The human body is amazing in its resilience and complexity — and sometimes it’s just amazingly gross. 

The body can heal cuts, fight off infections, build memories, and keep your heart beating every second of every day without you having to think about it. It’s basically a miracle of biology and chemistry, one that we still don’t completely understand.

But for all its brilliance, the body can also be… kind of disgusting. It leaks, sheds, smells, and produces all kinds of substances you’d rather not think too hard about. But most of the “gross” things your body does are actually protective and surprisingly useful. 

Here are answers to eight body mysteries you were too afraid to ask about.

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Why Do You Grow Hair in Weird Places as You Get Older?

One of aging’s rudest surprises is the random hair that shows up where it never used to be: ears, nose, chin, toes, knuckles — you name it. This mostly comes down to hormones, especially androgens such as testosterone, which both men and women have. As hormone balances shift with age, some hair follicles become more sensitive, causing fine, barely visible hairs to turn darker, thicker, and longer.

At the same time, the hair on your head may thin because scalp follicles respond differently to those same hormones. So yes, the same biology that gives you less hair where you want it can give you more where you absolutely don’t. It’s annoying, but it’s also a totally normal sign that your follicles are responding to lifelong hormonal changes.

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What Is the Purpose of Earwax?

Earwax, also known as cerumen, seems gross until you realize it’s basically your ear’s built-in cleaning and security system. It traps dust, dead skin, hair, and tiny particles before they can travel deeper into the ear canal and damage the eardrum. It also helps keep the skin inside your ears moisturized so it doesn’t dry out, crack, or itch.

Earwax is produced by two types of glands in the outer ear canal: Ceruminous glands secrete antimicrobial proteins that protect against germs, while sebaceous glands release oily substances (sebum) that help soften and waterproof the ear canal. Together, they create cerumen, a substance that works to clean and protect your ears.

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Why Do Farts Smell So Bad?

The good news is that most body gas is actually odorless. The smell that follows a small percentage of flatulence comes from trace gases produced when gut bacteria break down certain foods — especially sulfur-rich ones such as eggs, broccoli, onions, beans, and meat. Those bacteria release compounds such as hydrogen sulfide, which is the same gas responsible for the smell of rotten eggs.

The reason some of your gas smells worse than others often comes down to what you ate, how fast your food moved through your digestive tract, and the specific mix of microbes living in your gut. A smellier fart doesn’t necessarily mean something’s wrong — it often just means your microbiome had a feast.

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What Are Skin Tags?

Skin tags, also called acrochordons, are small, benign outgrowths of skin that typically arise in areas of friction such as neck creases, underarms, and the groin. They’re made up of loose collagen fibers and blood vessels surrounded by an outer layer of epidermis. Their formation is associated with mechanical irritation, genetic predisposition, metabolic factors, and increasing age.

Though the cause isn’t fully understood, it’s believed that skin tags result from the localized overgrowth of skin in response to chronic friction and microtrauma. Insulin resistance and hormonal factors have also been suggested. Despite their sometimes conspicuous appearance, skin tags have no malignant potential in the vast majority of cases.

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Why Do Scabs Form?

When skin breaks, platelets rush to the area and form a clot to stop bleeding. That clot dries into the crusty layer you see as a scab, acting as your body’s emergency bandage. It protects the wound underneath from bacteria, friction, and further injury while the skin begins to repair itself.

Underneath that hard, crusty layer, your skin rebuilds itself with new collagen and fresh cells. As the wound heals, the scab will gradually lighten and naturally fall off when it’s ready. White scabs are usually due to moisture, but yellow or greenish scabs could signal infection. 

And yes, your parents were right — you shouldn’t pick at scabs, no matter how tempting it may be. Pulling them off too early can reopen the wound, slow healing, and increase the risk of infection or scarring.

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Why Is There Gunk in Your Eyes When You Wake Up?

Known as rheum, that crusty eye gunk in the morning is mostly a mix of mucus, oils, dead skin cells, and dust that your eyes cleared out while you slept. During the day, blinking constantly spreads tears across your eyes and washes debris into the tear ducts. At night, because your eyes stay closed, that material can collect in the corners instead of being continuously flushed away.

Your tear film is made of more than just water; it also includes oils and mucus that keep your eyes smooth and protected. Overnight, a small amount of that mixture can dry and thicken into a crust, which is usually normal. It can become a concern, though, if the discharge is excessive, thick, yellow or green, causes your eyelids to stick shut, or is paired with redness, pain, swelling, or vision changes, as those can be signs of infection, allergies, or another underlying issue.

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Why Does Your Skin Peel After a Sunburn?

Skin peeling after a sunburn happens because the top layer of your skin has been damaged by too much sun, especially ultraviolet (UV) rays. When skin cells are hurt beyond repair, your body gets rid of them on purpose. That’s why the affected skin may feel tight and dry, and eventually starts to peel. The peeling itself isn’t dangerous — it’s a normal part of healing — but it is a sign your skin has been significantly damaged.

Peeling begins once enough of those damaged cells have been shed, causing the outer layer of skin to loosen and flake off. At the same time, your body is busy making new skin cells underneath to replace what was lost. While your skin can recover, repeated sunburns increase the risk of long-term damage, including premature aging and skin cancer, so protecting your skin from too much sun is important.

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What Are Those Tiny Stones in Your Mouth?

Tonsil stones, or tonsilloliths, form in the small folds and pockets of your tonsils, which are part of your immune system. Those little crevices can collect bits of food, dead cells, and bacteria over time. Eventually, that material can harden and clump together — mostly because of calcium — forming the small, pale “stones” you may notice.

The strong smell often linked to tonsil stones comes from bacteria that thrive in low-oxygen environments. As bacteria break down the trapped debris, they release sulfur compounds that can cause bad breath. While tonsil stones can be annoying, they’re usually harmless and more about how your tonsils are shaped than a sign of anything serious.

Kristina Wright
Writer

Kristina is a coffee-fueled writer living happily ever after with her family in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia.

Original photo by © Galih Jelih/Unsplash.com

A peculiar phenomenon often occurs in the music world: You hear someone sing, and then hear them speak, and the two accents clearly don’t align. The British Grammy-winning singer Adele, for example, speaks with a distinct North London accent, but when she sings, that inflection largely disappears, replaced instead by a more neutral, somewhat Americanized accent. The same happens with many other singers — Elton John, Bono, Amy Winehouse, and Ed Sheeran, just to name a few. 

So why exactly does this happen? In most cases, the change is involuntary and can be chalked up to a combination of physiology (vocal mechanics) and technique (learned behavior). Let’s take a closer look — or listen.

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How Singing Dismantles an Accent

To understand why accents can almost entirely dissolve in a song, we first need to look at what an accent actually is. Your way of speaking isn’t one single thing, but rather a bundle of features, including the pronunciation of vowels and consonants as well as your rhythm and intonation. Together, those elements form the overall sound of your speech, which begins developing before you’re even born

Many people maintain the same accent throughout their entire lives, and it can form an important part of our identity. Singing, however, can systematically and instantly dismantle the factors that make up an accent. 

Linguist David Crystal has highlighted two main reasons why this occurs, and the first is entirely phonetic. While singing, your normal intonation and speech rhythm tend to disappear, because the song’s melody replaces them. Vowel length also changes, because many syllables are elongated when we sing. Crystal notes on his blog that “vowel quality is also often affected, especially in classical singing, where vowels are articulated with greater openness than in everyday speech.” 

So a song’s melody can cancel out your normal intonations of speech, while the beat of the music can cancel out your rhythm of speech. Singers are also forced to stress syllables as they’re written to be accented in the music, which causes them to elongate their vowels. Consonants can be affected, too: To achieve a smoother sound, some singers choose — sometimes consciously, but often not — to modify or soften certain consonants. 

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An American Influence 

In many cases, even if a British, Australian, or Scandinavian (think ABBA) pop or rock singer has no intention of sounding American, they still might. When specific elements natural to the singer’s native accent are stripped out, the result can be very similar to what’s called the General American accent, a neutral accent that can be defined by its absence of distinguishing features. 

But it’s also worth noting that the phenomenon isn’t always involuntary or mechanical — sometimes it’s social. As far back as the 1950s and 1960s, many non-American singers made a conscious decision to sing with a more American-sounding accent, either because they grew up listening to American music and naturally mimicked it, or because it helped them get a foot in the door of the U.S. market. In many cases, it was a combination of both. 

Today, many singers still deliberately choose to sound more American. In a 2013 interview, pop group One Direction tried to explain why their English accents often disappear on their albums, putting it down to a combination of the U.S. music they listened to as kids, the way their producers wanted their records to sound (for the U.S. market), and the nature of pop music. As One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson said, “I think in certain music genres you can really tell when people are British, but in pop it’s not as easy to get it across.” 

In other words, if you notice that an artist seems to lose their accent when singing, don’t be too quick to judge or criticize. It may not be a conscious decision, but rather a learned adaptation and physiological consequence of singing the song itself. 

Tony Dunnell
Writer

Tony is an English writer of nonfiction and fiction living on the edge of the Amazon jungle.

Original photo by © BrilliantEye/iStock

Dreams are something everyone experiences, yet almost no one fully understands. They can feel vivid, scary, emotional, or sometimes strangely logical in the moment only to unravel when you try to recall them the next morning. 

Scientists know dreams are tied to sleep cycles, memory, and brain activity, but exactly why you dream and how your dreams take shape isn’t fully understood. What is clear is that your sleeping mind doesn’t simply replay the day; it remixes it, blending feelings and other fragments of your life into something that can feel both random and, at times, quite meaningful.

This uncertainty has led to plenty of theories about what your subconscious is actually up to while you sleep. From whether you can read in your dreams to the persistent fear of dying in your sleep, here are the answers to eight common questions about dreams.

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Can You Dream in Multiple Languages?

People who speak more than one language also often dream in more than one language. Research suggests that dream language tends to follow familiarity and context, meaning your brain tends to match the language to the situation. 

Dreams about family or childhood, for instance, often unfold in a person’s native language, while scenes set in the workplace may shift into a secondary language if the dreamer tends to speak a different language there in real life. Emotions seem to factor in as well: More intense or personal dreams often default to a primary language, while more practical or mundane scenarios may lean on a newer one.

Fluency plays a role, but it isn’t required: Even people with limited ability in a second language can dream in it — and, amazingly, they can sometimes even speak it better than they can in real life, especially if they’ve been studying recently. 

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Can You Read or Tell Time in Dreams?

It’s often said that it’s not possible to read or tell time in dreams, but those claims are based on anecdotes rather than direct scientific study. Perhaps surprisingly, there’s very little research on whether people can actually read text or check a clock to tell the time in dreams. 

Dream research tends to focus more on broader brain changes during sleep, such as how language, memory, and executive control functions behave differently in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep. One interpretation of the existing research is that language processing becomes less stable during sleep, which may explain why reading, writing, and structured speech seem to be rare in dreams.

This could also help explain why written text and numerals in dreams are often described as unreliable — some people report being able to read text or numbers on a first pass, but that the numbers get scrambled when they’re looked at again. Dream reports vary widely, though. Some people describe brief moments of reading clearly or looking for a clock and checking the time — which is also cited as a popular reality check for those who experience lucid dreaming — but these experiences are best understood as individual rather than universal.

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Can You Die in Your Dreams?

You may have heard the claim that if you die in your dream, you also die in real life. Often, when people do experience vivid, nightmarish scenarios of accidents or falls, we tend to wake up just before the end. This is a reaction most likely triggered by intense emotional responses. 

In fact, it’s not only possible, but common, to die in your dreams, with no impact on physical survival. What’s frightening is just how convincing those experiences can feel. Dreams can often simulate danger and fear with terrifying realism, but they have no harmful effect on your waking body.

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If You Dream About Someone, Are They Dreaming About You?

Despite what the romantic in you may wish were true, there’s no scientific evidence that people dream about each other at the same time or in any shared way. Of course, dream reports are subjective and gathered after waking, which makes verification of any cross-person connection highly unreliable. But we do know dreams aren’t transmitted between minds: From what sleep research has been able to assess, dreams are generated entirely within the individual brain, built from memory, emotion, and association. 

People who appear in dreams are typically drawn from our lives. We often dream about people we’ve recently interacted with as well as significant figures from our past. But even if we recognize a character as someone familiar, they may look totally different in the dream. What’s more, how you feel with that person in a dream (for example, safe or distant, happy or anxious) could point to the underlying emotions behind their guest appearance.

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Do Dreams Actually Mean Anything?

Dreams can often feel chaotic, but they’re not always random. Since the mid-20th century, researchers have found that dreams show consistent patterns tied to our ongoing stressors, relationships, and emotional lives. 

There are many widely repeated interpretations of classic dream themes. For example, teeth falling out is often linked to stress, loss of control, or struggles with self-image. But one dream reporting study found that this theme was possibly related to actual dental irritation such as jaw tension, tooth sensitivity, or the grinding or clenching of teeth. 

Ultimately, there’s no single decoder ring, and meanings may vary widely by person and context. Dreams aren’t so much universally coded messages as they are the brain reorganizing experiences — sometimes coherently and sometimes in surreal mashups.

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Do Light Sleepers Dream More?

Dreaming primarily happens during REM sleep regardless of whether someone is a light or deep sleeper. The key difference isn’t frequency, but memory. Light sleepers tend to wake more easily during or shortly after REM and NREM periods, increasing the chances they’ll remember and retain those dream fragments. Deep sleepers may experience just as many dreams but lose them simply because they transition more smoothly between sleep stages without waking. 

There are other influences on dream recall beyond sleep stages. Research suggests that memory and attention play a role, and people in the habit of reflecting on or recording dreams tend to have better recall. Personality factors such as openness, creativity, and introspection are also associated with remembering dreams, while stress and certain health conditions or medications can actually reduce recall, most likely by disrupting memory processes.

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Can You Manifest a Dream Before Sleep?

You may be surprised to learn that you can influence your dreams, even if the process is a bit indirect and imprecise. Beyond dream carryover from real-life conversations or worries experienced that day, some people actively practice dream incubation, a technique used since ancient times to intentionally steer dream content. 

Modern approaches to this involve focusing on a specific problem or question before sleep, visualizing it as an image, and then revisiting it immediately upon waking to try to improve recall. Research suggests this may work in part because the brain is especially suggestible as it transitions into sleep, particularly in lighter stages such as early NREM sleep.

Lucid dreaming research points to a similar idea. Studies suggest that people with stronger dream recall are more likely to become lucid dreamers, and techniques such as keeping a dream journal, setting intentions to remember dreams before going to sleep, and waking after a few hours and returning to bed afterward can increase the chances of becoming aware within a dream — a phenomenon known as the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreaming  (MILD) method. 

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How Long Are Your Dreams in Real Time?

Dreams often feel long and winding, but in real time they’re usually much shorter than you’d think. Most research estimates that people spend about two hours total dreaming per night, but not all at once. You typically experience four to six REM periods per night: The first kicks in about 90 minutes after falling asleep and lasts for approximately 10 minutes, and throughout the night, those periods gradually lengthen, lasting approximately 30-60 minutes toward morning.

Most dreaming occurs during those REM cycles. And while REM is a continuous sleep state, it doesn’t mean you’ll have one continuous dream — most research suggests that dreams last 5-20 minutes each. Like many other aspects of dreams, though, duration isn’t directly observable, making it difficult to accurately measure just how long you spend in the stories you experience in your slumber.

Nicole Villeneuve
Writer

Nicole is a writer, thrift store lover, and group-chat meme spammer based in Ontario, Canada.