Slumbering mind is ripe for "out of the box" thinking, experts say
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comSleep on it: Dreams help solve day's problems
Seeded on Sun Jun 27, 2010 12:32 PM EDT (msnbc.com)
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been there many times. I'd be stumped on a problem, go to bed and wake up in the middle of the night with the answer. Go write it down and back to sleep.
That's right. I remember my father talking a lot about sleeping and coming up with solutions to problems. I've done it, too. Although, neither of us (as far as I know about him) ever woke up in the middle of the night - the answers were there upon waking. It doesn't happen every time, just in case someone wants to nitpick that, but it does happen.
It is how I got thru Algebra II in high school. I did my homework before I went to bed and any question I couldn't get, I studied before turning the light out. In the middle of the night I would wake up, do the problems and go back to sleep. I was scared about the tests, but I seemed to be able to pass them okay. I did better in Algebra II than in Algebra I when I didn't do this. In college, I always got my topic sentence for term papers in the middle of the night. The rest of the paper was usually easy to write once I had a good topic. It works.
I've had dreams that have involved some problem I was trying to solve. Unfortunately, I usually don't remember what the problem was or I can't make sense of the dream. It's usually a very restless sleep and I wake up feeling like I haven't slept at all.
Now there's a scientific reason for why I get all my best ideas in my sleep! Awesome!
Dreaming is like a movie we go to but know nothing in advance about. We suddenly show up in an amazing psuedo-reality world in which we have no influence or control (although in one dream there appeared a very mean woman, and I did tell here, in my dream "see if I ever dream of you again!)
I have always believed that we solve problems while dreaming. I have often told of a dream I had after buying an aquarium for my home. As I was drifting off to sleep, I was invisioning diferent backgrounds and waterscapes for my aquarium. I dreamt of an amazing fish playground. In my dream, I had attached one of the babytoys to my aquarium, inside against the wall. It was a Waterworks toy. which I affixed with suction cups. (I believe in real life my daughter actually had one she played with in the bathtub). In my dream, after I had affixed this to the aquarium, I placed the fish food that you can buy in pet stores, that stick to the aquarium to feed fish when you are on vacation, to the buttons on the toy that a child presses to make an object move inside the game. As the fish ate the food, their pecking caused the game to play--like in an arcade. It was an amazing solution--both unique and doable. THe best part was that it required only things that I already had at home.
So my dream answered my quest by giving me a solution. The bad part is is that we have not yet learned to train ourselves to focus our brains while we are sleeping to cme up with answers. There have been other times that dreaming has seemed like a family affair for me--don't laught until you read this:
I have often dreamt, as we all do, that I was flying. I love to fly, and in several of my dreams I am trying to teach others to fly, telling them it's just a transfer of energy. But in one dream, I was teaching my then five year old to fly. She could not do it. SO in my dream I placed here upon my back and I carried her through the air looking at the scenery far below. This would not have been so unusual except that some time during the night my daughter had awoke and crawled into my bed. After waking up in the morning and finding her there, I woke her up to see if she had a bad dream. She said "No, I dreamt that you were tring to teach me how to swim, but I couldn't, so you placed me on your back and we floated in the water" Wow, that was really conincidental.
>"Dreaming is like a movie we go to but know nothing in advance about. We suddenly show
>up.in an amazing psuedo-reality world in which we have no influence or control..."
I strongly recommend you do the exercises in Steven Laberge's "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming." They are simple. You ask yourself a few simple questions during the day. Aslo follow his suggestion about how to maintain a dream notebook. Do the exercises for a month. One day you will ask yourself one of the questions while in a dream, and you will realize you are dreaming, and you will wake up in the dream, and you will be looking square in the face of a world as real as this one, and then you will be choosing to go left or right at that intersection (or whatever). It is a truly exhilarating experience.
I've kept a dream journal since 1992, when I took a humanities class for fun. Dreams are too much fun to want to control---every aspect of our waking life is under the control or influence of our self and everyone and everything around us both alive and dead. Unless we don't have a conscience, we are rarely able to do just what we want.
Dreams can be a release, an omen, an idea, and just plain nonsense. I tend to believe that we have several layers of awareness: Our self that we talk to and look at life and observe life according to our learned brain; our self that looks at life with us but we don't communicate with but who still is able to observe life without all the learned beliefs getting in the way; and a self who sees everything that we don't always notice. They are all us, just like our veins, arteries, and lymp system. All parts of us operate together, without us being aware. When we sleep, the things that we noticed but didn't see come together and are sorted out and realized.
Just a theory of mine.
So many people seem to equate lucid dreaming with "controlling" your dreams. Lucid dreaming is simply being aware that you are in a dream. You are in "control" if you are lucid insofar as "you" are now deciding to turn left or right. What lucid dreamers refer to as controlling a dream, and what most people think of, is different - you change something about the dream that you can't do in the waking world. That is not necessary. I do it very rarely (only as often as I attempt it). I go with the dream, and make choices, and experience.
According to your description I am fortunate to be a "lucid" dreamer in every one of my dreams. If it means one is aware it is a dream, that is. I would never want to change a single thing about my sleep world. I have been shown answers to questions, warnings of future events, and visions that come true. If I were to begin to force my dreams to go a certain way, then I would be missing out on many wonderful experiences. But mostly, I would be missing out on what makes me and my dreams me.
Think of manipulation of the world around us. We introduce a hybrid bee to help control the killer bees that suddenly arrived. Next thing we know, we have a decline in the bee population. Every manipulation has a consequence that may not be seen immediately.
That said, I am not oppossed to scientific exploration. What I am against is the inability of the human population to think of the consequence ahead of time and then walk away when it would be harmful. In the world of dreams, let the dream weave its way and, instead of asking what I can dream about when I go to sleep, ask "how does this dream apply to real life?"
@CAthy-657529: If all of your dreams are lucid ones, then you are a truly extraordinary person, and I recommend you contact the Lucidity Institute & Steven LaBerge in CA. The last time I checked, nobody has ever been found who comes close to having that ability.
Something I often do in lucid dreams is fly, but not if I find myself in a familiar situation or with familiar people - in that case I go with that (but making conscious choices). I don't consider flying "controlling" a dream, you can just move around that way there, and it's feels really cool to do it. (Flying is commonly done by lucid dreamers.) I consider controlling a dream as something like intentionally changing the scenery, such as creating a pond with beautiful fish in it right in front of you (which I did once, just to do it).
Maybe you should watch the Sorcerers Apprentice or the Last Airbender. They seem like they would be welcome imagery during the waking hours. I do not mean to appear to take lightly what you are advising. However, in the real world you have to be fleet footed in the hoop dance to balance what your real life is with what others around you perceive as normal behavior and thoughts. If you want people to take you seriously, and you want to have the job that you spent years attainingg that degree for, you can't go around advertising that you have a secret that they would ever understand.
The world of the internet is a wonderful tool to use for testing theories and advancing ideas. But it can be traced and many companies view it for potential inquiries in the life of job prospective employees. I wish you well and would not want to comment further on the dreams--as I have yet to find my "dream job". I have an exceptionally high IQ-supposedly, and I take everything I do seriously and do it to the best of my advantage. I would hate to miss an opportunity just because I love to challenge others to explore their own life in all directions.
Very enlightening. However, there is much talk in the article about evolution. Why do so many people succumb to a theory that takes such incredible faith , when behind every design there is a Designer
And who designed the designer? Evolution is obvious. It's mechanisms are the question.
which leaves us with the question: who designed the designer?
I enjoy good articles like this about dreaming. One thing is off in this article - Freud thought dreams involved the Ego and Super Ego being disgusted with the impulses of the ID. I can't wait until Freud's miserable and damaging ideas are completely behind us. Dreaming is an area I have researched, and I am, at times, and avid lucid dreamer. (See LaBerge's book "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" for instructions. You may just find it - lucid dreaming - to be the most exhilarating experience you have ever had.)
Well i think we shouldnt get to caught up in under standing dreaming because all dreams are not good dreams
You are missing out on a lot. Do the exercises in LaBerg's "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" for a month." They are easy. You ask yourself a few simple questions during the day. After that you will probably be a different person, and wouldn't make a comment like that again.
It's not called the "theory of mechanisms" it's called the "theory of evolution". If evolution(Darwinian) is so obvious , why is it still referred to as a theory. There are many things hard to fathom; such as, Where is the beginning and end of space? or time?
why is the theory of gravity still referred to as a theory?
Well, "Gravitational Theory" is our explanation of the phenomenon we know as 'gravity'.
It is a law of gravity that if you drop an object here, it will fall to the ground, but it is Gravitational Theory that explains how and why this occurs.
Gravity is a law, but we understand and explain it through a theory. It is both ; )
Read more: Is gravity a theory or a law? | Answerbag http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/375661#ixzz0s5ZgfzXf
Evolution is not a theory. It's a fact. the theory is how is occured, not whether or not it did.
Careful there GTG, laws describe causation, theories describe mechanisms and laws are not proven to any higher degree than theories are. Even if evolution is proven without any doubt whatsoever, it will still remain a theory and not become a law (least not in the strict scientific sense).
Mitchell
Don't get it GTG. You seem to know what a scientific theory is, yet you still repeat arguments that depend solely on a misunderstanding of the term.
Dreaming allows one self to cross the dimensional plan to another parallel universe were your other self has solved the problem. Some times you can exchange thought and idea with your other self. I’ve been able to do his many times and see the future, were events have already happen their.
Parallel universe or alternative reality is a self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a multiverse, although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute physical reality. While the terms "parallel universe" and "alternative reality" are generally synonymous and can be used interchangeably in most cases, there is sometimes an additional connotation implied with the term "alternative reality" that implies that the reality is a variant of our own. The term "parallel universe" is more general, without any connotations implying a relationship, or lack of relationship, with our own universe. A universe where the very laws of nature are different – for example, one in which there are no relativistic limitations and the speed of light can be exceeded – would in general count as a parallel universe but not an alternative reality. The correct quantum mechanical definition of parallel universes is "universes that are separated from each other by a single quantum event."
There always seems to be at least one of you running around...
I'm am
I am disabled,(COPD). Dreams allow me to do the things I use to do when I wasn't disabled. No matter how weird they are,they give me the sense of well being that I use to have. I really enjoy them.
When I was in the hospital with H1N1,(the Doctor was amazed that I lived) The first few days I was delusional and the dreams I had were of dying and that my head was against a grinding stone.It was very distressing and frighting.That is the only dreaming I don't want.
I've never, that I recall, ever dreamed about anything that helped me solve a real life problem. But then again, I don't remember a lot of my dreams, and this theory sounds at least plausible.
Well, "Gravitational Theory" is our explanation of the phenomenon we know as 'gravity'.
It is a law of gravity that if you drop an object here, it will fall to the ground, but it is Gravitational Theory that explains how and why this occurs.
Gravity is a law, but we understand and explain it through a theory. It is both ; )
Read more: Is gravity a theory or a law? | Answerbag http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/375661#ixzz0s5ZgfzXf
great...until you have that dream where you're banging your sister....eeek
Not likely. Unless that's something you have thought about.
no, it's not. I read somewhere that it means you look for some traits that are in your sister when you date. At least that's what I read.
Keep reading.
The saying, "sleep on it" is what a thousand or more years old. Well duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I wonder why that is? Could that be that this "wisdom" was figured out long before some guy got a "grant" of free money to confirm what is already every day knowledge.
When is the spending of money from grants, universities, or private enterprise ever going to stop. Did we really need official confirmation?
Hey Doug...What does your sister look like?
Perhaps I can relieve you of the burden of that dream...
Oops. This was supposed to be a reply. The system won't let me delete it, I can only edit it - and can't make it blank.
When I was younger and quit smoking cigarettes and pot, I used to constantly dream about still smoking them. I would wake up all happy because in a strange way, I still got to enjoy the smoking. After a year or so, whenever someone in a dream would offer me a cigarette (or other), I found myslef saying no, then I would wake up and be all mad at myself for not letting my dream-me enjoy myself :)
I don't dream this stuff anymore, becasue I am very happy to have kicked the habits, but I remember the dreams fondly.
The fact that you don't have the dreams anymore probably does not reflect that you are "very happy to have kicked the habits." If you have the dream again it probably does not mean that you are no longer happy about having kicked the habit. We dream about things that we have experienced or thought about in recent history. Sometimes dreams go farther back in time. The evidence of this is overwhelming when you look at dream journals people have kept up for a long time.
I heard a theory a long time ago and have always found myself thinking of this theory when I wonder why we dream. It's something like this; Every thought you have during the day, whether concious or sub-concious is an electric charge, during the day these charges build up, collect in a certain part of the brain, when you sleep it is now your brain's time to release these and clear your "cache" thus allowing for clearer thought the next day. When your brain releases these concious and sub-concious thoughts, it does so in a sequence. Have you ever been sleep deprived and when you layed down to finally sleep you closed your eyes and get random images and thoughts flowing sort of on their own? This is because the brain cannot hold these in it's "cache" any longer and releases them regardless if you are awake or asleep. Whether it's true or not it is interesting.
I think it is true. more than once I have woke up with an answer to question or a solution to a problem.
Dreams are bits and pieces of incomplete activity throughout the contacts made by the five senses and occasionally the 6th. The brain tries to resolve those bits, like trying to finish an incomplete sentence. That's why unfinished business can have a "eureka" moment in a dream. But, sometimes it can express itself as an exaggeration of a pent up fear or arousal.
I'm with you there Jack! Yes it is awesome and it now explains why I keep dreaming about a friend of mine, and she knows that she is always in them. I've gotten some very cool ideas for a book I'm writing from dreams that I've recalled later in the day when I go to write the next chapter or scene in a chapter! I most certainly don't want to ever give up this kind of dreaming.