The International Classification of Sleep Disorders. Arch Neurol. Coronavirus Resource Center. Our website uses cookies to enhance your experience. By continuing to use our site, or clicking "Continue," you are agreeing to our Cookie Policy Continue. Twitter Facebook. This Issue. March Donald W. Greenblatt, MD. Author Affiliations Rochester, NY. First Page Preview View Large.
Mendeleev described dreaming the periodic table of the elements in its completed form Kedrov, , pp. The Nobel-prize winning experiment demonstrating the chemical transmission of nerve impulses to a frog's heart was conceived by Otto Loewi in a dream Dement, , p. Inventions as varied as Elias Howe's sewing machine needle—with the hole at the pointed end Kaempffert, Parkinson's computer-controlled anti-aircraft gun Fagen, William Blake described being told by his dead brother in a dream about a new way to engrave his illustrated songs which he found worked well Diamond, , p.
Jekyll and Mr. Scholar Herman Hilprecht reported that he dreamed an Assyrian priest came to him and revealed the accurate translation of the stone of Nebuchadnezzar Van de Castle, In modern times, Jack Nicklaus credited a crucial improvement in his golf game to dreaming of a new way to grasp his club Dement, , p.
Dream psychologists and historians take a variety of stances toward such anecdotes. Blagrove asserts that, on principle, none of these anecdotes could be accurate.
Others not only believe such problem solving occurs spontaneously, but also advocate cultivating it by dream incubation.. Garfield, ; Reed, ; Delaney, Ever after you will be able to seek inspiration and help from your dream state. Those who do not 'believe in dreams. Several research studies have examined different aspects of problem solving and dreams. Wile addressed the incubation issue when he measured how long it took children to self-induce a dream on a desired topic.
The average time was 5 weeks; the shortest was 2 weeks, the longest 6 months. Cartwright had subjects try to solve three types of problems: crossword puzzles, word association tests, and story completion.
Before giving their answers, they were given either a sleep period that included at least one REM interval or an equivalent amount of waking time. The first two types of problems were judged for correctness, and no differences were found between having sleep-with-REM vs. Story completions were judged for optimistic vs.
However the experiment did not attempt to evaluate the quality of stories. Dement gave undergraduate students three "brain-teaser" problems to read over before going to sleep and to note whether they had solutions in their dreams that night.
Of 1, attempts at solving problems, 87 dreams addressed the problem without finding a solution. Seven students reported dreams which solved the problem and a few others had dreams which seemed to hint at the solution without the waking subject catching the hint. Morton Schatzman a, b, , has repeated this experimental paradigm, giving brain-teasers to huge numbers of people in England via the mass media.
He has received dozens of examples of dreams solving those problems although he has no way of ascertaining the total number of people who may have been trying to incubate the solutions. Like Dement, he has observed some dream examples which seem to contain solutions without the dreamer having caught on. For the present experiment, it was decided to explore what subjects would do with solving problems of their own choice.
Although these lack a definitive criteria for quality of solutions, they have an immense advantage in terms of relevance and motivation. They were instructed to select a problem of personal relevance with recognizable solution s.
It could be of a personal, general objective, or academic nature. They were asked to write out the problem in a simple fashion and to follow the dream incubation instructions of Dement Immediately prior to the first night of dream incubation, they had attended a lecture summarizing the literature on problem solving in dreams. This included the studies reviewed above and a detailed description of the dream incubation techniques of Dement , Garfield , Reed , Delaney , and Schatzman a.
Subjects followed this procedure nightly for one week or until the they had a dream which they felt solved the problem. They recorded all dreams they recalled during this week and noted which ones they thought: A were on the topic of the problem, including addressing any aspect of the problem or any attempted solution of it and B of these, ones they believed contained a satisfactory solution to the problem.
Two raters then judged all dreams in the week's journals on criteria A and B above. Dreams deemed by both judges to address or solve problems were used for analysis.
See Table 1. Table 1. Approximately half of the subjects recalled a dream which they felt was related to the problem. Seventy percent of these believed their dream contained a solution to the problem. A majority of subjects selected problems of a personal nature for incubation. These problems of a personal nature were much more likely to be viewed as solved by the dreamer than ones of an academic nature. The two objective problems of a medical nature were so much more clearly addressed in the dreams than any other type of objective problem that they are displayed as a separate sub-category.
See Table 2. See Table 3. The following personal problem example is representative of those which judges and subjects agreed addressed a problem and presented a solution:. Problem: I have applied to two clinical psychology programs and two in industrial psychology because I just can't decide which field I want to go into. Dream: A map of the United States. I am in a plane flying over this map. The pilot says we are having engine trouble and need to land and we look for a safe place on the map indicated by a light.
I ask about MA which we seem to be over right then and he says all of MA is very dangerous. The lights seem to be further west. I wake up and realize that my two clinical schools are both in MA where I have spent my whole life and where my parents live.
Both industrial programs are far away, Texas and CA. That was because originally I was looking to stay close to home and there were no good industrial programs nearby. I realize that there is a lot wrong with staying at home and that, funny as it sounds, getting away is probably more important than which kind of program I go to.
Table 2. Subjects' Ratings of Dream Incubation Outcomes. Table 3. Not much useful information, but fun. Oct 02, Kara rated it liked it Shelves: awesome-title , psychology. Not much science or history, but lots and lots of little stories of various famous people, the dreams they had, and how those dreams helped with various creative projects. Repetitive but impactful I wasn't a huge fan of the format of this book for most of it.
The continued examples of dreams became tiresome and I found myself wanting to know more about the scientific and psychological aspects of dreaming. However, the book stuck with me. I found myself dreaming more vividly as I read it and started to become more curious about what my dreams mean.
Therefore, 4 stars instead of 3. Sep 16, Andrew Nease rated it really liked it. Dreams are a fascinating topic for me, so I figured this book was right up my alley.
I wasn't wrong, but I wasn't quite as right as I'd hoped, either. I feel a little bad about the four-star rating. But this book does have one defect that alot of the commenters seem to also be remarking on: it doesn't really deliver on the 'and how you can, too' part. It didn't say much about lucidity or induction, and what it did say was mostly a bunch of old wives' tales that I've heard a million times before a Dreams are a fascinating topic for me, so I figured this book was right up my alley.
It didn't say much about lucidity or induction, and what it did say was mostly a bunch of old wives' tales that I've heard a million times before and can already tell you don't work, at least for me. I also felt like the actual 'committee of sleep' metaphor was overused.
But, on the other hand, the rest of the book was so interesting, especially to an armchair oneirologist like me, that I kind of feel like a prig for docking it. If you want a survey of what dreams can do and have done for people and the world, this is a brief but very interesting read. Sep 27, Christopherseelie rated it liked it.
Basically a long series of case histories, many of which are fascinating. The skimpiest of research and methodology, but enough to get started if you are interested in utilizing dreams. Still, lots of fun to read. Aug 10, Ms Morpheus rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: General public, psychologists.
This book is full of wonderful anecdotes of major discoveries which came from dreams, scientific research describing how problems are solved in dreams, and practical advice on how to increase what you get out of your own dreams. Well written, fun, inspiring read!
Timothy Moyer rated it it was amazing Jun 15, Martin rated it liked it Jun 07, Sarah rated it liked it Mar 21, Klaudia Szulc rated it really liked it May 14, Sarah rated it it was ok Sep 06, Douglas rated it really liked it Nov 30, Daniel rated it liked it Nov 27, Tom rated it liked it Oct 14, J rated it it was amazing Aug 14, Diane rated it really liked it Sep 22, Harrison Satcher rated it it was ok Jan 19, Shannon rated it really liked it Oct 12, Catie rated it liked it Aug 25, Sramdass rated it liked it May 30, Deep rated it liked it Jul 16, Micah Fagre rated it liked it Oct 20,
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