International Association for the Study of Dreams

[Desmond Taylor]

Hi there, I had this dream about 2 years ago now and it helped me fix a bug in an application that I was making. The bug was annoying me for about two weeks so I was thinking about it all the time. I've asked other programmers if it has happened to them before and I have found 3 others.

I was just wondering if there is any scientific facts on the following.

Information required.

• Can you're mind think better when asleep?
  
• Do you have to be thinking about the subject to dream it?
  
• Is there any websites on this matter? (I'm really curious)
  

I've tried searching the internet but keep finding the "Dream in Code" website and that's not what I wanted.
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Desmond Taylor

[Amy]

Hi Desmond,

You mind thinks DIFFERENTLY when sleeping. It's not necessarily better. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. It can fill in some gaps that your waking mind misses.

Have you heard about the chemist who dreamed about the structure of benzene? He had been working on it a lot without the answer coming to him readily; then he dreamed about a snake curled up in a ring and that was the shape he was looking for.

I'm an accountant and work on logical problems such as bank reconciliations. At the end of the day, looking for differences, if I leave the problem and come back to it after a break, the next day, I see the answer quickly. Dreaming is like a reboot for your brain, and you can have insights during dreams, or even the next day waking, after you've slept well and had restoring dreams.

Have you ever thought of the answer to a problem while exercising, or taking a shower, or driving home from work? These are times when creative insights happen and it seems we weren't thinking about the problem at all when the answers come. Dreams are like that, too, and very interesting once you learn how to understand their language.

There's a lot of great info out there to find if you look for it. Our Dreaming Mind is a great book to look at.

[Desmond Taylor]

Hi Amy,

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly on this matter.

So it's not always better but can be. That's useful to know as it's only happened to me once but I know people that it's happened to alot.

I didn't hear about the Chemist as I've only just started looking into it as some people that I told gave me strange looks. That's the reason I've started looking into it.

I have managed to fix something by coming back to it a few hours later say after going out to the shops ect so I know where you're coming from on that part.

Funny enough, I can't remember if I have thought of something whilst in the bath or anything. I have however though of a PHP class whilst talking to someone about something totaly different and I soon put it in my PDA.

Thanks for the title of the book, I will pop to the Library on Monday to see if they have it and if not then I will look for places to buy it.

Thanks again for the quick reply. This information is very helpful and sheds a light on many things.
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Desmond Taylor

[Amy]

Great! While you're at the library, a couple more really nice books I like are Gillian Holloway's Complete Dream Book and Andrea Rock's The Mind at Night. The first one is more about interpreting them, the second about the science of why we dream...

I don't find people in the accounting/business world who talk about their dreams, either. So I think it's good to diversify one's reading and social circles to get other perspectives and different viewpoints...

[Desmond Taylor]

[timeisnotlinear]

Desmond, welcome to the IASD Discussion Boards.

There are many theories as to why we dream, one of them is problem solving. Like a computer, our brains are more of a multi-core processor than a single core. Though it feels like we can only think heavily about one topic at a time, our brain has the ability to focus on many things we may not even be aware we are thinking about. Dreams work on this level too. The stuff we are really thinking heavily about will often show up in our dreams, but quite often things that may be deep in our psyche show up in our dreams too. Sometimes even, they are the main theme.

So I think our mind can think “better” while we are asleep, because our dreams will take into account feelings, memories, and other thoughts that we may keep from our conscious self or may just not realize are impacting our decisions.

I'm also going to move your tread over to the main discussion board where you may get more answers to your inquiry.

[Desmond Taylor]

Thank you Leeballz for the information and the move.

I am currently re-installing my server and speaking to people on the net so I'm used to multi-tasking

It's good to get any feedback on this as it's building up to a better understanding of why we dream in the first place.
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Desmond Taylor

[DrmDoc]

Although some might disagree, there are definitive reasons why we dream that are rooted in the nature of brain function and how our brain likely evolved to dream. I researched the dreaming brain for a book I wrote a few years ago and learned much that remains obscure to some who perceive no value in brain study. When one considers and examines the mounds of brain research enveloping the various components of dreaming, one will see that dreaming involves a confluence of neurological activations and deactivations. To dream, our brain has to engage functions from the most primitive to the most recent aspects of our central nervous system (CNS). When we parse out these functions, we observe that the sleep process, of which dreaming is part, evolved in stages conforming to the evolution of our CNS from its most primitive segment (spinal brain) to its most recent (cortex).

Regarding problem-solving through dreams, dreaming is a type of consciousness amid the sleep process. All the functional studies of dreaming (EEG, PET, fMRI) suggests that dreaming involves a wakeful and active brain. There is evidence suggesting that dreams are a synthesis of brainstem activations. The brainstem becomes active amid sleep as a consequence of vestigal processes associated with the evolved nature of sleep. Essentially, dreaming intrudes on the restful state of mind, which the sleep process promotes. The images and scenarios in our dreams are how our aroused brain, amid the sleep process, interprets what has disturbed its restful state. Rather than creations of a mind at rest, dreams appear to be interpretations of what intrudes on our restful mental state amid sleep. Your mental conundrum over that bug in your application 2 years ago, likely went unabated through the onset of your sleep so that when your sleeping brain engaged its vestigal processes and became active, you experienced a dream regarding that issue. This is one likely reason why you may have certain dreams enveloping certain issues from your waking life. I hope this helps.
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"Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart; live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours." --Dale Carnegie