And interesting dream-discovery is how the chemical structure of benzene was discovered. There are many other examples of this. I have experienced very detailed “working sessions” during my dreams in which I develop comprehensive designs and breakthrough new approaches to problems I work on during the day. I know a lot of other creative people who have similar experiences. Perhaps this could be a new way to solve problems: focus on them intently before going to sleep and perhaps that primes the brain to do background processing on the problem during REM sleep. This is testable. For example, provide a test subject with several problems to solve. Then randomly choose one to focus on as they go to sleep and later test to see if the chosen problem is more likely to be solved correctly, or is solved faster, than the other problems that were not targeted prior to sleep.
Social tagging: Consciousness
I know this article is old but I had to comment. I do the exact same thing, I actually go over my day, solve problems and study for tests in my sleep. If it is something of concern or interest to me. In fact, some of my ideas, inventions, lyrics come to me from sleep. I have actually woken up with great ideas for pantings, yet I have no artistic tallent, at least not in the visual field. How can I find out more about this topic?