Harnessing Dreams to Boost Creativity

Occasionally The Scientific American Mind magazine publishes riveting issues that centre around specific themes. I happened to read one at a friend’s place that was centred around the Science of Creativity (March 2017). Since I am personally obsessed with creators and creativity – for instance, why and how do some minds arrive at insights that elude others – I read that particular issue from start to finish, jotting down notes from its expert thinkers.

One of the most insightful articles – which was a summary of the book The Committee of Sleep –  focused in particular on the links between dreams, daydreaming and creativity. Taking cues from that piece, I have found, when writing my books, that some of the ideal times to dwell on a problem, however large or trivial, is the liminal state that separates sleeping and wakefulness.

 Those few minutes, when you start to feel drowsy and you can sense yourself slipping into the mystery and uncertainties that abound with sleep, are often the best times to pose difficult questions. Similarly, the few minutes soon after you wake up, and before you brush your teeth or even hit the Snooze button, can be a creator’s “gold” if they are mined intentionally. 

From “Answers While You Sleep” – by Deirdre Barrett

In “Answers While You Sleep” Deirdre Barrett, author of The Committee of Sleep and many other books, psychologist and dream expert who teaches at the Harvard Medical School, confirms that many creators have been similarly consumed by the links between sleep and creativity. Many have also arrived at solutions during dreams. Barrett cites an instance in the 1950s, when the young mathematician Don Newman, was ruminating on a particular maths problem. Newman was a colleague, at that point, of the Nobel-laureate-to-be John Nash. In Newman’s dream, his colleague Nash appeared in the phantom-like manner in which dream figures pop up and suggested a solution.

Next morning, when Newman woke up, he realized that he had indeed arrived at the elusive answer. In the next few weeks, he wrote up his paper and published it in a journal. In a footnote, he also accorded credit to Nash – though Nash himself pointed out that it was Newman’s dream, and it was his answer. Newman ought to be credited not only for his academic insight but also for his integrity, which seemed to extend into giving due credit to apparitions.

Most high-school science students would have encountered the story of Friedrich August Kekule, another story cited by Barrett. Like Newman, Kekule discovered the structure of benzene in a dream – he dreamt of a snake chewing its own tail, and realised the structure was circular. The Russian inventor, Dmitri Mendeleev arrived at the form of the periodic table during a dream. Mary Shelley, who was perhaps still dealing with the loss of her first child, the birth of a second and the conception of a third, dreamed of the two main scenes that later evolved into one of the most original works of fiction – Frankenstein.

Robert Louis Stevenson similarly stumbled on the makings of a malevolent alter ego, of the intertwining of good and evil in a memorable persona while asleep. The product, brought to fruition in the author’s wakeful state, was the iconic Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, an embodiment too of light (wakefulness) and darkness (sleep or dreams) in some senses. Other geniuses who have struck on flashes of brilliance during their sleep include the composer Beethoven, the Beatles star Paul McCartney, the immensely versatile singer Billy Joel. Barrett also writes that Gandhi’s call for a nonviolent protest against the British was inspired by a dream.

What Indeed Are Dreams?

Neuroscientists and psychologists perhaps still grapple with the constituents or makeup of dreams. Earlier, Freud had posited that dreams represent repressed aspects of the self – and these, from the Viennese thinker’s viewpoint, were primarily infantile sexual urges and violent impulses. However, contemporary psychologists suggest that dreams are safe practice runs for threatening situations. And they also replay daytime memories and help consolidate learnings and experiences.

Barrett also stresses that dream thoughts are not necessarily facile or simple. Just like waking thoughts can encompass many modes – that shift between recalling, plotting or planning, meandering etc., dreams too can drift across multiple modes. Dreams occur usually during the REM stage of sleep. During that phase, tracking of neurological brain activity confirms that rich pictorial images flash across the cortex as well as signals associated with movement.  

Usually dreams seem to accompany the REM stage of sleep. During dreams, the parts of the cortex associated with “visual imagery and perceptions of movement” are triggered more intensely. Hence, as Barrett puts it, dreams are “visually rich” and “logically loose”. And because of their semi-structured makeup, not only do dreams and sleep help consolidate daytime learning and experiences, they are also rich source materials for ideators. In fact, an experiment at U.C. San Diego confirmed that subjects who experienced REM sleep offered more creative solutions to a problem than those who had only non-REM sleep.

Specific Steps You Can Take To Harness Your Sleep and Dreams

The word “incubation”, before it became fashionable in the start-up ecosystem, was originally associated with dreams. Apparently it stems from an Ancient Greek ritual at the temples of Asclepius, where the sick tried to drum up dreams that would cure their diseases.

For those looking for specific steps that might lead to a new start-up idea or novel plot, the following nightly routines might help:

1. Jot down your problem and place it close to your bed.
2. Review the problem for a few seconds before going to bed.
3. Once in bed, visualise the problem as a picture, if possible.
4. Remind yourself that you want to dream about the problem as you drift off to sleep.
5. On waking up, lie quietly before getting out of bed. Note whether you recall any trace of the dream, and try to coax the dream to return. Jot it down, if you can.
6. At bedtime, picture yourself dreaming about the problem, waking up and writing on your bedside notepad.
7. Arrange objects connected to the problem on your bedside table or on a wall across from your bed.

References:

Deirdre Barrett, “Answers in Your Sleep,” in Scientific American Mind, March 2017