Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: This is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Duga, and we
Speaker 1: both researched this podcast yesterday. Um did a lot of
Speaker 1: our research yesterday and you know, a little bit you know,
Speaker 1: on the other days prior. But but then we both
Speaker 1: went home to our respective houses, went to sleep and dreamed.
Speaker 1: So here's the question, did your dreaming last night help
Speaker 1: you prepare it all for this podcast? You know, normally
Speaker 1: I would be able to answer that question because I
Speaker 1: remember quite a few of my dreams, But I really
Speaker 1: don't remember my dreams outside. I can only assume that, uh,
Speaker 1: I was hopefully covering the material. Well, I'm on my part.
Speaker 1: I don't always remember my dreams, but I remember the
Speaker 1: one last night because I was dreaming that my cat
Speaker 1: had a guest starring role on thirty Rock. And then
Speaker 1: I woke up to the sound of the cat barfing. Um,
Speaker 1: which generally happens, like the cat starts barfing or even
Speaker 1: beginning to barf somewhere in the house, and I just
Speaker 1: wake up like that and immediately go into this sort
Speaker 1: of half awake must keep the cat from barfing on
Speaker 1: soft things mode, you know, right like on blankets and
Speaker 1: wool carpets, you go into triosh. Yeah, but it did
Speaker 1: not really help this podcast at all. Not to say
Speaker 1: that something in my in my dream cycle didn't help,
Speaker 1: but it's like it wasn't. Yeah, but there wasn't like
Speaker 1: a situation where I was like, how are we going
Speaker 1: to do that intro tomorrow and then like a man
Speaker 1: appeared to me in the like into in the dream
Speaker 1: like I don't know, like um, like some you know,
Speaker 1: podcasting deity appears and says, this is how you will
Speaker 1: do it. You will both talk about how the night
Speaker 1: before your dreams inspired, you know, like there was nothing
Speaker 1: like I was gonna say Ira Glass, but that didn't
Speaker 1: sound like Ira Glass. That's not Ira Glasses, Boice. But
Speaker 1: but Ira Glass would have been a good good pick
Speaker 1: for that that dream vision. Um. But the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is you do see plenty of really cool examples of
Speaker 1: UH and and all of them are potentially problematic UH
Speaker 1: of creative people or even scientific you know, or rather
Speaker 1: artistically geared people or scientifically geared people, UM getting something
Speaker 1: out of their dreams, some sort of inspiration or some idea,
Speaker 1: you know, this like this moment of like inception that
Speaker 1: just uh that now enables them to create some great
Speaker 1: work or or or solve some problem that was nagging
Speaker 1: them in their daily life. Yeah. Yeah, And that makes
Speaker 1: sense because the mind, I've always said, plays with what
Speaker 1: it loves, and if you're working on a problem day
Speaker 1: after day, of course it's going to show up in
Speaker 1: your dreams. Yeah. So I guess mine is something to
Speaker 1: do with like my Cat and thirty Rock. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that you have a wish fulfillment for for
Speaker 1: Biscuit to show up on a thirty Rock episode, and
Speaker 1: who doesn't now I have we talked about this earlier.
Speaker 1: I think we've both had examples where, um, we've had
Speaker 1: something in a dream that we've been able to take
Speaker 1: and run with like a creative fashion. Um. Sometimes those
Speaker 1: ideas have worked for me. Um, and I've been able
Speaker 1: to like, you know, be like a really cool image
Speaker 1: that I'm like, oh I can take that and and
Speaker 1: extrapolate on that and and feel like, you know, I
Speaker 1: create something interesting, say fiction wise, out of it. Have
Speaker 1: you found that to be the case, Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um,
Speaker 1: when I've been writing fiction, I've there have been certain
Speaker 1: scenes that came to me as if fully formed. Um
Speaker 1: it wasn't. The actual story wasn't fully formed, but there
Speaker 1: was a very visceral idea of of this thing that
Speaker 1: became the plot for something. And I've also uh had
Speaker 1: dreams when I've had a conflict with someone and and
Speaker 1: had was talking in that dream about the conflict with
Speaker 1: that person, and that really seemed to help gain a
Speaker 1: better perspective, like I know I've had I have. I
Speaker 1: think I have a lot of dreams where I'm it
Speaker 1: probably comes of like being fascinated by subway systems and
Speaker 1: public transportation systems that are rail based or subterranean in nature,
Speaker 1: and also from taking Atlanta's public transportation Marta every day.
Speaker 1: I frequently have these dreams of sort of like vast
Speaker 1: like unreal um subterranean public transit systems, you know, and
Speaker 1: lots of lots of sort of very very fantastic um
Speaker 1: settings that are all sort of subway based. So do
Speaker 1: you have a sort of continuity in your dreams and
Speaker 1: there's this universe that you've created that you can revisit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I've gotten some ideas out of that where
Speaker 1: I'm where I sort of like in my waking um
Speaker 1: hour sort of think back on that world and sort
Speaker 1: of try to apply form and function to it that
Speaker 1: doesn't exist in the dream. So you're working on your
Speaker 1: dreams in your waking life. Yeah, some I guess, but
Speaker 1: but it's more like I, like I said, I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm definitely applying in order to it that doesn't
Speaker 1: exist in the dream. On the other hand, I've also
Speaker 1: had like one particular example that I always come back
Speaker 1: to is what I referred to as the hell pimple dream,
Speaker 1: where I had this dream and it's like I woke
Speaker 1: up in the night and I'm like, this is a
Speaker 1: fabulous story idea, so it will be about a hell
Speaker 1: pimple where I think the basis was that you have
Speaker 1: the surface world and then Hell and then there's like
Speaker 1: a pimple coming up from Hell into this. And anyway,
Speaker 1: when I woke up at like, you know, three o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning, uh, this time, it was like, this
Speaker 1: is a great idea. This is the best idea ever.
Speaker 1: And I like wrote it down on the pad and
Speaker 1: then came back to it. I'm like, wow, this is
Speaker 1: just so monumentally stupid, you know. So had you been
Speaker 1: reading Dante before that possibly also I have read Dante
Speaker 1: before that seems like it could be like a hell
Speaker 1: pimple sort of indirect thing happening there. Um. Well, what
Speaker 1: I think is really interesting about this is, especially the
Speaker 1: Subpremian dreams, is that you did create that continuity and
Speaker 1: that there is there's something going on in our dream lives. Um.
Speaker 1: That indicates that we do have an area to work
Speaker 1: out our problems or ideas. But then you've got cognitive
Speaker 1: scientists Stephen Pinker, And he's the same guy, by the way,
Speaker 1: who when we were covering music UM and and how
Speaker 1: it can rebuild your brain in that podcast, he's the
Speaker 1: guy that said that auditory cheesecake is something um that
Speaker 1: he could ascribe to the ability of humans to play music,
Speaker 1: saying appreciate music, so on and so forth, that it
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily add to any sort of um function in
Speaker 1: evolutionary sense. Yeah, he's he provides a really sobering note
Speaker 1: to to other researchers who make a really lofty will
Speaker 1: not lofty, but make a really you know, strong claim
Speaker 1: that that music is a really essential part of who
Speaker 1: we are and serves a specific purpose. Yeah. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I mean, he's like the kill joy right of all
Speaker 1: the fun things, and when it comes to dreams, same thing.
Speaker 1: Not to say we don't need kill joys, I mean
Speaker 1: we need somebody to say, WHOA slow down there, guys,
Speaker 1: don't get too excited, get too excited about this, because
Speaker 1: there is something in our nature we want to give
Speaker 1: meaning to these things, you know, and because they're important
Speaker 1: to us, and so we think therefore, oh well, you know,
Speaker 1: of course my dream is important. Um. So he likens
Speaker 1: dreams to computer screen savers, and you know, we're just
Speaker 1: totally depressing. He says, it doesn't really matter what the
Speaker 1: content is as long as certain parts of the brain
Speaker 1: are active. That being said, there's a lot of data
Speaker 1: out there now that say that we can point to
Speaker 1: and say, okay, well, dreams actually are a huge function
Speaker 1: of the way that we are processing information, and that's
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today. So I'm gonna run through
Speaker 1: a few examples of of of ways that first artists
Speaker 1: from a different spectrum have have claimed that dreams have
Speaker 1: inspired their work. Um and uh, you know, without spending
Speaker 1: a whole lot of time, I do you have people
Speaker 1: like Salvador Dolly of course claimed dreams stimulated his work.
Speaker 1: You have a number of filmmakers such as Mark Bergmann
Speaker 1: uh Felini. Um, you have authors such as Robert Louis
Speaker 1: Stevenson and Mary Shelley. Um, you know Dr jack On,
Speaker 1: Mr Hyde, Frankenstein. There's the whole business with Paul McCartney
Speaker 1: was claiming yesterday, Um, he heard it in in his
Speaker 1: dream right right, the melody yeah, and immediately got up
Speaker 1: and started playing on the piano. And this is just
Speaker 1: a biographically kind of interesting that he was in the
Speaker 1: midst of filming Help, and he was staying in his
Speaker 1: parents attic in a small room, and so I mean,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that he composed this completely nostalgic piece of
Speaker 1: music in a really important time of his life. Well
Speaker 1: sidebar there. Yeah. And one of my favorites is the
Speaker 1: tale of Joe R. Landsdale, who's kind of a weird
Speaker 1: southern Southern Gothic noir writer. Uh still writing, putting out
Speaker 1: a number of novels today. But he he claimed to
Speaker 1: have this thing where anytime he was hard up for
Speaker 1: a story idea, couldn't think of anything, he would have
Speaker 1: his wife make him a big bowl of popcorn and
Speaker 1: he would like just gorge himself on and then go
Speaker 1: to bed, and which would result in like these crazy dreams.
Speaker 1: And he claims that anytime that those dreams gave him
Speaker 1: like even something he could like grab onto and turn
Speaker 1: into a story, he was able to sell that story
Speaker 1: with with like, you know, the first time he submitted
Speaker 1: it to a publication. That's pretty great. So that the
Speaker 1: popcorn was like this symbolic like mental activity. Yea lucky
Speaker 1: red socks and yeah, and and also you know, like
Speaker 1: in our recent podcast about the Gut, we talked about
Speaker 1: how inner about the link between our gastro intestinal activity
Speaker 1: and our neural activity in the brain, and how there's
Speaker 1: this you know, they're this, they're linked, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it's like he's stimulating the brain by stimulating the gut
Speaker 1: and getting these crazy stories out of it. I think
Speaker 1: I knew what I'm doing this weekend. I'm going to
Speaker 1: try that out. I tried with pickles once, and I
Speaker 1: think it were I mean not, I didn't set out to.
Speaker 1: It's just I ended up eating like two or three
Speaker 1: like big like you know, Boar said pickles before I
Speaker 1: went to sleep and had some sort of weird dreams.
Speaker 1: But you also encounter. Of course, scientists who who claimed
Speaker 1: to have have have made that, you know, come up
Speaker 1: with that one key step they were missing or or
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like in the back of
Speaker 1: the Future, you know where you have Dr Emmitt Brown claiming,
Speaker 1: you know where he he envisions the flux capacitor that
Speaker 1: makes time travel possible in a dream, which is a
Speaker 1: great way to explain the unexplainable um away. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we'll get into that in a in a minute too,
Speaker 1: because because again, all these examples of somebody claiming dream
Speaker 1: inspiration are are at once believable and potentially problematic because
Speaker 1: it realies on your personal experience right right, and unverifiable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean what was what's going to get into
Speaker 1: this part? Yeah, it's there's something about even in in
Speaker 1: even today, when we know, I think most of us
Speaker 1: know that a dream is not that a line talking
Speaker 1: to you, there's still the dream world is mysterious. And
Speaker 1: to say that an idea came to you in a dream, um,
Speaker 1: you know it, it kind of elevates that that idea.
Speaker 1: It's it's like saying, you know, I got this idea
Speaker 1: from a dream, I got this idea from uh you know,
Speaker 1: there's a sense that I got it from another world.
Speaker 1: There's a sense I got it from a from the muse.
Speaker 1: It's so or it's it's just sort of a symbol
Speaker 1: out of a mysterious you know process, and and and
Speaker 1: so making that claim can it can be a little
Speaker 1: uh disingenuous. I guess is that because the memory is
Speaker 1: a faulty thing. Yeah. Yeah, and then the then what
Speaker 1: I always think of two is that the ego might
Speaker 1: be kind of bound up to like I'm a genius,
Speaker 1: I I've got the solution. I I dreamed like this
Speaker 1: brain is pretty fabulous. I was thinking about this problem
Speaker 1: and then I just I just went to sleep and
Speaker 1: my brain did all the rest of the work. Like
Speaker 1: That's how awesome this uh, this engine in my head is.
Speaker 1: You know. So there's there's a there's a sense of
Speaker 1: that with with the and and of course it's one
Speaker 1: of those things that can never be fully proved proven.
Speaker 1: I could I could make the claim that every podcast
Speaker 1: we've done, I've you know, has been inspired by my dreams.
Speaker 1: And you know, how are you going to prove me wrong? Right?
Speaker 1: I'm not? Yeah, so um so yeah, keep that in
Speaker 1: mind in any of these examples we're talking about. I
Speaker 1: think we'll get into it. There's clearly something going on
Speaker 1: in the in the brain and a number of processes
Speaker 1: that we can actually look at scientifically, but ultimately there's
Speaker 1: a lot of subjective subjective area there to keep in mind. Uh.
Speaker 1: The biggest one that comes that that generally rises to
Speaker 1: the top is Dmitri mental Lev and Uh, he was
Speaker 1: working on the periodic table of elements, um, which we have.
Speaker 1: There's I believe there's a podcast about that and also
Speaker 1: an excellent how stuff works article. Um. But he allegedly
Speaker 1: he fell asleep during an afternoon game of solitaire, as
Speaker 1: one as want to do, and upon waking he you know,
Speaker 1: he knew exactly how he's going to arrange them, which
Speaker 1: is of course he ranged the arrange them according to
Speaker 1: increasing atomic masks and found that, you know, the elements
Speaker 1: of similar properties appeared at regular intervals. But but this
Speaker 1: is that this is one again, we can't really prove
Speaker 1: that this happened, right, Yeah, And there is actually some
Speaker 1: information out there that calls it into question because they
Speaker 1: say that it um that wrestling colleagues second hand account
Speaker 1: of this, right, So maybe he told the colleague and
Speaker 1: then that the archival material indicates that Mendelev had already
Speaker 1: discovered the pyodic table before the alleged dream took place,
Speaker 1: and that a dream quite plausibly occurred some went later
Speaker 1: than depicted in and it was an improved representation of
Speaker 1: the periodic table. So there's I mean no doubt he
Speaker 1: had a dream about it, but it may have not
Speaker 1: been the the Eureka moment that was, you know, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the complete version of the periodic table.
Speaker 1: It makes me think too, like maybe he just got
Speaker 1: sick of telling the story like everybody you know, Like
Speaker 1: it's like he goes to a dinner party and they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: mental leve, how did you come up with that periodic table?
Speaker 1: And eventually you just get sick of telling the same
Speaker 1: story over and over and you like, I dreamt it right? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because he tells a real version, he's going to have
Speaker 1: the group for very long. Um. Another interesting case is
Speaker 1: is a Frederick August von Coo Cool back in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, and he again allegedly discovered the ring structure
Speaker 1: of the benzene molecule UH by dreaming about a snake
Speaker 1: seizing hold of its own tail, which for the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorists out there, don't get too excited. I don't think
Speaker 1: that he was a member of the Illuminati. Um. But
Speaker 1: right that that that he took that, and he extrapolated
Speaker 1: that to say that benzine had a ring like molecular structure, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. I mean if if indeed that happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the ben zine is it's basically it's a ring
Speaker 1: of six carbons and then they're like six hydrogen shooting
Speaker 1: off from it. They'll have to say I look at it,
Speaker 1: and I don't think, oh my goodness, it's totally a
Speaker 1: snake um consuming its own tail. No. And I was
Speaker 1: thinking about that too. I was like, yeah, that seems
Speaker 1: a little far fetched, but if you are obsessed with
Speaker 1: the topic, you'll find patterns anywhere that you can. Right.
Speaker 1: So maybe even if it was an accident, maybe if
Speaker 1: the he truly was just dreaming about a snake consuming
Speaker 1: its own tail. Um after his Illuminati meeting, and then
Speaker 1: he woke up and he thought, oh, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: there's there's actually a correlation here, like the it's you know,
Speaker 1: the brain does try to find patterns. Yeah, well, maybe
Speaker 1: he was reading a bunch of like Norse mythology, and
Speaker 1: he was all wound up about the organ mander and
Speaker 1: the knit guard storm, and you know who isn't about them.
Speaker 1: Another interesting account is that of this, well there's a
Speaker 1: First of all, there's Elias ho This is the guy who, uh,
Speaker 1: he was working on designs for the first selling machine
Speaker 1: and he couldn't figure out how to make it hold
Speaker 1: the needle, and then he dreamt that he was being
Speaker 1: attacked by cannibals with spears and supposedly worked it all
Speaker 1: out right right, and he noticed that the spear there
Speaker 1: was a small hole at the top right, because I
Speaker 1: think before he was playing with a needle that he
Speaker 1: had put the hole in the middle. And so he
Speaker 1: had that eureka moment when when he was about to
Speaker 1: be cannibalized in his dream. I wonder if you like
Speaker 1: woke up, like, first of all, it was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, goodness, I'm about to be eaten, like just
Speaker 1: completely freaking out, and he's like, oh, oh wait, no,
Speaker 1: I got it. You know, it's sort of interesting too,
Speaker 1: because you know, his adrenaline probably was pretty high, and
Speaker 1: there's actually some correlation between adrenaline in long term memory.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so it was good that he remembered it.
Speaker 1: One of the more one of the crazy examples is
Speaker 1: Herman v. Hill prect and this guy was actually a
Speaker 1: German born professor of assyrian Um. And there it's worth
Speaker 1: noting that there are also some accusations that this professor
Speaker 1: and you know, took credit for other people's archaeological work
Speaker 1: that he hadn't done, that he appropriated artifacts, it's, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So there's there's some controversy about this figure um. But
Speaker 1: but there were like two cases where he supposedly figured
Speaker 1: something out via his dreams. Uh. For instance, he was
Speaker 1: trying to umu decode the name Nebuchadnezzar, the legendary Babylonian
Speaker 1: and he claims that he had a dream um and
Speaker 1: you know, he'd been working at this problem, working at it,
Speaker 1: and then he had a dream um where he's like
Speaker 1: saw this, uh, this dude at a table and he
Speaker 1: figured out that the that it means nebu protect my boundary,
Speaker 1: which that may not make a lot of sense, but
Speaker 1: let me get unto the in the next one, which
Speaker 1: is even more interesting. And this was one he was
Speaker 1: this is uh and there was an expedition to the
Speaker 1: Temple of Bell at Nippur in present day Iraq, and
Speaker 1: Uh he brought back a sketch of two fragments UH
Speaker 1: with the inscriptions in cuneiform, and he made a stab
Speaker 1: at translating these to no avail and then Uh. Then
Speaker 1: he supposedly had a dream in which quote a tall,
Speaker 1: thin priest of the old pre Christian Nippur unquote came
Speaker 1: to him in a dream, and it formed him that
Speaker 1: these fragments were portions of ear rings and UH, and
Speaker 1: that the Babylonian king had sent these had sent an
Speaker 1: inscribed voted cylinder uh to Uh to some artisans and
Speaker 1: asked him to make ear rings and then he made
Speaker 1: them out of the subscribed cylinder and UH. And so
Speaker 1: he ended up going to the He thought about it
Speaker 1: this after the dream apparently decided that yes, the dream
Speaker 1: was right, and then he went to the Imperial Museum
Speaker 1: in Constantinople in the same year and located fragments UH
Speaker 1: in two widely separated cases. And when he arranged them
Speaker 1: side by side, he found that they had in fact
Speaker 1: once belonged to the same vote of cylinder. So this
Speaker 1: fascinated um Uh some some people. But but when they
Speaker 1: really started looking at it, it it was like it was
Speaker 1: clear that this was just associated reasoning. There was like
Speaker 1: nothing going on that like, these dreams were not giving
Speaker 1: him any information that he could not have pieced together conceivably,
Speaker 1: and you know in his waking uh contemplations, right, it
Speaker 1: just happened to occur in his dream stay and and
Speaker 1: again there's some controversies about the guy anyway, so you know,
Speaker 1: keep that in mind too. But but but even if
Speaker 1: it was complete, really on the up and up, there
Speaker 1: was nothing, uh you know, there's nothing supernatural going on here, right, right.
Speaker 1: But then yeah, but there's the problem him being a
Speaker 1: little body, So yeah, what are you gonna do? So
Speaker 1: what's going on in the mind? A lot turns out? Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's a psychologists by the name of Deedre Barrett,
Speaker 1: and she says that creative problem solving dreams virtually always
Speaker 1: occur only after the dreamer has done extensive work on
Speaker 1: the issue awake. So most typically the dreamer is stuck
Speaker 1: at one particular step of a multiple phase process, and
Speaker 1: then the dream involves that step. So then you uh
Speaker 1: add another psychologist to the equation, and his name is
Speaker 1: Robert stickled, and he has conducted all sorts of studies,
Speaker 1: but basically his premise is that sleep can increase your
Speaker 1: ability to finish solving outstanding problems that you may have.
Speaker 1: And when you look at it our brains, the regions
Speaker 1: involved in dreaming, the emotional processing quanked way up. Um,
Speaker 1: so you've got the emotional component. And what he seems
Speaker 1: to think is that there are parts of the brain
Speaker 1: that you can access much more directly than in your
Speaker 1: waking sleep. Um, in particular the emotional components which may
Speaker 1: have been gathering data for you as well. Um, that
Speaker 1: can inform the problem that you're working on. And I
Speaker 1: mean I would use the example of from earlier when
Speaker 1: we were talking about solving problems in our dreams, and
Speaker 1: when I've had a conflict with someone and being able
Speaker 1: to access that information in my mind during a dream
Speaker 1: and having this conversation and and perhaps having the time
Speaker 1: and space on a mental blackboard to figure that out,
Speaker 1: and those resources being more available to me. So this
Speaker 1: is someone who has, like I said, carried out a
Speaker 1: lot of studies in that area. So anyway, Um, yes,
Speaker 1: he Robert Sickle thinks that dreams are constructed within networks
Speaker 1: of associated memories that we don't have access to normally,
Speaker 1: and he sees dreams as being about what the brain
Speaker 1: calculates as most important, same as as Barrett. Basically, the
Speaker 1: importance of the subject, multiplied by the time spent on
Speaker 1: it determines what we dream about. But now, of course
Speaker 1: the problem is that we don't always remember our dreams.
Speaker 1: So there are two theories on why we don't remember dreams.
Speaker 1: One is that uh during rem we shut off our
Speaker 1: non adrenaline release, and that may shut down systems that
Speaker 1: normally in code memories. So when we wake up from
Speaker 1: a lingering dream, and that dream is sort of in
Speaker 1: a short term purgatory of memory, UM, whether or not
Speaker 1: it's sticks depends on if we can revisit the material
Speaker 1: while we're actively awake when the uh nora adrenaline release
Speaker 1: turns back on, and then it commits it to memory.
Speaker 1: So that's one possibility. A second possibility of why we
Speaker 1: don't necessarily remember is that we can't necessarily index them
Speaker 1: and find them quickly. Um we need associations to trip
Speaker 1: the memory. So um stick Gold uses the example of
Speaker 1: seeing a cat and then all of a sudden remembering
Speaker 1: a dream from the night before about a cat and
Speaker 1: being able to take those associations and really activate the
Speaker 1: recall part of your brain. Yeah, so that's that's always
Speaker 1: something kind of mystery, like why can't I remember every
Speaker 1: single one of my dreams? Yeah, there's a on similar ground,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a two thousand seven study from Germany
Speaker 1: Central Institute of Mental Health and they looked at and
Speaker 1: they were looking into how dreams of influence creativity. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's important that when I'm talking about creativity that we're
Speaker 1: not just talking about Salvador Dolly painting a dream escape,
Speaker 1: like this is the creative thinking in any thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the same thing goes for you know, you're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to build a sewing machine, because creativity
Speaker 1: is essentially taking you know, different ideas and assembling them
Speaker 1: into new and useful combinations. Yeah, you know. And so
Speaker 1: in a sense, the whole dreams are just a screen saver,
Speaker 1: maybe in the sense that, like you said, you had
Speaker 1: a you have one of the screensavers that draws from
Speaker 1: a folder ofges, and so all these images are things
Speaker 1: that occupy your brain and you know, suddenly, oh, we're
Speaker 1: getting the picture of you know, the cat barfing and oh,
Speaker 1: here's the picture of you know, of of dirty rock
Speaker 1: or something, you know, and so then they become because
Speaker 1: for you, the cat barfing is going to get flag
Speaker 1: because it's really important because that means you're gonna have
Speaker 1: some big dry cleaning bills. Right. So, but I mean
Speaker 1: in terms of content that we flag, is this is
Speaker 1: important to pay attention to. Yeah, or you know, it's
Speaker 1: like one of those things where you know you'll have like, oh,
Speaker 1: on on one level, here's this you know, there's this
Speaker 1: area of like just pure emotional like say, you know,
Speaker 1: fear of I don't know, you know, fear of strangers,
Speaker 1: and then it gets tied up with some you know,
Speaker 1: fictional thing you've been consuming. Like I think of like
Speaker 1: like zombie dreams, Like have you ever had zombie Holocaust dreams?
Speaker 1: Zombie U part? No? I wish really I have them frequently,
Speaker 1: and I think my wife does too, And I've I've
Speaker 1: spent some time like sort of analyze self analyzing those
Speaker 1: and thinking about like what does that represent? Because I
Speaker 1: think there're a number of things in the whole zombie
Speaker 1: mythos that really that that really capture a lot of
Speaker 1: emotions about modern life. No. No, I think that it's
Speaker 1: just that they're so slow moving that I've never been
Speaker 1: able to take them seriously as a threat exactly. But
Speaker 1: I think that's why we end up getting attached them,
Speaker 1: because it's a slow moving Uh. It's a slow moving
Speaker 1: threat that we can totally deal with if we apply ourselves.
Speaker 1: And it's a blank check to use um violence to
Speaker 1: solve It's basically, uh, in the zombie movies, it's like
Speaker 1: totally cool to use just brutal violence to solve a
Speaker 1: very simple problem. And so I think there's something like
Speaker 1: you know, primal in our you know, in our hind
Speaker 1: brain that really wants to be able to solve simple
Speaker 1: problems like that. And of course the world is there's
Speaker 1: no morality connected to zombies. Yeah. But but I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I'm getting off the point. Basically, I'm saying, I think
Speaker 1: there's academic paper here in the work. There is somebody
Speaker 1: who there was a recent article about the whole like
Speaker 1: the problem solving aspect of that, not so much the violence. Um.
Speaker 1: I'll have to throw it up on the blocks when
Speaker 1: I can remember it later maybe, But back to this, uh,
Speaker 1: this German study, Um, this two thousand seven study. They
Speaker 1: looked at individual individuals with average levels of creativity who
Speaker 1: had reported their dream stimulating stimulating their waking life creativity,
Speaker 1: and they found that there are a number of factors
Speaker 1: uh that that were in play here. Uh. Dream and
Speaker 1: dream recall frequency was key. Um, your ability to recall
Speaker 1: the dream was a major a major influence on whether
Speaker 1: or not that was actually useful to you on a
Speaker 1: creative level. But also there were traits like attitude towards
Speaker 1: creativity and creative activities that you undertake on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: your openness to new experience, and just your imagination in general.
Speaker 1: This presentation is brought to you by Intel sponsors of Tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So the this was bearing out what in the study specifically,
Speaker 1: is it sort of that the more uh it's to me,
Speaker 1: it's like a chicken and egg proposition, like the more
Speaker 1: artistic you are creative during the day, then it would
Speaker 1: feed your dreams or vice versa. Yeah. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's like you're you're engaging in a creative process of
Speaker 1: some kind and then you're dreaming. It's you know, it's
Speaker 1: on one level, it's like the creative process is the
Speaker 1: problem you're trying to solve your you dream about it,
Speaker 1: and then your you know, your brain isn't preparing you
Speaker 1: more for that for that challenge in the waking life.
Speaker 1: But also it comes down to are you remembering your dreams?
Speaker 1: Are you the kind of person who's going to value
Speaker 1: the dream information at all? You know? Are you the
Speaker 1: kind of person that's gonna, you know, look at the
Speaker 1: cat and think, oh, I had a dream last night
Speaker 1: about that cat? What was that dream? What did that
Speaker 1: dream mean? You know, so you can't necessarily dismiss dreams
Speaker 1: out of hand if you're if you're the person who
Speaker 1: really wants to add more value to your own creativity, right, yeah, okay?
Speaker 1: Is it interesting? I mean this one study anyway, um
Speaker 1: and and there's some other interesting ones where they look
Speaker 1: at just how it affects um uh, you know, your
Speaker 1: ability to solve problems. There's a University of California, San
Speaker 1: Diego experiment where uh, and this is this is one
Speaker 1: of those just brilliantly simple experiments where three words are
Speaker 1: given to test subjects such as surprise, line, and birthday,
Speaker 1: and then they you have to guess a fourth word.
Speaker 1: So what would what would be the first fourth associated
Speaker 1: words you would pick for surprise line and birthday surprise line,
Speaker 1: birthday zombies. Well, the word they were asked they were
Speaker 1: looking for it was party, you know, surprise party, party line,
Speaker 1: a little you know, and the birthday party. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: but they let one third of the test subjects nap
Speaker 1: before they picked that fourth word, and uh post u
Speaker 1: rim sleep and then they woke up and the people
Speaker 1: who had had that little map scored higher. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then the quiet rest or non rem sleep uh test
Speaker 1: subjects produced no benefit whatsoever. So so this was you know,
Speaker 1: they were definitely making an argument that rooms sleep with
Speaker 1: having a very um, you know, active role in preparing
Speaker 1: you for these problems. So you know, the brain is
Speaker 1: free associating amongst its ideas and its memories, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's creating these loose associations that were able
Speaker 1: to you know, then we're able to put the connections
Speaker 1: together and get new ideas out of it, you know,
Speaker 1: the creative creativity, you know, the guts of creativity and action.
Speaker 1: Along the same lines again, Robert stick Gold had a
Speaker 1: study where he had some college students go through a
Speaker 1: maze on a computer and they were asked to note
Speaker 1: the position of a particular tree. Oh yes, I ran
Speaker 1: across this as well. Yeah. And then I think, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of the subjects were asked
Speaker 1: to take a nap and the other, let's say half,
Speaker 1: we're asked to go do something quiet and meditative. Um.
Speaker 1: And after the they completed their activity, whether it was
Speaker 1: napping or playing a you know, quiet video game, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Um, they then were retested, or rather they
Speaker 1: were put through the maze again. And those subjects found
Speaker 1: the tree a lot faster. But of course they had
Speaker 1: to have had dreamed about it. And the ones who
Speaker 1: reported dreaming about it actually were the ones that found
Speaker 1: the tree a lot faster. Yeah, those who those who
Speaker 1: had dreamed of the the experimental tasks, that's like four
Speaker 1: four of the fifty nappers, they completed the maze just
Speaker 1: much faster, right. And And the reason that they know
Speaker 1: that they dreamed about it is because from time to
Speaker 1: time they would wake them up and ask them what
Speaker 1: they're dreaming about, and they you know, I think it
Speaker 1: was right as they were going to sleep in rem
Speaker 1: sleep and then right at the end of their sleep cycle,
Speaker 1: and so the person would say, I'm dreaming about the
Speaker 1: maze or you know, giving certain details, um. But it
Speaker 1: was interesting that a lot of them described some of
Speaker 1: the associations with learning, meaning that they would say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm hearing the music that was played in the
Speaker 1: lab earlier, and now I see the tree or I
Speaker 1: see this position in the maze, which again points back
Speaker 1: to the fact that you've got to have certain associations
Speaker 1: during learning. And it actually makes me think about this
Speaker 1: study that was done with much of college kids. They
Speaker 1: were basically saying, okay, we want you to study in
Speaker 1: three different places. Everybody you know, one group three different places,
Speaker 1: one group just studying the same place that you always study.
Speaker 1: And the people that studied in multiple places scored higher
Speaker 1: because they were creating those associations. They were in that
Speaker 1: room when they were thinking about this piece of information
Speaker 1: and the light was just so and so the cool
Speaker 1: thing about dreams is that it's allowing you to replay
Speaker 1: all of those associations that you're having during the learning process. Interesting.
Speaker 1: So stick Gold again, this is this is the guy
Speaker 1: to go to with dreams and learning. He was he
Speaker 1: wanted to test out dreaming and problem solving, UM, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't quite sure how to get everybody to dream
Speaker 1: about the same thing. So sort of his poor man's
Speaker 1: in scept front right here. Um, he decided to have
Speaker 1: a group of people play Tetris. Oh, yes, because I
Speaker 1: think anybody who's played Tetris has had dreams about it.
Speaker 1: And it's yeah, it just happens. Yeah, Yeah, there's something
Speaker 1: that it's like capting it for the brain that you
Speaker 1: can't help but revisit again and again. Um. But the
Speaker 1: group included amnusiacs, which is sort of interesting. Um, and
Speaker 1: this group dreamed about Tetris indeed, and again they did
Speaker 1: the same process where they woke them up at intervals
Speaker 1: and ask them what they were dreaming about. Um. So
Speaker 1: that findings suggests that dreams come from the parts of
Speaker 1: the brain responsible for implicit memories, such as being able
Speaker 1: to ride a bike after years of not being on one,
Speaker 1: and that's a memory that um, actually amnesiacs do have.
Speaker 1: And the study confirmed that scientists suspicions that implicit rather
Speaker 1: than declarative memories were involved, and that really cemented this
Speaker 1: idea that the brain uses dreaming to re worse learning. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder uh, And certainly if anybody out there has
Speaker 1: any stories about this, we'd be happy to hear them. Um,
Speaker 1: if there are cases where someone has been playing a
Speaker 1: video game with some form prior to going to sleep,
Speaker 1: then go to sleep and you know dream about it,
Speaker 1: which occurs with games other than than Tetris, especially if
Speaker 1: there's anybody out there like addicted to like Angry Birds
Speaker 1: or any of that. If they've ever like hit a
Speaker 1: level where they're like, oh I totally can't beat this,
Speaker 1: go to sleep, and then the next day they're able
Speaker 1: to knock it. I wonder if if that occurs. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I've actually seen studies about that before. Um
Speaker 1: that this is a big thing with gamers too, so
Speaker 1: that um, they have to use the same process and
Speaker 1: saying okay, can they work out the problem and then
Speaker 1: master another level more efficiently than someone who's not napping
Speaker 1: or dreaming about there, you go, don't stay up all
Speaker 1: night playing video games, get some sleep, and you know,
Speaker 1: wake up at a decent time and you know, work
Speaker 1: on it first thing in the morning. I say to
Speaker 1: my old roommate, and I used to get up at
Speaker 1: seven o'clock to go to work, and he was still
Speaker 1: in front of the computer. Um that being said, uh,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's there's no doubt here that there's
Speaker 1: evidence that your your brain is working it out while
Speaker 1: you're sleeping. Um and so I guess the idea is
Speaker 1: that if you had more access to your dream material
Speaker 1: than you might be able to actively work on these things.
Speaker 1: And they're also there's also some there're also studies that
Speaker 1: are looking at gene expression. Um. The University of Wisconsin
Speaker 1: study found in the rats expression levels of about a
Speaker 1: hundred genes increased during sleep independent of the time of day.
Speaker 1: So um and you know, these are genes that are
Speaker 1: involved in the release of neurotransmitter chemicals that of course,
Speaker 1: you know, allowing different parts of your brain to talk
Speaker 1: to each other. Um. So. So you know, through throughout
Speaker 1: these different experiments, you're just seeing, you know, cases where
Speaker 1: sleep induce procedural learning. Is you know, is influence is
Speaker 1: you know, there's a role with the gene expression, neurotransmitter mechanisms,
Speaker 1: the patterns of electrical activity and uh, you know a
Speaker 1: number of different scientists out there can just continuing to
Speaker 1: sort of map out exactly what's going on. But but
Speaker 1: but but I think it's clear that you know that
Speaker 1: that the brain is working on solving problems in the night,
Speaker 1: or at least the results prepare you to to better
Speaker 1: solve these problems in your waking life. Yeah. I actually
Speaker 1: even read this this one question that went to stick
Speaker 1: Gold in a Q and A, and it was someone
Speaker 1: asking why flying dreams are so prevalent, and he was saying,
Speaker 1: even then, your brain is trying to work on the
Speaker 1: data that it has present and presenting it in a dream.
Speaker 1: So um, he was saying that that the brain is
Speaker 1: trying to reconcile the fact that we're under the illusion
Speaker 1: that we're moving, but it's getting data from the body
Speaker 1: saying that it's immobile. So flying, we're moving, but our
Speaker 1: limbs aren't bending or moving, and so that that was
Speaker 1: really interesting to me to think it was. It was
Speaker 1: trying to serve both masters of saying, look, I'm flying,
Speaker 1: and yet if you've ever had a flying dream, you're
Speaker 1: usually the accounts of them, or that you're you know,
Speaker 1: pretty stiff, like you're in the Superman pose, or you're
Speaker 1: just sort of sitting very stiff li and moving forward. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I I unfortunately don't get them that often, but it's
Speaker 1: generally like I like, I don't really remember any sense
Speaker 1: of moving my limbs, you know, or having any kind
Speaker 1: of like reef. It's just sort of like you're just
Speaker 1: you're you're flying, You're you're off the ground. And yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it. It is kind of a stiff feeling
Speaker 1: when I think back on it. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: that's your brain trying to say, Okay, fine, do you
Speaker 1: want to fly, You'll fly. But I'm telling you right
Speaker 1: now that you know your body is immobile. You're not moving, buddy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So fascinating stuff with the brain. Yeah, take that with you,
Speaker 1: sleep on it and uh and see what kind of
Speaker 1: interesting ideas come out of it. It's especially if you're
Speaker 1: listening to this ride before you go to sleep. That's right,
Speaker 1: and don't win miss if you have any nightmares. Yeah right. So, hey,
Speaker 1: I think we have just one little bit of listener mail.
Speaker 1: Here is this the hair shirt email hairshirt? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know you you noticed the hair shirt then I went, oh, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I mean it's super spiky and hairy. Yeah. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean the color scheme is really cool. So I just
Speaker 1: thought it was like a fashion thing going on. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: which it's Italian. We have a listener by the name
Speaker 1: of Ryan and Ryan writes in Hi, Robert and Julie.
Speaker 1: I love the podcast, but you made a huge mistake
Speaker 1: when you said that the universe is forty seven billion
Speaker 1: years old. It is, in fact only fourteen point seven
Speaker 1: billion years old. I don't mean to split hairs, but
Speaker 1: this is a pretty big mistake to make. In a
Speaker 1: happier note, thanks for finally helping me figure out a
Speaker 1: mystery that has bothered me for a while now by
Speaker 1: explaining that M theory stands for membrane. I could never
Speaker 1: get a straight answer about what he stood for before
Speaker 1: your loyal listener, Ryan. Okay, Well, first of all, M
Speaker 1: theory for anybody else who's interested in that. Um. John
Speaker 1: Horgan actually has a really interesting article. If you go
Speaker 1: onto his website, you'll see it's about Stephen Hawking and
Speaker 1: he talks about M theory in more detail. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I am this is a very scratchy shirt and I'm
Speaker 1: glad that he pointed that out because speaking of dreams
Speaker 1: and waking life. Um, that was one of those things
Speaker 1: that actually popped up at three o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: a couple of days after we quote of the podcast,
Speaker 1: And oh my god, did I say that? But what
Speaker 1: I thought I had done is confused four point five
Speaker 1: billion years in the solar system with forty five millions,
Speaker 1: But apparently I've said forty seven millions. So well, it's
Speaker 1: one of those you said. It didn't even register because
Speaker 1: I just kind of like heard the correct numbers in
Speaker 1: my head somehow. No, but it hurts his heart, it
Speaker 1: hurts mine, so you know, Mia Colpa. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: worth noting that. It's not like you're running into Julian
Speaker 1: the hallways and she's making a passionate argument that that
Speaker 1: the universe is forty seven billion years old it's true, yeah,
Speaker 1: or six thousand years. Yeah. I try not to, you know,
Speaker 1: have those conversations in the hallway. Um, but by all means,
Speaker 1: you know, if something over here in one of our
Speaker 1: podcasts sounds a little off, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: what we do in here, Um, you know, we researched
Speaker 1: everything beforehand, but some of the actual content is sort
Speaker 1: of come and flying off the cuff. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: every now and then we get something a little wrong,
Speaker 1: so we're happy to make the correction. Uh. And Robert
Speaker 1: likes to to make me where I hurt, So is
Speaker 1: that his pleasure? Um? And uh, if you have any
Speaker 1: really interesting anecdotes or even just mildly interested, We're we're
Speaker 1: pretty easily pleased, uh stories about how dreams have influenced
Speaker 1: your creative processes, whether it be in the creation of art,
Speaker 1: you know, music. Um, yeah, I'm especially interested in music
Speaker 1: because I was looking at some stats from one of
Speaker 1: those studies and they found, uh, like, one of the
Speaker 1: lowest stats was musical inspiration among the people Poe. Now
Speaker 1: you know, even though we have this, you know, this
Speaker 1: really cool story of of Paul McCartney, Like in this
Speaker 1: particular study, there were fewer examples of of a dream
Speaker 1: influencing somebody's music. But but really anything if you if
Speaker 1: you have any examples of of something in your dream,
Speaker 1: you know, solving that problem, be it scientific or artistic,
Speaker 1: let us know. We'd love to hear about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you never know, it might be Noble prize winning. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know you can find us on Facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 1: On both of those we are to load the mind,
Speaker 1: And if you want to drop us a line in
Speaker 1: the old leadite fashion, you can email us at blow
Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
Speaker 1: on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
Speaker 1: our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride.
Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes.