I’ve been thinking lately about fishing for ideas in my dreams. I do a little bit of it now and again. I know what you might be thinking: who wants to hear about the dream someone else had the night before? I do. I love that my mind has conjured up images or plot lines running from the mundane (a summary of my day sifting past) to the crazy:
Charlton Heston is pushing me in a go-cart in a low-fi Ben Hur-like scene, except he was pushing me across a lush expansive lawn past a formal, curiously silent dinner party held beneath a large white tent. I recognized J.J. Abrams in the dinner crowd as Heston and I rushed past. His voice boomed. We were making a lot of noise. We sensed a victory, and I asked Heston to maneuver us by a discarded net that I saw on the lawn, calling out to him, “Let’s get the net, for the win!” We were whooping it up when I woke up laughing.
I’ve been reading a book on consciousness called The Head Trip, and ever since I started it, I’ve only had one good dream (referenced above). It’s like my mind has performance anxiety. The author, Jeff Warren, is a science reporter for the CBC. He intersperses his reporting on the subject with his personal experience undergoing tests at the Dream and Nightmare Laboratory at Montreal’s Sacré-Coeur Hospital.
One of my favorite stages of sleep that Warren describes is the hypnagogic. The hypnagogic is that first stage of sleep that we drift into, when our bodies jerk and we startle ourselves accidentally. (Have you ever sat up in bed, because you thought you heard a loud noise, or someone call your name, only to realize that you had imagined it?) This stage of sleep can last anywhere from 2-20 minutes, Warren explains, and it’s characterized by an almost hallucinatory feeling that produces vivid dreams, and associative thinking. Rational thinking takes a hiatus while we drift off in darkness and our brains light up.
Warren runs through a list of writers, artists, and inventors who have used this stage of sleep for inspiration. I was aware that Coleridge said that his Kubla Khan was inspired by a vivid, lurid dream that he rushed to copy when he awoke. (Although, I think the laudanum addiction had more to do with it, don’t you? ;) Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was also inspired by a dream.
But I didn’t know, until I started reading The Head Trip, that people like Thomas Edison and Salvador Dali intentionally rigged systems to wake themselves after short naps so they could dredge their dreams for ideas. Edison would sit in a chair with a notebook and pen nearby, and hold ball bearings in either hand with tin plates beneath them. As soon as the balls fell from his limp hands and hit the tin plates, he awoke and would scribble down what he could remember.
Warren has a little system that he’s shared in his book for using the hypnagogic state for creative problem solving:
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Set your alarm clock for 20 minutes.
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Write about a problem you are having and think about it before you nap.
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Make sure a pen and paper are handy.
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Take a moment to clear your mind.
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Jot down ideas or associations if you have them as you begin to fall asleep.
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When the alarm goes off, immediately record your thoughts.
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Look for clues, metaphors, etc.
So, what about you – do you get some of your best ideas from dreams? Want to share a crazy one? I love hearing them. Here’s to a night of crazy, creative dreaming -
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This is fascinating – I have experienced this many times and love that stage of sleep – except if I don’t wake up I drift into a deeper sleep and never remember any dreams. I will have to try Warren’s suggestion. I have about a 5-minute window to write my ideas down or they are gone. But – it’s interesting how the same themes repeat in my dreams. I recognize them when they occur, however I cannot quote one now, since I never write them down :)
It’s true, listening to someone recount “listen to this dream I had last night…” puts me in an instant coma. But what a great source for mining ideas. The amazing, and seemingly lengthy narratives we dream should be written down immediately. Dream stories are so liberating compared with staring at the blank canvas in waking life.