Let Me Sleep On It: How Dreams Can Help Your Problems Disappear

It doesn't seem so strange that most artists I know are avid dreamers. Perhaps by virtue of their profession (and ability to wake up leisurely in the afternoon without the blaring sounds of an alarm) they have a natural respect for dreams. However, it is the logical people in my life -- the math professors, accountants, lawyers, and suit-and-tie wearing professionals who get up at the crack of dawn with an earth-shattering alarm who don't seem to recall their dreams, nor do they seem to put much stock in them.

But we all dream, and we all have problems. In fact, one way of looking at life is that it is a constant stream of problems to solve (or, for the Pollyannas of the world, we call them "opportunities"). And don't we all want to be better problem solvers? Wouldn't being an expert problem solver make even the most logic-based among us more peaceful and productive?

In my many TV and radio interviews I proselytize the value of dreaming and dream recall because I know from my personal experience, and from a decade and a half of working with clients, that dream recall improves people's lives. However, it is always exciting to me when a new study, much less one from Harvard, comes out to scientifically underscore what I've been evangelizing for years.

In a recent Harvard study researchers determined that one of the many functions of dreams is to problem solve. In this study volunteers practiced moving through a difficult three-dimensional maze in their waking state. Because of the difficulty of the maze, all the participants in this study performed poorly.

After working on the maze for a period of time, half the volunteers took a ninety-minute nap, while the other half stayed awake. Upon awakening, the participants who had a chance to sleep were asked to share their dreams. Half of the nappers recalled their dreams (all of which had something to do with a maze) while the half of the nappers reported not recalling any dreams.

Those that recalled their dreams were then able to complete the maze in half the time as those who did not nap and of those who did not remember their dreams.

The interesting thing is that none of the dreams that were remembered described a direct strategy for being able to master the maze. One person said he dreamed about seeing people along checkpoints in the maze and remembering a bat cave he had once toured. Another dreamed of searching for something in a maze. Someone else dreamed about the music that played along with the task.

The lesson may be that dreams don't necessarily have to make sense or be obvious to the awake mind to have a benefit in waking life.

"It might be that sleep is the time when the brain is tuned to find those types of association you wouldn't notice during waking," Dr. Stickgold said. "It's not that the dreams make no sense. They make wacky sense. If you're a student and you want to do better on the test, you might need to dream about it. The question is, 'How do I get myself to dream about it?' The answer is to get excited about it. That seems to be what you dream about."

What this study seems to imply is the sheer act of dream recall provided the dreaming participants a tremendous advantage as compared to those who didn't sleep, or didn't maintain a connection with their dream state.

"This study suggests that struggling with a task might be the trigger that prompts the sleeping brain to focus on the subject and work on getting better," explained the lead author, Robert Stickgold, a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School.

I hope that this study hooks the attention of all of you "I don't have time to pay attention to my dreams" Type A personalities out there. Dream recall is not just for the airy-fairy, or artsy-fartsy types ... dream recall is for anyone who wants to up the ante of success and effectiveness in their lives, while (as an added bonus) raising your level of consciousness and intuition.

Then this begs the question, "How do I improve dream recall?" Don't worry my logic-based friend ... there will be a whole article dedicated to dream recall in this column...stay tuned!