Dreamstorm

Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious

– Thomas Edison, inventor

We’ve all probably had the experience of waking up with a new insight or a good idea, or been told to ‘sleep on it, you will know the answer in the morning’. Sleep seems to stimulate the mind to make non-obvious connections, and there’s more to it than simply waking up with refreshed neurons.

Even as we rest, our brains remain active, bringing together concepts and building new neural pathways without the constraint of an internal censor. Without distractions from the outside world, our mind has time to focus and get some bloody work done. It turns out that resting is a very active state of mind.

In our sleep we are extremely flexible thinkers, connecting information, exploring options.  We automatically become divergent and out-of-the-box thinkers. Anything can happen in a dream. When we’re stuck with a nagging problem and not getting anywhere, when we need a different perspective on an issue, that’s when sleeping can give novel solutions.

Sleep and dreams are researched at universities worldwide, there are whole organisations, such as the International Association for the Study of Dreams, that bring together dream researchers and enthusiasts. And yet the fact that our brains keep brainstorming while we sleep remains largely unknown to the general public. 

I am aiming to fix that. Sleep is an engine for creative change. Let’s use it!

Famous Dreamstormers

When you start looking, examples of innovators and creators who have used their dreams to further their projects are everywhere.

• Stephany Meyer wrote the Twilight series based on a dream.
  As she explains in her blog, the dream got her over a writer’s block.
• Tarana Burke found the words #metoo in her sleep
  “I literally woke up and wrote those words in a notebook”
  (SXSW Sessions podcast 29 jan 2024)
• James Cameron’s creative process often starts with dreams, like with Terminator and Avatar.
• Floyd Ragsdale, a Dupont engineer found out how to amp up Kevlar production because of a dream (The Committee of Sleep, page 119)
• The structure of the Benzene atom famously has been claimend to come from a (day)dream, though this has been under debate ever since the claim was made by the inventor.
• We’ve all probably used a chipcard in some form. But did you know that Roland Moreno, the inventor of the smart card, says he got the idea in a dream?
• Keith Richards got the inspiration for Satisfaction from a dream.
• Stephen King uses his dreams and nightmares as inspiration for his novels.
• When 108 attendees at the Sundance Institute for Filmmaking were asked whether they used their dreams in their work, a majority of writers, directors and actors said that they did – many quite often. (J.F. Pagel et al, 1999)
• Drew Daniel of electronic music duo Matmos dreamt of a fictional music genre he encountered in a dream called “hit em“. Recounted to him by a nondescript woman in the dream, the genre is a type of electronic music “with super crunched out sounds” in a 5/4 time signature with a tempo of 212 beats per minute. Mr Daniel tweeted about the dream, and went back to sleep. When he woke up he saw artist from all over the world had started making tracks based on his dream.

The great news is: this power can be harnessed, and that’s exactly what I am here to share with you. Because the results are transformational. While sleeping on a problem, I have seen my clients figure out:

• where they are stuck, and what to do about it
• a new angle for strategic decisions
• feedback from their unconscious intelligence

How to “Dreamstorm”

Want to bypass your standard train of thought and get un-stuck? Sleep on it. Using sleep with intention we can solve problems, achieve clarity, and increase insight. Let’s make sleeping in the new productivity hack. Here are three research based steps to proactively sleep on a problem.

Step One – Prompt your brain

Before going to bed, think about a pressing challenge you’re having. Hold it in your mind or write it down as an open question that deserves a surprising answer. While you’re asleep, your mind will work on the problem.

Step Two – Ditch the alarm

Our sleeping brain is hardwired to explore options and come up with original solutions – but it needs time to do the work.Instead of jumping out of bed, take a minute or two to remember your dreams. No dreams? No worries! Your brain works for you regardless. Check how you feel: are there any thoughts floating around? Catch your subconscious intelligence and write down whatever comes up.

Step Three – Explore and apply

Explore whatever you wrote down in the morning. What does it make you think of? Any ideas in there that are worth trying out during the day? Once you set up a regular dreamstorm practice you can even revisit what you wrote earlier in the week. You might find even more ways to expand the ideas.

Pro Tip:

One key to success is to care about the problem you’re trying to solve. A dreaming brain is emotionally driven, so it’s easier to dream about your love life, than about math problems. However, scent association can nudge the mind into a desired direction https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22404078/

Embrace flexible thinking

Develop habits and tools that help you find sweet spots in solution space.

I am a big fan of letting go, sleeping in, being bored.  It gives our brain space to do its work. To me, this is a habit that I gently built into my life. Some proven practices that have worked for me, and my clients:

Prioritize rest. Take a nap, a walk, or a moment of quiet reflection in the shower to spark insight.

Stay open to the unexpected – you might, for example, not get the dream that you thought you would – but that’s exactly the point. 

Explore during the day. Use your thoughts, ideas, and dream metaphors as a starting point for further exploration.

Practice makes perfect. This might not work on day one, or two. It’s like a muscle that needs training.

Put your spin on it. People I work with experiment and add their own twist on the process, based on what works for them.

Create space. Instead of grabbing your phone first thing in the morning, create some space for the unexpected to present itself. And then write it down, to ponder on later. 

More resources

I collect relevant research and books about the dreaming brain here https://thinkinginyoursleep.com/resources/

And I wrote a blog on the dreamstorm process, including an example from my 2011 book https://thinkinginyoursleep.com/blog/