November 2, 2009 by bgierke
While driving across our beautiful state earlier this week, obsessing about problems and desperate for creative insight, I turned on the radio. Iowa Public Radio, to be precise, and a program about lucid dreaming*. That’s when you’re in a dream and know it. There's even such a thing as dream yoga in which adepts reportedly develop remarkable facility.
The discussion also recounted a wide range of dream research and anecdotes. Abraham Lincoln had a dream premonition of his assassination shortly before the tragic event. Sting and Johnny Cash, to name but two, have had songs come to them in dreams.
Solutions to important math problems have appeared in dreams. Or moments after a sunrise awakening. (Which brings to mind the incredible underpinning mathematics seems to provide our universe. Hmm, brains certainly aren’t rectilinear…)