Have you had a really smart dream?

Occasionally I appear to dream while speaking fluent Hungarian, Polish or Greek…all languages that I don’t know.

I’ve had dreams that I have derived coherent stories from.

i sometimes dream in spanish, and also in black & white, it gives you a different perspective on things, and so yes, i do have “smart” dreams sometimes. I am also taking classes and training to be an engineer, and a lot of my ideas that i come up with have come from common dreams.

My dreams are usually on acid haha

I once dreamt that I was on top of a skyscraper watching nuclear missiles impacting the city. I ran down the stairs and got buried by rubble and suddenly I had a HUD with a temperature reading. Closest thing I can remember, my brain being able to project a HUD into my vision, that is.

I sometimes have dreams that I THINK are brilliant until I wake up and think about it. I got a “million dollar idea” for a fabulous book. A man falls in love with a can of peaches named Libby in the back of his pantry. Somehow the soul of some ancient princess was trapped in the peaches..

yeah, then I was awake enough to realize how much that sucked.

Your asleep mind is really that smart. Think about what you create in your dreams. Your example of an alliteration is probably one among thousands of other amazingly smart instances you could site.

I’ll do one better. I just had a really cool waking creative aha.
I used my little elf ‹(•¿•)› to hyperlink.
I renamed him Little Lincoln the Linkin’ Elf.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Me too!

@keobooks THIS, haha. I’ve come up with ideas for books and I’ve made mathematical breakthroughs. None of which made a bit of sense, of course.

@davidk Hmm. It just bothers me that my asleep mind occasionally comes up with things that I wouldn’t have thought of awake!

@Mariah
It bothers me too from time to time. Just let the sense of awe that you have about your innate ability to create…and use it as a waking tool. Consider that your mind is much like an iceberg. Only 10% of an iceberg is visible above the waterline. The more solid the 90% is the better the 10% functions. The waking mind needs the intuitive mind to act most efficiently and effectively.

wow @Mariah that was an amazing that was an amazing perspective on dreaming!

@CsC
Look I say Little Lincoln the Linkin’ Elf has it all over Mister Mitch’s mister. At least mine has a real function.

I once dreamt I actually knew where my car key were and how to program the remote!! I woke up in a sweat!

haha…that sounds awesome. Maybe you listened to “Hey Soul Sister” too many times. Nice to see you around the site, by the way!

I’m not sure if I’ve ever really had a “smart” dream, but I have had dreams that feature these amazing landscapes and locations that resemble nothing I’ve ever seen. This is why I wish I could “videotape” my dreams and rewatch them. I remember seeing this elaborate garden by the ocean; it was so beautiful and I am amazed my sleeping mind was able to come up with something like that. I’ve used some of these locations in stories I have written. Certain scenes from my dreams have also inspired scenes in my fiction.

Also, what is this metaphor you speak of? I would love to hear about it… :)

Yes, I have many brilliant dreams. Often there are cities and buildings that are extremely interesting. New vehicle designs. Interesting ideas. Swimming cats. Jokes. Hot women. ;-)

@DominicX :)

I love epic dreams like the ones you described! Although they make me kind of reluctant to wake up.

Okay, well, this metaphor is really quite depressing actually, but here goes. I was sick during a lot of my freshman year of high school. It went into remission, but then during my junior year I started having some of the same kinds of problems again. They were really mild, but even so I started getting really anxious that I was going to have to re-live what I had gone through two years before. In the midst of all this anxiety, I go to bed one night and dream that I am being haunted by ghosts. In my dream, the ghosts weren’t being all that evil, they were just being a little bit bothersome and pulling pranks on me and things like that. Even so, in my dream, I was really scared by the fact that these ghosts were around at all, because apparently during my freshman year (I even stated this at one point in my dream) I had had problems with ghosts haunting me and making my life miserable, and I was all concerned that my current ghost problem, although mild at the time, was going to eventually get a lot worse. It’s a pretty transparent metaphor, but I’m still a little amazed that my sleeping mind came up with it.

I developed quantum gravity but couldn’t remember the formula in the morning.

@Mariah I think that your dream led you toward that melodic alliteration about Missing Mr Mitch’s Mister. (that is really fun to say ;)

I’ve had some doozies about alien technology. I mean, real doozies!! (If I get some strong enough coffee, I’ll type ‘em out here.)

@SeventhSense Cool!
@keobooks To me, that dream sounds like it has the potential to be fascinating.
@mattbrowne Awesome! (too bad ‘bout not remembering though)

I am not sure I have ever had “smart” dreams, but I certainly have experienced metaphors. Really elaborate ones. It may sound a little lame, but I actually use a dream dictionary online whenever I have a particularly crazy dream (and I mean stuff like riding elephants and being chased on a railroad in the Indian countryside, things like talking to a statue in a friend’s garage, I think you get the idea…). These dreams are so rare that I get very interested in the “why”. Well, believe it or not, doing this has given me incredible insight into myself and into feelings I would never have really paid attention to otherwise.

Can’t tell you for smart dreams, but I do find that most of my good ideas come at the precise moment when I drift into sleep. It’s usually at a point where I can still get up and go write it down. The next morning I consider the idea in question.

On an another related note, even if I am not aware of it during the process, I have found that “sleeping on a problem” really does work for me. In other words, I will wake up the next morning and go “of course!” It’s pretty neat! :P

@TheBot Hey, I think it’s actually pretty neat that you were able to gain insight from your dreams. More power to you!
Aha, you reminded me of another anecdote! I am learning C++ right now; a few days ago I was working on some code and ran into problems that I wasn’t sure how to solve. I went to bed, and as I was drifting off to sleep, a couple of ideas occurred to me regarding how to fix my code. I tried implementing them the next day and it worked like a charm. That made me laugh. XD

@Mariah

See what I mean?? It’s awesome I tell you! ^^

Obviously nothing is ever black or white, but most of the time the problems I find myself solving unconsciously overnight (those I “sleep on”) are logical in nature. Like algebra, or fully grasping an economics concept. Problems that don’t really require deduction but mainly creativity (such as finding a project idea for example) usually come to me the way you found your programming ideas, just sliding into sleep.

You’re learning C++?? Is it the first computer language you have studied? How do you teach yourself? I have been considering taking up C++ as well (learning just C to begin with)