Timeline for Have you solved problems in your sleep?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
57 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 4, 2023 at 3:53 | history | edited | Martin Sleziak | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
a Wayback Machine link instead of the dead link
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| Dec 25, 2022 at 23:59 | answer | added | Martin Seysen | timeline score: 4 | |
| Dec 25, 2022 at 6:24 | answer | added | RavenclawPrefect | timeline score: 5 | |
| Sep 2, 2021 at 23:07 | history | edited | Gerry Myerson |
edited tags
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| Sep 2, 2021 at 19:35 | answer | added | Michael | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 2, 2021 at 17:22 | answer | added | მამუკა ჯიბლაძე | timeline score: 0 | |
| Mar 10, 2019 at 12:40 | review | Close votes | |||
| Mar 10, 2019 at 18:01 | |||||
| Feb 16, 2019 at 22:18 | comment | added | Sylvain JULIEN | Most of my ideas came to me not during sleep but while having shower in the afternoon on a day off. | |
| Feb 16, 2019 at 20:11 | answer | added | Tom Goodwillie | timeline score: 25 | |
| Dec 17, 2017 at 15:27 | review | Close votes | |||
| Dec 17, 2017 at 18:04 | |||||
| Jun 8, 2017 at 22:17 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jun 9, 2017 at 1:13 | |||||
| Jul 2, 2016 at 8:37 | history | protected | Lucia | ||
| May 10, 2016 at 17:02 | answer | added | John Bentin | timeline score: 12 | |
| May 10, 2016 at 14:27 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | @PaulBurchett: That would be a different question. You or someone else is welcome to post it. | |
| May 10, 2016 at 13:52 | comment | added | Paul Burchett | Have you thought of extending your question to include altered states of consciousness in general? | |
| Feb 1, 2016 at 12:56 | comment | added | Federico Poloni | I am sure lots of people have had great ideas while sitting on the toilet, but this doesn't get mentioned as often as solving problems while sleeping because it's less sexy. | |
| Feb 1, 2016 at 10:02 | comment | added | Włodzimierz Holsztyński | Isn't dream the major source of the significant proofs? | |
| Feb 1, 2016 at 9:39 | answer | added | Denis Serre | timeline score: 19 | |
| Sep 5, 2015 at 8:20 | history | reopened |
Joseph O'Rourke Andrey Rekalo Hugh Thomas András Bátkai მამუკა ჯიბლაძე |
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| Sep 5, 2015 at 4:53 | comment | added | user76479 | I would be really curious if any hard combinatorics problem was solved this way. | |
| Sep 4, 2015 at 23:32 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Sep 5, 2015 at 8:20 | |||||
| May 7, 2014 at 2:04 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| May 7, 2014 at 6:45 | |||||
| Apr 28, 2014 at 18:03 | vote | accept | Joseph O'Rourke | ||
| Apr 28, 2014 at 17:47 | comment | added | Georges Elencwajg | "I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Thomason-Trobaugh theorem, which is the only instance I can think of where a dream character was bestowed coauthorship" This would be an interesting theme for psychiatryoverflow . | |
| Apr 28, 2014 at 15:37 | history | closed |
Andrés E. Caicedo Suvrit Chris Godsil R W Georges Elencwajg |
Not suitable for this site | |
| Apr 28, 2014 at 3:18 | comment | added | Manfred Weis | I have made diverse experience: i managed to solve two problems, that kept me busy for a long time, after having contemplated them in a half-awake state and I also experienced misleading "that's it!" dreams. But, in all cases the ideas were worth checking and always have pen and paper in reach when sleeping. My explanation for creative dreams is, that then thoughts are not on the leash and they may bring anything, irrespective of value. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 15:58 | answer | added | Kristal Cantwell | timeline score: 11 | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 15:20 | answer | added | Tom Goodwillie | timeline score: 37 | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 14:33 | answer | added | Joël | timeline score: 13 | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 14:25 | answer | added | Chris Heunen | timeline score: 25 | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 11:28 | comment | added | Kenshin | When learning about matrices in school my friend asked me to solve AX = XB + C for X, given A,B and C. I wasn't sure, but that night I had a dream about expanding the matrices and writing out the equations and re-solving simultaneously. When I woke up I wrote out what I had dreamed and arrived at the correct answer. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 11:11 | answer | added | David Richerby | timeline score: 13 | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 9:10 | answer | added | Carlo Beenakker | timeline score: 4 | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 4:33 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila♦ | I recall a few proofs I had in my dreams, they were no worse than the proof I managed to come up with in this plane of existence. I did earn a great deal of intuition about forcing and symmetric extensions in my dreams whilst writing my masters thesis. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 3:37 | comment | added | Evan Jenkins | I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Thomason-Trobaugh theorem, which is the only instance I can think of where a dream character was bestowed coauthorship. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 3:29 | answer | added | Lucian | timeline score: 17 | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 2:21 | answer | added | Joel David Hamkins | timeline score: 105 | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:52 | comment | added | Todd Trimble | I guess we can take that as defining more clearly what your question is asking for. (Sorry for the noise; I find that talking about unconscious processes is inherently difficult; it's hard to know what role sleep plays, and I have a real problem with "accurate reasoning occurring during sleep", which seems rife with difficulty.) | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:45 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | @ToddTrimble: If the idea was not present in consciousness prior to sleep, but is present upon awakening...? | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:42 | review | Close votes | |||
| Apr 27, 2014 at 15:21 | |||||
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:41 | comment | added | Todd Trimble | Well if it's from "who knows where", how could one testify that it came out of last night's sleep? That would be a supposition at best. I guess I'm having a problem with the question... | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:37 | comment | added | user9072 | @Lucia I just meant to send you a reprint, but... ;-) More seriouly, I thought about if I could answer this question without the result, but then I understood the question being about the processes not the exact result. Also, I just left a comment :-) | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:37 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | @toddtrimble: I think the distinction between a remembered dream and awakenening with a "result" from who knows where---perhaps an unremembered dream---is tenuous. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:31 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | @quid: Yes, I did not mean a dream per se, but just subconscious significant progress during sleep; perhaps in a dream, perhaps not. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:29 | comment | added | Todd Trimble | @quid I think that's a critical question for Joseph to clarify. The phrase "significant and accurate reasoning occurring during sleep" signifies for me knowing that one had actually reasoned during sleep, and memories of thoughts that had transpired in sleep are barely distinguishable from memories of dreams (to me, anyway). | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:28 | comment | added | Suvrit | I have so far only disproved stuff in my sleep / dreams, so presumably this does not count :-) | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:27 | comment | added | user9072 | @ToddTrimble no, I did not mention any dream. But does the question ask for dreams specifically? | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:26 | comment | added | Todd Trimble | @EricWofsey That's precisely what I mean; that happens to me frequently. It's frustrating! Because it seemed so wonderful in the dream. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:25 | comment | added | Benjamin Steinberg | This has happened to me more than once. The most important example for me was I woke up realizing that Stallings foldings compute the profinite closure of the language accepted by a strongly connected automaton. This was the crucial starting point for a series of about 4 or 5 papers I wrote. I still don't know where the insight came from but I knew it to be true when I woke up. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:24 | comment | added | Eric Wofsey | I have come up with proofs in dreams, but when I wake up they've always turned out to be nonsense. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:21 | comment | added | Todd Trimble | I'm not sure your example counts, quid. Did you discover the proof in a dream? I mean, it very often happens to me that I wake up with ideas in my head and I'm bursting to go, and no doubt stuff had been brewing subconsciously during sleep, but I cannot report any instances of wonderful mathematics carried out in a dream where the dream and its mathematical details were then lucidly recalled upon waking. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:14 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| Apr 27, 2014 at 1:11 | comment | added | Jim Conant | I once went to bed thinking about a problem and in the morning had a conjectural resolution, which it then took me several months to prove. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 0:59 | comment | added | Lucia | What result would that be, quid? :) | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 0:37 | comment | added | user9072 | Yes, this happened to me. My very first pusblished result in fact (so at least then it was major for me :-)). I thought I knew how to do it while brushing my teeth in the evening but then realized it did not work that way. Yet, the next morning I knew how to actually prove it. | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 0:20 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | "The question you're asking appears subjective and is likely to be closed." So the software informs me. :-) | |
| Apr 27, 2014 at 0:19 | history | asked | Joseph O'Rourke | CC BY-SA 3.0 |