You may lose out on sleep quality, but this works because the processes that allow us to create memories are usually inactive during sleep. Once you record everything you remember, you could go back to sleep for the rest of your night.
This should cause you to wake in the middle of your REM cycle, and remember what you dreamed more clearly. Rather than waking naturally, try setting an alarm for four to five hours after you fall asleep. If getting more rest isn’t your thing, you could also try waking up early. Spending a few more hours asleep means more time for dreaming, and will also give your body more opportunity to enter the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) phase, where dreaming occurs. Saying to yourself, “I will dream tonight” will increase your chances of dreaming. Here are some quick ways to focus your thoughts and encourage more memorable dreaming. If you’re not a prolific dreamer just yet, don’t worry. Instead of letting fear hold you back, recording what you're dreaming can help you connect with your emotions, work through them, and leverage them to your advantage. Maybe you’re too stressed about an upcoming test to focus much on creating, or perhaps you’re anxious to try your hand at a new story idea because you’re worried it will turn out badly. This makes dreaming one of the best ways for your brain to practice imagination and come up with innovative ideas.įor many writers, artists, and other creatives that struggle with a creative slump, delving into their emotions can help jog new ideas. Many think that what you see when asleep are just your recent experiences combined in new ways. Very often when you imagine something, you are recombining past experience in a new way. They can help improve your memory and get you through mental blocks. Science knows that paying attention to your dreams can make you more creative, but why? Well, just like doing Sudoku puzzles and riddles can help your practice logical problem-solving, dreaming is like creativity exercises for your brain. So, whether you’re a painter, a writer, or just trying to solve a problem, journaling your nighttime fantasies can help you. Even nightmares have their uses - Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein began as a bad dream. James Watson was studying DNA when he dreamed of two spiraling snakes and realized DNA might be shaped like a helix as well. Paul McCartney first heard the tune of the Beatles’ iconic “Yesterday” in a his sleep. So will making an effort to remember your dreams give you that creative boost you’ve been searching for? It’s certainly helped many creatives in the past. Multiple studies that have shown people who make an effort to remember their dreams are more creative. This ability to connect and synthesize new ideas is why many people believe dreams can help creativity. Many believe that dreams give our brains time to process and store the day’s events in long term memory, allowing your mind to make connections among disparate ideas and themes. Why we really see things when we fall asleep is something scientists are still trying to figure out. Ancient Egyptians believed gods communicated omens to us while we slept, and Ancient Greeks believed the god Hypnos waved a fan to send people into deep, dreaming slumber. Given how much of our lives we spend snoozing, it’s no surprise the significance that has been attributed to dreams throughout history. Despite each session being relatively short, it’s estimated that people will spend about a month dreaming each year. That endless dream you have about running in slow motion down a hallway probably only lasts about five to twenty minutes in real-time, science says.
In fact, most people have several in each sleep cycle. Whether you remember it or not, you’re probably dreaming every night.