Dreaming about snakes - The science behind "Sleeping on It"

Can a scientific idea be born out of a dream?

What do you have in common with Einstein, Alexander the Great, Martin Luther King Jr., Socrates, Da Vinci, dolphins, dogs, lizards and a bunch of other critters? At least two things: breathing and sleeping.

Breathing consists, as a rough description, in using environmental oxygen to acquire energy off your food through cellular processes we know a lot about. It is very easy to do, you don't need to be a genius to become an expert at it. Just contract your diaphragm. Sleeping is also relatively simple if you're a postmodern human. But think about your grand-grand-grand-grand-father, several thousands of years ago, in the wilderness, exposed to the elements, to woods full of bears, poisonous snakes and spiders, tigers and other creatures of which we were not excluded of their diet.

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If you do not want to expose yourself to such a mental strain, then think about dolphins. They are conscious breathers, this is: as they are "thirsty" for air they have to consciously swim to the surface and take a gasp. The problem is that the basic sleeping manual states that a key item for sleeping well is the loss of muscle tone. Then, how does Flipper sleep? It turns out that when we sleep, neurons in our brain synchronize their activity in slow waves named Delta. Something like a stadium "wave". But when the dolphin sleeps that happens only at one hemisphere of the brain at a time, while the other hemisphere is at a normal activity level.

Aquatic mammals are not the only ones that sleep by turning off only half of the lights of the house at a time. Some ducks sleep in packs of four, swimming in line one next to another one. While the two that are in the center sleep like a log, the other two sleep in one hemisphere and keep the other one "on" to watch out for predators.

Iguanas also have a similar skill. If the night is quiet, they sleep just like we do. But, if there's a suspicious sound around, they sleep with only one hemisphere at a time, just in case... Even for a couple of days after hearing the steps of the potential murderer, just in case.

We, land mammals are able to sleep with our whole brain at a time. This is because we found a way to have a certain security/safety as we snore. Some, build burrows, others nests, and Mary and John sleep in a nice house with bulletproof windows, hard steel doors, alarm and a security guard outside. It may sound a bit excessive, yet it is true sleeping implies risk. Despite that, we keep doing that one third of our lives, therefore it probably has an important function and one of them is dreaming.

Some may say that dreaming is a form of expression of our unconscious, the rendering of our fantasies, blah, blah blah. Others would say that it is the moment when Delta waves -that "sweep" our brain as we sleep- trigger the REM in which we have vivid and bizarre adventures. With no consequences we are able to adventure into the most embarrassing and ridiculous corners of our own mind.

But dreams are not random fantasies. During the day we have experiences that filter into the scenes of our dreams, generally within contexts that had little or nothing to do with the ones that we experimented them under; sometimes with unexpected results. The German scientist August Kekulé was obsessed in finding the structure of the chemical compound: benzene. One day, he had a dream about a snake biting its tail, and then he had the idea of a cyclic structure in that molecule. To discard that this epic tale was nothing else but a side effect of the constant inhalation of that volatile compound, not long ago an experiment was done to study the phenomenon in detail. The researchers threw a couple of mattresses in the lab and made several participants play "Doom" until they wanted to sleep. During the night, they were awaken to be asked what were they dreaming about. It resulted that, the ones that reported elements of the game such as monsters, weapons, blood, and so on under different contexts: had a better game performance in the next day. Then, dreaming could be interpreted as a moment of "VR training", where we connect data we learned by separate during our awaken state, and this way we prepare for future scenarios.

For our brain, a day of experiences and learning is like a beach day. All over it, new connections are established, and in that neuro-dune a lot of tracks, footprints and sand castles are made. The strong experiences we've during the day are like those huge sand castles. When the night falls and we go to sleep, the rising tide comes... like the Delta waves. Those waves smooth the marks in the sand, but the ones that were drawn harder, deeper, the huge castles some artist built highlight, the strong experiences. When the water recedes and the REM stage starts, the beach is filled by drunk tourists that play around with the remaining sand castles: Reshaping our experiences.

Learning is, somehow, connecting elements that at a point seemed distant. Dreaming has a bit of that. Sometimes it makes you feel like you're crazy and in others, with some luck, the drunk tourists help you out drawing benzene snakes for you.

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