San Diego psychiatry professor Sara Mednick presented the findings of a study that, based on word tests, suggests that people who take naps in which they dream are notably better at creative problem-solving than those who don’t. Mednick’s careful conclusion: dreaming helps us combine ideas in new ways, and see connections between things that might otherwise seem to be unrelated.

At the same conference, Harvard psychiatrist Daniel Schachter reported that the same areas in the brain that handle memory, such as the hippocampus, show increased activity when subjects are asked to imagine future events. He allowed that dreaming may help us prepare for the future by putting together elements from our past. Schachter told National Geographic that “when you imagine future events, you’re recombining aspects of experiences that have actually occurred.” 

Active dreamers know that a great deal more is going on in dreams of the future than the Harvard psychiatrist is ready to discuss; see my recent post, “In dreams, we scout the roads ahead”. Still, I am always grateful when scientists take even a small step towards validating what active dreamers – and most human cultures prior to the modern era – know about dreaming.