Good news: dreaming makes you smarter
Last week I dreamed that I was the new promise among the presenters. I just got that late night show – boom – in my lap, because it was not a question but a fact. It was so funny (and scary) that I woke up chuckling in the morning, with a message from May in my inbox who dreamed about me and my graduation again that night. Where do I want to go with all that dreaming of ours? You don't dream for nothing, because it makes us smarter, say neuroscientists.
Do you know those dilemma-on-Tuesday questions? I think this is a fun one. If you had to choose, what would it be? Would you prefer to become rich while sleeping or would you still go for becoming smart while sleeping? I would unhesitatingly choose the latter. You can't buy intelligence with being rich; by being smart, there's a lot to earn. At least, that's my logic.
Neuroscientist Erik Hoel, from the University of Medford in America, shows that becoming smart while sleeping might just happen when you dream for a night. The purpose of a dream is that we learn to understand daily events better. Our brains are trained in such a way that the dream teaches our brains to learn. Learning to learn, yes.
Huh, but how does that work exactly? It actually works the same as with an artificial intelligence system; your brain trains your subconscious to become smarter. By the way, a degree of chaos and madness is needed; otherwise, your brain gets too quickly accustomed to a situation and then it stops learning. Voilà: there you have the bizarre dream where you are sitting with Matthijs van Nieuwkerk in your grandmother's living room, with studio lights on your head, and he is confidently telling you that you are going to be the new face on TV. I still get a bit panicky when I think back to this scenario and I am also relieved every time I realize it was just a dream.
It is not yet completely nailed down by science, but there are several experts who subscribe to this scenario. Everything in our body and mind has some sort of function, so the dream must have one too. Leaving the appendix aside. But then you do wonder whether it was purely educational or if I really need to do something with that late night show. I guess I’ll just have to sleep on it for another night.
Source: Bedrock
