The power of dreaming: Can you solve problems in your sleep?

I’m at home in Sydney, sitting across the dinner table from my mum and stepdad. They’ve been on holiday to London and are back just in time to nurse me through a difficult period – I’ve recently come out of a seven-year relationship and I’m struggling.

Now, to take my mind off it, they’re raving about their trip and all the trappings of a British winter: pubs, fireside wine, royalty, grey skies, the omnipresence of history on the streets. It all sounds wonderful, but I don’t think about it too much. I go to bed, stomach full of mum’s roast dinner, nursing a broken heart and longing for some kind of change in my life.

That night, I dream of London in all its cold, fierce loveliness. I’ve only ever been there once, as a little girl, so I am probably merging my childish memory with my mother’s recollections of growing up there. But in my dream I’m walking in a park that my mind tells me is Hyde Park, and I’m happy. It’s a simple dream but a vivid one.

By morning, I’ve had an epiphany: I need to pack my bags, book a ticket and emigrate more than 10,000 miles to the opposite side of the globe. Less than a month later, I do just that. Now, almost three years on and happily settled in the city, I’m convinced it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

It may sound extreme, but it’s not the first time I have dreamt my way to a major life decision. I’ve quit jobs, fought for promotions and even ended a friendship thanks in part to my night-time decision-making habit. I wholly believe a good night’s sleep can help solve any problem: there’s something miraculous about burrowing into REM sleep (the stage that brings on dreaming) and letting it bring clarity. Which is surprising, given that I’m a lifelong insomniac. I never solve problems lying awake at 4am; I only solve them once I’ve dreamt my way to a new perspective, then woken up fresh and clear.

There are also famous examples of dreams inspiring creativity. Paul McCartney says he wrote the melody for Yesterday in his sleep, while Mary Shelley came up with the idea for Frankenstein during a lucid dream at Lord Byron’s house one stormy night.

Scientists agree that dreams can be a remedy for indecision and angst, because our brains never truly switch off. In his recent book Before You Know It, Yale psychologist John Bargh says dreaming is an important way to work through life dilemmas – perhaps even more effective than waking-hours decision-making – because in its sleeping state, our brain is better equipped to weigh up the possible outcomes.

‘If you dwell on a problem while you’re awake, your unconscious mind notices that it must be important to you and continues to work on it while you’re asleep,’ explains Bargh. ‘We also know that unconscious decision-making, especially when it involves many factors, is more effective. Unconsciously, we can deal with more information at once, where consciously we are limited.’

Adults dream up to seven times a night, but forget roughly 95 per cent of those dreams – which is perhaps why the lingering images we do remember can be so powerful. ‘There’s evidence that we take decisions made while sleeping more seriously than when we rationally think them through – we tend to trust decisions that come to us effortlessly. That’s why we interpret dreams as a sign or an omen and act on what we believe they mean,’ adds Bargh.

‘Several times in my life, recurring dreams have helped me see what I need to do,’ says my friend Jo. ‘When I was in a destructive friendship, I dreamt of sharks circling me every night, which apparently means that someone is having a negative effect on your well-being. When I got out of that friendship, those dreams went away. When I nearly signed up for the wrong degree, I dreamt of cyclones, which I suspect meant I felt out of control. When I changed degrees, those dreams stopped.’

For me, it’s often the process of dreaming, rather than the dream’s content, that conjures a solution. I don’t always remember the dream, or wake with a clear-cut answer, but the act of dreaming gives me calm and perspective. However, there are occasions when the dream itself makes me realise I have a problem.

One night, I was being pursued in a dream by unknown assailants in the dark. I woke with a residual feeling of fear and suddenly knew it was because I was scared of people’s reactions to a book I’d written, which is being published later this year. I hadn’t been aware, in waking hours, of any anxiety about it, but it infiltrated my dreams – as if those people chasing me were manifestations of other people’s expectations of me. Another time, I dreamt I was drowning, which signalled to me in the morning that I was overworked and trying to meet too many deadlines.

But the question remains, can we control or harness our dreams, or do we have to wait until solutions come to us? Experts agree that only a few people are able to control the content of their lucid dreams. Robert Waggoner, author of bestselling book Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self, says, ‘Lucid dreaming seems to be a revolutionary psychological tool by which you can explore and influence many aspects of personal experience. With the proper approach and insight, it can constructively promote greater insight, psychological integration, personal health and wisdom.’

For the rest of us, it’s more about coaxing our unconscious into tackling our problems for us. Bargh says: ‘We tend to dream about things we’re not able to deal with properly in our waking hours, so we could use that to our advantage by starting to think about something, then abruptly moving away from it, tricking our unconscious into picking up the rest of the thinking when we’re asleep.

‘The ideal way to solve a problem, really, is to lay the groundwork while you’re awake and let your unconscious mind do the rest while you’re sleeping.’

So there really is something to be said for the age-old advice: if you have a problem to solve, sleep on it. A few hours of shut-eye could actually help you to find the answer.