The Solution of a Problem
William Oliver Stevens
Routledge eBooks September 7, 2017 DOI: 10.4324/9781315305998-4 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues, through historical anecdotes, that dreams can sometimes solve problems that seemed hopeless in waking consciousness, citing Condorcet's mathematical solution and Louis Agassiz's dream-solved problem, and notes a second category of dream solutions involving the recovery of lost objects, for which many attested examples have been published by psychical research societies. |
Abstract
The fact that a vexing problem, which has defied solution in waking consciousness, sometimes finds an answer in sleep has been well known to psychologists for a long time. Condorcet, the brilliant French philosopher and mathematician of the eighteenth century, found in a dream the solution to a mathematical problem on which he had been struggling in vain for a long time. In the biography of the famous Swiss scientist, Louis Agassiz, written by his widow, there occurs the following story of a problem which was solved for him in a dream. The foregoing experiences illustrate the strange way in which a dreamer solves a problem which had seemed hopeless in waking consciousness. Another type of dream solution is the discovery of lost objects. Of this sort there are many well-attested examples published by the societies for psychical research, and doubtless many more, equally believable, have never found their way into print.