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| Google Images |
"To sleep, perchance to dream-
ay, there's the rub."
Hamlet (III, i, 65-68)
How many times have you dragged the images you saw
in your dreams into the day’s reality? Where would you set the border between
reality and imagination?
[adapted from
New Success at First Certificate,
by Robert O’Neill, Michael Duckworth & Kathy Gude]
Early
one morning, more than a hundred years ago, an American inventor called Elias
Howe finally fell asleep. He had been working all night on the design of a
sewing-machine but he had run into a very difficult problem: it seemed
impossible to get the thread to run smoothly around the needle.
Despite his exhaustion, Howe slept badly. He tossed and turned. Then he had a nightmare. He dreamt that he had been captured by a tribe of terrible savages whose king threatened to kill and eat him unless he could build a perfect sewing-machine. When he tried to do so, Howe ran into the same problem as before. The thread kept getting caught around the needle. The king flew into a rage and ordered his soldiers to kill Howe. They advanced towards him with their spears raised. But suddenly the inventor noticed something. There was a hole in the tip of each spear. The inventor awoke from the nightmare with a start, realizing that he had just found the solution to the problem. Instead of trying to get the thread to run around the needle, he should make it run through a small hole in the centre of the needle. This was the simple idea that finally enabled Howe to design and build the first really practical sewing-machine.
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| Google Images |
To appreciate the value of dreams, you have to understand what happens when you are asleep. Even then, a part of your mind is still working. This unconscious, but still active, part digests your experiences and goes to work on the problems you have had during the day. It stores all sorts of information and details which you may have forgotten or never have really noticed. It is only when you fall asleep that this part of the brain can send messages to the part you use when you are awake. However, the unconscious part expresses itself through its own logic and its own language. It uses strange images which the conscious part may not understand at first. This is why dreams are sometimes called 'secret messages to ourselves'.
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| Salvador Dali, Sewing Machine with Umbrella (Google Images) |
Choose the best answer.
1. According to the
passage, Elias Howe was
A
the first person we know of who solved problems in his sleep.
B
much
more
hard-working than other inventors.
C the first person to design a
sewing-machine that really worked.
D the only person at the time
who appreciated the value of dreams.
2. The problem Howe was trying to solve was
A what kind of thread to
use.
B
how
to
design a needle which would not break.
C where to put the needle.
D how to stop the thread from
getting caught around the needle.
3. The solution to the
problem came from something
A
the king said to Howe.
B
Howe remembered about another sewing-machine.
C
Howe noticed about the soldiers' weapons.
D one of the soldiers was wearing.
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| Salvador Dali, Dreams (Google Images) |
4. Thomas Edison is
mentioned because
A
he also tried to invent a sewing-machine.
B he got some of his ideas
from dreams.
C
he was one of Howe's friends.
D
he also had difficulty in falling asleep.
5. Dreams are sometimes
called 'secret messages to ourselves' because
A
strange images are used to communicate ideas.
B we can never understand
the real meaning.
C
images are used which have no meaning.
D only specially trained
people can understand them.
Decide upon your own answers and only then go on.
I totally agree with you. I have found myself in such a situation like that in several moments and for different reasons. But all of them had something in common, I had a problem to solve and due to the its complexity my mind went blocked and I decided to continue with it next day. By the night, when you are dreaming, you remember all things about the situation and more clearly and even you find details you don’t remember. When you wake up, you suddenly realize that you know the solution to your problem. Although we are sleeping, our unconscious is working!
ReplyDeleteMari Carmen
That makes two of us!
DeleteI've found that quite a few people find it difficult to speak about what I consider an enriching realm of our bewilderingly complex existence. Maybe it is the result of too much focus on reason and too many scientific studies about the human psyche; that is why some of them make us feel uncomfortable as if they were crimes...
Oh, and let's not forget the Freudian Century of psychiatry! As far as I'm concerned, I find Jung closer to the truth when he says that dreams also allow glimpses into the future: those images may become reality at a further moment (and then we call those dreams premonitions), and we are left dumbfounded, simply because we SAW those things happen, we experienced those thoughts. Who knows, one day when we understand this better we'll be more open-minded.