It has long been known that during sleep, in particular REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, our nocturnal brains are capable of amazing problem-solving.
There are many well-known examples of individuals waking up with the answer to something that had been keeping them awake at night (of course, the trick was to not let it ‘keep them awake’).
Paul McCartney was said to have woken up one morning in his attic room with the melody of Yesterday fully formed in his mind. Mary Shelley, staying in one of Lord Byron’s homes near Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816, had a bad and very vivid nightmare from which she conjured her monster in her novel Frankenstein.
In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, was obsessed with finding an organisational logic to the known elements in the universe, known by some as the ‘search for God’s abacus’. He made playing cards with each element and spent countless hours shuffling them, trying to find the answer. After a sleepless night, he fell exhausted into a deep sleep in which his ‘dream brain’ solved the problem that his ‘waking brain’ could not. He woke with the grid snapped into place, and so we have our periodic table.
One bizarre story is that of the Rolling Stone’s Keith Richards, having returned to his room in Clearwater, Florida, following a performance, went to bed with a guitar and tape recorder next to his bed as was his norm. He woke up the next morning to see the recorder had run to the very end. He thought he must have accidentally hit it whilst asleep. He rewinds it to the beginning, presses play, and there he finds the opening riff to what would become ‘Satisfaction’ – followed by 40 mins of him snoring!
Now it appears that we are on the verge of intentionally hacking this ability to problem solve and subjugating it to our will.
Neuroscientists have shown that it is possible to coax a sleeping brain to revisit and solve problems for the sleeping brain owner. The technique, which is in its early stages of experimentation, has the individual listen to some music whilst grappling with the puzzle they would like to solve. Once they then enter REM sleep, that tune is played softly to them so as not to wake them, thereby initiating their problem-solving capacity through association.
Professor Ken Paller of Northwestern University in Illinois is the senior author of the research. Paller said, “Many of the problems in the world today require creative solutions. Understanding how the brain generates new ideas could help us solve them. Sleep engineering may be part of that process.”
How long before this becomes a norm to enhance performance, in the worlds of both children and adults?
This is but one example of a ‘weak signal’ – the characteristics of which include some or all of surprise, significance, challenge (to the status quo), novelty and delay.
At TomorrowToday Global, we help leaders and their teams develop the discipline of spotting weak signals before they become unavoidable.
If this article made you think – even slightly – that your organisation might be missing something important on the horizon, I’d be happy to chat about how our team can support yours in noticing the weak signals around them.
This is the thinking Keith brings to the workshops that he facilitates with leadership teams around the world – helping organisations spend time where insight is harder but far more valuable.
The best time to look up is always before the wave hits!
p.s. If this weak signal piqued your interest, Keith highly recommends Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. It’s packed with compelling research and practical tools, yet remains a genuinely enjoyable read. From how we actually learn during sleep, to why driving tired can be more dangerous than driving under the influence, to actionable steps for better sleep hygiene – it’s well worth picking up.
Keith Coats is a founding partner of TomorrowToday Global and leadership thinker. He works with blue-chip companies and in multiple business school leadership programmes worldwide, helping senior leaders prepare today for the challenges and threats of tomorrow… and sometimes, the ‘day after tomorrow’.
Keith is based in South Africa, but presents globally, with recent travel including working throughout the UK, the USA, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, and, of course, South Africa.