Dreams 'can help with learning'

Napping after learning something new could help you commit it to memory - as long as you dream, scientists say. They found people who dream about a new task perform it better on waking than those who do not sleep or do not dream.

Volunteers were asked to learn the layout of a 3D computer maze so they could find their way within the virtual space several hours later. Those allowed to take a nap and who also remembered dreaming of the task, found their way to a landmark quicker. The researchers think the dreams are a sign that unconscious parts of the brain are working hard to process information about the task.

Lost count of the number of times the solution to some problem has presented itself while I was dreaming. Sometimes I can even remember them after waking up!

Conversely, sometimes I’ll have nightmares of a situation and not know what to do. I’ve found that if I can figure out what course of action to take in that situation, the nightmare stops and doesn’t come back. Like driving down the highway and the brakes go out, things like that.

This thread is a bit dated, but maybe someone will see this.

Swimming in the River of Dreams

http://blessedistruth.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/swimming-in-the-river-of-dreams/

I think this is probably correct.
Back in the day, when I was young and in Navy ‘A’ school, there was a Missile Command video game in the lobby of the barracks.
I played that sucker in every spare moment I had. But I got to a point that I couldn’t go past a certain score.
I played it so much I started dreaming about playing it.
A couple of days after I started dream playing I shot past the prior high score and was Missile Command champ ever after.
So I think that it is correct that dreaming can help you learn.

Lost count of the number of times the solution to some problem has presented itself while I was dreaming. Sometimes I can even remember them after waking up!

In the early 1990s I went through the old Ross Perot Systems Engineer Development Program at EDS. Phase II was a technical training boot-camp, 10 weeks long, that was supposed to teach basic and intermediate programming in a couple of languages, but was really more of an endurance test.

We were generally working 18-20 hour days, 7 days a week, with two "break" weekends. M-F it was 8am to 5pm in class then a bunch of programming assignments (usually of 2-3 days duration, with overlapping assignments so that something was due EVERY workday morning) that would be due at 8am the next morning. Longer/harder assignments were given out Friday evening for submission at 8am Monday.

Would get back to the corp apartments from the training facility around 2-3 in the morning, catch 4-5 hours of sleep then get up, shower/shave/dress (being EDS we had to wear suits at all times) and head back in.

I had a laptop with me that had a C compiler and a copy of VB4 (the two languages we were being trained in) as well as MS Access (which would allow for some basic/lightweight SQL). After about two and a half weeks I (and the rest of the class for that matter) was dreaming in code. I kept the laptop fired up and next to the bed while I slept because I'd often wake up in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning having figured out in my sleep how to do some of the assignments. I could plug in the code and see right there if it would compile right.

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