Dreams inspire creativity, science fiction and future fact. Science fiction can inspire future technology. It was a dream of a spiral staircase which provided the double-helix image for the DNA chain that led to James Watson co-discovering the structure of DNA with Francis Crick. Whereas after dreaming about a group of snakes swallowing their tails, the scientist Friedrich August Kekule discovered the chemical structure of Benzene.
Madame C.J Walker is said to be the first female self-made American millionaire through manufacturing hair care products for African American women. While suffering from a scalp infection which led to hair loss, she began experimenting with different medicines and hair-care products. It was a dream that helped her solve the problem.
In her dream a big, black man appeared and told her the products to use in her hair. Some of these were grown in Africa but she sent for it, made up the recipe and tried it on her scalp. In just a few weeks she found her hair was growing in faster than it was falling out. After trying it out on her friends, she decided to sell it.
Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein: Or The Modern Prometheus about a doctor obsessed with creating life was inspired by a dream. Apparently it was in a dream while under the influence of a fever that James Cameron saw a gleaming figure of doom emerging from fire, the inspiration behind The Terminator.
On the night of June 2nd 2003, Stephenie Meyer had a vivid dream that lead to the immediate start of her Twilight novel. On her website: stepheniemeyer.com/twilight she describes the dream:
“In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire.”
She goes on to describe the difficulties they were discussing in her dream due to the fact that they were falling in love and he being a vampire.
Vivid dreams can have a strong effect on the mind and Stephenie Meyer was so intrigued by the story behind her dream that she hated the idea of forgetting it. Despite having millions of things to do, she got started on writing and from then on, not a day passed that she didn’t write something.
The Twilight Saga has been described as “escapism at its best” and thanks to a dream, Stephenie Meyer’s story has entertained millions of readers in books, and countless audiences in movie theatres all over the world.
The tune for the well-known song ‘Yesterday’ came to Paul McCartney in a dream. He was staying in his family’s house while the Beatles were filming Help in the 1960s when he woke with a tune in his head. The first thing he did when he got out of bed was to head for the piano, to write down the tune.
Dreams can be incredibly inspirational and acting on dreams can not only change the dreamer’s life but other people’s lives too.
Sources
http://www.answers.com/topic/madame-c-j-walker
http://www.madamcjwalker.com/#&panel1-1
http://web.chemdoodle.com/kekules-dream
http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html
http://laghash.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/famous-dreamers-paul-mccartneys-dream.html
