Any task that could become automated could be maintained during sleep, he said.
So someone who is highly trained could continue to work while they are asleep. ie, an expert stock broker could classify market data (as interpreted by EEG readings) throughout the night. Interesting, and a bit worrisome to think that some corporations could use this technology to get 16 hour days out of employees.
I am interested in the idea of continuing to "work" while sleeping. I've read anecdotes about people who solve technical problems in their dreams and the concept of getting a few more mental hours out of the day is very appealing. Time is arguably the most valuable resource and anything that can create more of it has potential to have a big impact. Hopefully this early result will turn into something bigger, ideally some kind of technology that allows people to communicate with themselves while sleeping. For that, I would pay a lot.
edit: Also, does this method have any value as a lie detector? Someone could ask a target true or false questions and record their EEG readings, and then ask a different set of questions while the target is asleep. Even the most skilled liar might not be able to deceive while unconscious.
I've read anecdotes about people who solve technical problems in their dreams and the concept of getting a few more mental hours out of the day is very appealing.
This is one that every russian kid knows from school days:
"I saw in a dream a table where all elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary."
I would consider your Mendeleev quotation as an example of a different, though also quite fascinating phenomenon. What is being discussed in the above article relates to processing sensory input during sleep. The Mendeleeev anecdote is related to memory consolidation/restructuring that occurs during sleep and can cause insight (ie "a mental restructuring that leads to a sudden gain of explicit knowledge allowing qualitatively changed behaviour"[0]), independent of sensory input during sleep. Your Mendeleev reference reminds of a fascinating study[0] that examines the capability of sleep to yield insight because they also reference the Mendeleev anecdote in their introduction. I highly recommend reading the article. It's short, easy to understand, and demonstrates the importance of sleep for problem solving.
I've read anecdotes about people who solve technical problems in their dreams and the concept of getting a few more mental hours out of the day is very appealing.
Have you never experienced it? I've found it's very common that I'll sleep on a problem and have solutions in the morning.
Yep, I solved several Math and Physics problems for school (I used to get into competitions), understood a martials arts technique (it was taught to us but nobody could make it work. In my dream I fought someone but I saw everything upside down, and there I figured the technique was very similar to other one we already knew, but upside down), and solved many programming problems I had when I started learning that.
I also feel like my naps defragment my brain even when I'm not 100% unconscious. I go through things that happened that morning or the day before and kind of classify everything. Sometimes I understand how the people I interacted with felt. Things that in the moment they occurred I couldn't appreciate. Like when you consciously try to think things from the other person's perspective, but dreaming sometimes forces me to do that.
I've experienced it occasionally. More often, I've (at least had the impression that I've) solved it in the night, been aware of solving it, and then forgotten the solution by morning.
"Using dream incubation for problem solving, Dr. Barrett, the author of “The Committee of Sleep,” which expanded on her initial research, asks patients to write down a problem as a brief phrase or sentence and place the note next to the bed. Then she tells them to review the problem for a few minutes before going to bed, and once in bed, visualize the problem as a concrete image, if possible.
As they are drifting off to sleep, the patients should tell themselves they want to dream about the problem and ideally keep a pen and paper, and perhaps a flashlight or a pen with a lit tip, on the night table. No matter what time they wake up, they should lie quietly before getting out of bed, note whether there is “any trace of a recalled dream and invite more of the dream to return if possible.” They should write down everything they remember. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnopompic, "A hypnopompic state is the state of consciousness leading out of sleep ... When the awakening occurs out of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, in which most dreams occur, the hypnopompic state is sometimes accompanied by lingering vivid imagery. Some of the creative insights attributed to dreams actually happen in this moment of awakening from REM"
I've had similar experiences with the opposite result. A number of times I've believed I've solved a problem with a eureka moment in a dream only to wake up and realize my dream-solution was complete nonsense.
I've solved several problems, written several symphonies, and even had a blinding epiphany or two about how to solve all the world's problems that I've managed to drag up into the waking world. All were either complete nonsense or useless. (e.g., the solution to my graph theory problem is not to force feed my homework to a goat and then look for the answer in the pattern of the resulting droppings). I think it's news when someone finds a good solution in their dream precisely because it doesn't happen often.
Sleeping on the problem and having fresh insights of course is such a common experience as to be pedestrian.
When I was a kid I was stuck on a puzzle in "Ecco the Dolphin" (for the Sega Game Gear). I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night after I got through the puzzle while dreaming. Beat the whole game by morning.
Excellent point but one can carry it further: why even wake them up! Sure, you can probably be much more efficient while awake but the gains may be more than compensated by the fact that it's so much easier to manipulate sleeping bodies. Once one contemplates this hellish scenario it becomes that The Matrix wasn't that much off (except for using humans as battery bit, which is BS; you use them for their organic processing units).
So someone who is highly trained could continue to work while they are asleep. ie, an expert stock broker could classify market data (as interpreted by EEG readings) throughout the night. Interesting, and a bit worrisome to think that some corporations could use this technology to get 16 hour days out of employees.
I just can't throw it out of my head that this would be a step towards ending like in this poem:
I recently followed "Learning how to learn" on Coursera, and they mentioned two main mode of operation of the brain: focused and diffuse mode. In the first mode, you are obviously focused, but it does not allow you to use part of your brain not related to the task at hand. On the other hand, the diffuse mode is activated when you are more relaxed, and allows you to create connections with remote parts of your brain.
So they advise when you are stuck to sleep on it, to allow the diffuse mode to kick in.
If you are interested, I would recommend you to follow the course. Most of the advice are not earth shattering, but I found the explanation on how our brains work when learning quite interesting.
Comments
Any task that could become automated could be maintained during sleep, he said.
So someone who is highly trained could continue to work while they are asleep. ie, an expert stock broker could classify market data (as interpreted by EEG readings) throughout the night. Interesting, and a bit worrisome to think that some corporations could use this technology to get 16 hour days out of employees.
I am interested in the idea of continuing to "work" while sleeping. I've read anecdotes about people who solve technical problems in their dreams and the concept of getting a few more mental hours out of the day is very appealing. Time is arguably the most valuable resource and anything that can create more of it has potential to have a big impact. Hopefully this early result will turn into something bigger, ideally some kind of technology that allows people to communicate with themselves while sleeping. For that, I would pay a lot.
edit: Also, does this method have any value as a lie detector? Someone could ask a target true or false questions and record their EEG readings, and then ask a different set of questions while the target is asleep. Even the most skilled liar might not be able to deceive while unconscious.
I've read anecdotes about people who solve technical problems in their dreams and the concept of getting a few more mental hours out of the day is very appealing.
This is one that every russian kid knows from school days:
"I saw in a dream a table where all elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary."
—Mendeleev, as quoted by Inostrantzev
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Mendeleev#Periodic_table
I would consider your Mendeleev quotation as an example of a different, though also quite fascinating phenomenon. What is being discussed in the above article relates to processing sensory input during sleep. The Mendeleeev anecdote is related to memory consolidation/restructuring that occurs during sleep and can cause insight (ie "a mental restructuring that leads to a sudden gain of explicit knowledge allowing qualitatively changed behaviour"[0]), independent of sensory input during sleep. Your Mendeleev reference reminds of a fascinating study[0] that examines the capability of sleep to yield insight because they also reference the Mendeleev anecdote in their introduction. I highly recommend reading the article. It's short, easy to understand, and demonstrates the importance of sleep for problem solving.
[0] Original paywalled source: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6972/full/nature0...; free-to-access copy: https://www.msu.edu/course/psy/401/Readings/WK9.PresentA.Wag...
Have you never experienced it? I've found it's very common that I'll sleep on a problem and have solutions in the morning.
Yep, I solved several Math and Physics problems for school (I used to get into competitions), understood a martials arts technique (it was taught to us but nobody could make it work. In my dream I fought someone but I saw everything upside down, and there I figured the technique was very similar to other one we already knew, but upside down), and solved many programming problems I had when I started learning that.
I also feel like my naps defragment my brain even when I'm not 100% unconscious. I go through things that happened that morning or the day before and kind of classify everything. Sometimes I understand how the people I interacted with felt. Things that in the moment they occurred I couldn't appreciate. Like when you consciously try to think things from the other person's perspective, but dreaming sometimes forces me to do that.
I've experienced it occasionally. More often, I've (at least had the impression that I've) solved it in the night, been aware of solving it, and then forgotten the solution by morning.
There is a short window between sleeping & waking where recall is possible, you need to capture the thought immediately. There's a book on this topic, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/science/27dream.html
"Using dream incubation for problem solving, Dr. Barrett, the author of “The Committee of Sleep,” which expanded on her initial research, asks patients to write down a problem as a brief phrase or sentence and place the note next to the bed. Then she tells them to review the problem for a few minutes before going to bed, and once in bed, visualize the problem as a concrete image, if possible.
As they are drifting off to sleep, the patients should tell themselves they want to dream about the problem and ideally keep a pen and paper, and perhaps a flashlight or a pen with a lit tip, on the night table. No matter what time they wake up, they should lie quietly before getting out of bed, note whether there is “any trace of a recalled dream and invite more of the dream to return if possible.” They should write down everything they remember. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnopompic, "A hypnopompic state is the state of consciousness leading out of sleep ... When the awakening occurs out of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, in which most dreams occur, the hypnopompic state is sometimes accompanied by lingering vivid imagery. Some of the creative insights attributed to dreams actually happen in this moment of awakening from REM"
With segmented sleep, there are two daily instances of sleep-wake transition, so the chance of capturing notes is doubled, http://www.polyphasicsociety.com/polyphasic-sleep/overviews/...
I've had similar experiences with the opposite result. A number of times I've believed I've solved a problem with a eureka moment in a dream only to wake up and realize my dream-solution was complete nonsense.
I've solved several problems, written several symphonies, and even had a blinding epiphany or two about how to solve all the world's problems that I've managed to drag up into the waking world. All were either complete nonsense or useless. (e.g., the solution to my graph theory problem is not to force feed my homework to a goat and then look for the answer in the pattern of the resulting droppings). I think it's news when someone finds a good solution in their dream precisely because it doesn't happen often.
Sleeping on the problem and having fresh insights of course is such a common experience as to be pedestrian.
When I was a kid I was stuck on a puzzle in "Ecco the Dolphin" (for the Sega Game Gear). I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night after I got through the puzzle while dreaming. Beat the whole game by morning.
Excellent point but one can carry it further: why even wake them up! Sure, you can probably be much more efficient while awake but the gains may be more than compensated by the fact that it's so much easier to manipulate sleeping bodies. Once one contemplates this hellish scenario it becomes that The Matrix wasn't that much off (except for using humans as battery bit, which is BS; you use them for their organic processing units).
I just can't throw it out of my head that this would be a step towards ending like in this poem:
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/8o6/the_gift_we_give_to...
("em" in the poem means "emulated human", i.e. a mind running on computer hardware)
I recently followed "Learning how to learn" on Coursera, and they mentioned two main mode of operation of the brain: focused and diffuse mode. In the first mode, you are obviously focused, but it does not allow you to use part of your brain not related to the task at hand. On the other hand, the diffuse mode is activated when you are more relaxed, and allows you to create connections with remote parts of your brain.
So they advise when you are stuck to sleep on it, to allow the diffuse mode to kick in.
If you are interested, I would recommend you to follow the course. Most of the advice are not earth shattering, but I found the explanation on how our brains work when learning quite interesting.
If I could earn even half of my pay while I was sleeping I would do it in a heartbeat. Step it up, corporations!
Are you kidding? It would be expected...they wouldn't pay you more.
Not more; I said half my pay that I'm earning now. Actually, not even half. Any amount of money that I can earn while sleeping is fine by me.
Unless that process disrupts your brain's cleanup process, which might just kill you faster.
There is no free lunch in biology.