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.
Comments
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...