The majority of dreams we have come and go while we sleep, without us sparing them a second thought. But every once in awhile, an idea so ingenious appears in our dreams that it has the ability to change the world. Here are several examples of such:
The Periodic Table
Chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, born in 1834, was the first to realize how useful it would be to present all of the chemical elements known to man in a table. He struggled to do this in an easy to present way but always failed. But one night, while he was sleeping, he saw the Periodic Table in a dream. When he woke, he immediately drew the image on a crumpled piece of paper, the table destined to change chemistry forever.
The Terminator Movies
Undoubtedly, the first 2 films about the killer machine from the future, the Terminator, have gained cult status and with their debut on the big screen, the movie industry was forever changed. James Cameron got the idea in a dream, while battling a 100°F (39 °C) fever.
While he was in college in 1996, Larry Page, future creator of the giant that would become known as "Google", constantly kept thinking that the only reason he was ranked 1st on the entrance exam was due to a technical error. The thought that he might be kicked out of the college at any one moment caused him severe anxiety and this in turn led to vivid dreams. The whole idea of Google came to him during one of these. The rest is history, the world would never be the same again.
The Theory of Relativity
One of Albert Einstein's more famous discoveries was inspired by quite a strange dream. The genius dreamt of... cows. The animals grazed unperturbed next to an electric fence. Going to them, Einstein saw that the fence's charge was spent. At that same time, a farmer appeared, who changed the generator's battery. The cows immediately jumped aside. Jokingly, Einstein told the farmer how they had jumped in sync, while the farmer, confused, claimed that they had jumped one after the other. Thus was born the theory of relativity.
Yesterday by the Beatles
Perhaps the most popular song by the Beatles is "Yesterday", which popped into Paul McCartney's head during a dream. Initially, he couldn't remember almost anything about the dream, except the melody, which kept playing in his mind. So he sat down at the piano, replayed the melody in his head and wrote down everything that came to him. The first text to it was titled "Scrambled Eggs, " and the second, "Oh Baby, How I Love My Legs." Fortunately, the original text from the dream finally returned to him and the iconic song "Yesterday" was born.
