We've all slept on a problem and had it sort itself out by morning. But that's only a small part of what the brain on night time autopilot can do. Paul McCartney famously said that he came up with the melody for "Yesterday" in a dream; Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, is said to have solved the problem of the machine's needle when he dreamed of an attack by warriors carrying spears with holes in the tips. "Dreams are just thinking in a different biochemical state," says Harvard University psychologist Deirdre Barrett, author of The Committee of Sleep. "In the sleep state, the brain thinks much more visually and intuitively."

The hunt for the source of human creativity has been going on for as long as people have been creating. It drives all of us to wonder how celebrated inventors came up with ideas that became the next big thing. And it drives us to wonder how we'll find our own next brainstorm when we need it. It's no secret that sleep can be a well of good ideas-what we're learning now is how to dip into it.

Science knows that paying attention to your dreams can make you more creative, but why? Well, just like doing Sudoku puzzles and riddles can help your practice logical problem solving, dreaming is like creativity exercises for your brain. They can help improve your memory and get you through mental blocks.

Imagination is essential to creativity. Very often when you imagine something, you are recombining past experience in a new way. Many think that what you see when asleep are just your recent experiences combined in new ways. This makes dreaming one of the best ways for your brain to practice imagination and come up with innovative ideas.

For many writers, artists, and other creatives that struggle with a creative slump, delving into their emotions can help jog new ideas. Maybe you're too stressed about an upcoming test to focus much on creating, or perhaps you're anxious to try your hand at a new story idea because you're worried it will turn out badly. Instead of letting fear hold you back, recording what you're dreaming can help you connect with your emotions, work through them, and leverage them to your advantage.

Dreaming is ultimately about awakening. The unconscious, from which dreams bubble up, seems to contain an image of the way you're supposed to be, and continually works toward the expression of this potential, day and night. It often knows things about which you're otherwise in the dark, things which in the broad daylight of consciousness remain invisible, just as the stars play to an empty house during the day when the sun is shining. Some things can only be seen when it's dark. Trying to solve your problems or make your way or get a grip on your priorities without the information that dreams provide is like being a judge with only half the facts of a case.

To ignore dreams is to tear out pages from your own unfolding story, which winds right on through the night-shift, and cut yourself off from that place from which passions and callings emanate. Most spiritual traditions clearly regard dreams as revelations from the gods and goddesses, and consider the act of separating the waking life from the dreaming, the conscious from the unconscious, as not unlike separating a plant from its roots.