Comments on Bob Brisco's Blog: Tough problem? Sleep on it.

Paul, I'd be skeptical of 66 data points as we...

2009-07-08T15:03:49.953-07:00

Paul, I'd be skeptical of 66 data points as well, except the results seem to match the direct observations of the brain scans. But I admit I'm relying mostly on a single data point (mine). :-)

While it sounds like a good idea and the anecdotal...

2009-07-08T01:03:48.357-07:00

While it sounds like a good idea and the anecdotal evidence is certainly inspiring, I'm not sure the science behind it is sound. The Boston Globe piece may be misrepresenting/oversimplifying for its audience. I confess I do not have a copy of the 2004 issue of Nature to which the article refers, but 66 participants is a small sample size, and I suspect the distribution of mathematical skills across the 3 different groups may not have been entirely random. To accomodate margins of error, I'm pretty sure you need ~1000 samples to predict for a general population the size of, say, the US citizenry.

That being said, I have my own anecdotal evidence against dreams solving my problems; the dreams are usually better than the reality! :)

But don't get me wrong: I do think the benefits of rest and sleep should be more widely publicized. Though I may prefer to describe it in terms of reducing brain /body temperature and improving nervous conductivity, there's no doubt I feel more clear-headed perform better at most tasks when I'm well rested.

I've solved many of my programming dilemmas wh...

2009-07-07T12:05:58.238-07:00

I've solved many of my programming dilemmas while sleeping, and answers have come to me in dreams..

So I agree completely

I totally agree with this. As kids we were asked...

2009-07-07T09:48:26.099-07:00

I totally agree with this.

As kids we were asked to solve the difficult MATH problem before sleep. Wake up in the morning and try again. It worked, atleast I got closer to the solution if not 100% complete.