Dreaming the Solution

     Have you ever dreamt the answer to a problematic issue before? If not, you must be shocked to hear that people have had epiphanies in their dreams! Many people already know that the human mind continues to conjure thoughts while a person is asleep. In Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson adds onto this by including the bizarre epiphany that Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz received in a daydream. Apparently, Kekule "had a daydream by a crackling fire in which he saw a vision of Ouroboros, the serpent from Greek mythology that devours its own tail." (Johnson 103) This serpent's image connected with Kekule's slow hunch about the molecular structure of the hydrocarbon benzene, which later became the basis of rings, and chains formed by carbon. It amazes me how someone can find the solution to a problem in their dream, and reach serendipity. Serendipity is an accidental discovery that completes a hunch, or a problem. A random dream might solve an issue, and become a happy realization. Serendipity is responsible for all the good ideas that occurred as a strange coincidence. It's only one way to discover a plausible idea, and is the most unusual to me by far. Although odd, serendipity is most definitely an interesting way to discover a good idea.