Inventions: Frederick Banting, a Canadian Physician, was carrying out research on the cause of diabetes. He awakened from his sleep one evening and wrote: ‘Tie up the duct of the pancreas of a dog. Wait for a few weeks until the glands shrivel up. Then cut it out, wash it out and filter the precipitation’. This new approach resulted in his successfully isolating the hormone now known as insulin.
Discoveries: Elias Howe had been working unsuccessfully for years to perfect a lock-stitch sewing machine. He experienced a nightmare in which he was going to be boiled in a pot by a group of cannibals when he became fascinated by their spears, which had eye-shaped holes near their tips. After waking, Howe duplicated a model of the dream spear with a hole located at the tip of the needle.
Music: George Frederic Handel heard the last movement of his oratorio ‘The Messiah’ in a dream.
Sports: Acrobat Tito Gaona does a double forward somersault with a double full twist at the same time. No one else can do it. He learned the technique in a dream.
Novels: ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ written by British author Robert Louis Stevenson was first a nightmare experienced by the author, which became the premise for the now famous story.
Prophetic Dreams: In 1914, Bishop Jooseph Lanyi of Brosswardein, Hungary, recorded a dream he had had involving the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Along with a vision, he saw in his dream a letter from the Archduke asking for the Bishop’s prayers upon his death. The Bishop awoke terrified and reported the dream to several witnesses. This dream is of considerable historical significance since the assassination of the Archduke set off World War I.
The Pharoah dreams of the seven fat cows being devoured by the seven lean cows, and then again of the seven good ears of corn being swallowed up by seven withered ears of corn. When he asks Joseph to interpret them, Joseph says, ‘It is not in me; God will give Pharoah a favorable answer’. And later adds, ‘the dream of Pharaoh is one, God has revealed to Pharoaoh what he is about to do’. Genesis 41: 16,25
