The birth of benzene came in a dream. Really? I struggled to understand how one could get a chemical molecule from a hallucination of an ouroboros--a swirling serpent chasing its tail--and I realized that I was not alone. I found the New York Times article below which shows that many others also questioned the dramatic dream story.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/16/science/the-benzene-ring-dream-analysis.html
As corny as it sounds, my intuition tells me that it was sort of a half-truth.
Are we all "tapped in" to some universal consciousness/knowing that we just have to relax enough into a certain brain state to discover its infinite wisdom? I have experienced the dream coming true or the sudden intuition that turned out in my favor. Maybe for Kekule, the benzene molecule had been there (in his mind) for some time but through the mountain of fatique and hyperfocusing he wasn't able to grasp it until his brain relaxed. Kind of like having a thought "on the tip of your tongue" and only being able to retrieve it driving down the highway 3 hours later. The ouroboros was Kekule's "ah-ha" moment.
Also, why do some of the most creative acts of genius happen when the artist has gone into oblivion on alcohol or other illegal substance? Again, a host of memories and collections that were always there, just accessed by being in some other altered state of consciousness. I believe it's a Buddhist perspective as well that "all knowledge is inside of us", but I don't think I could have come up with the chemical structure for benzene.
And from a TCM perspective, I have been taught thus far that we are not supposed to dream. We are supposed to "sleep like a rock" at night and wake rested ready for the day. If that's the case, I'm truly bummed out because I love some of my dreams and still remember some I had years ago. I do believe that dreams can guide us deeper into ourselves and sometimes just be another form of expression and source of inspiration. Of course nightmares and highly restless sleep would be pathological, but how can dreams, especially if they are exciting, empowering, and colorful be bad? I found the article below by an L.Ac. talking about dreams and TCM. I've pasted the most important part below pertaining to my questions, but if you have time, the whole article is great.
http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/dreams/analyze-your-dreams-traditional-chinese-medicine
"Ancient China did not have the technology to measure brain waves. Instead, they correlated the activities of the mind at night with the activities of the various spirits of elements. From 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., is considered wood element time. At this time, the wood channels are most active, therefore the wood element spirit, the Hun, is also active. This is the spirit of creativity, vision, and imagination. At night, it has adventures that we experience as dreams. Of course, the other element spirits can be involved too if the person has issues to work out. Each element spirit has emotional functions.
While the eyes are closed, the Hun resides in the liver. This is a time for creative energy to restore itself. Dreams are an expression of this creativity. If the wood element channels (liver and gallbladder) are balanced and the blood is strong, a person will have only a few dreams that help him or her work through obstacles along one’s path. If the Hun is not anchored, it flies around following the Shen, the fire spirit, and has many crazy adventures, which leads to excessive dreams. Too many dreams can exhaust the Hun and therefore create imbalances in the liver and gallbladder channels or vice versa."
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