5 dreams that changed the History!

1. Mary Shelley: The World's First Sci-Fi Novel

In 1816, the story of Frankenstein, often cited as the world's first science fiction novel, was inspired by a vivid nightmare. At just 18 years old, Shelley visited Lord Byron by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. They were locked in a cold volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora the year prior, creating Europe's "year without a summer". Stuck indoors and huddled around a log fire, Byron suggested they each write a ghost story - but, night after night, Shelley was unable to think of anything suitable.
Then one evening, when discussion turned to the nature of life, Shelley suggested "perhaps a corpse could be re-animated" backed by the thought that "galvanism had given token of such things". Later that night after turning in, her imagination took hold and she experienced what she described as a vivid waking dream:

"I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world."

 

2. Niels Bohr: The Structure of The Atom

The father of quantum mechanics, Niels Bohr, often spoke of the inspirational dream that led to his discovery of the structure of the atom.
The son of academic parents, Bohr got his doctorate in 1911 and gained notoriety for deciphering complex problems in the world of physics that had left his colleagues stumped.
In time, he set upon understanding the structure of the atom, but none of his configurations would fit. One night he went to sleep and began dreaming about atoms. He saw the nucleus of the atom, with electrons spinning around it, much as planets spin around their sun.
Immediately on awakening, Bohr felt the vision was accurate. But as a scientist he knew the importance of validating his idea before announcing it to the world. He returned to his lab and searched for evidence to support his theory.
It held true - and Bohr's vision of atomic structure turned out to be one of the greatest breakthroughs of his day. Bohr was later awarded a Nobel Prize for Physics as a result of this leap in creative thinking while asleep.

3. Albert Einstein: The Speed of Light

Einstein is famous for his genius insights into the nature of the universe - but what about his dreams?
As it happens, he came to the extraordinary scientific achievement - discovering the principle of relativity - after having a vivid dream.
As a young man, Einstein dreamed he was sledding down a steep mountainside, going so fast that eventually he approached the speed of light. As this moment, the stars in his dream changed their appearance in relation to him. He awoke and meditated on this idea, soon formulating what would become one of the most famous scientific theories in the history of mankind.
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman is now a modern classic - a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905 on the brink of his breakthrough discoveries. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat their triumphs and failures over and over. In another, time stands still, where lovers cling together in eternity. In another yet, time is a nightingale, trapped by a bell jar.

4. Srinivasa Ramanujan: The Man Who Knew Infinity

The mathematical genius made substantial contributions to analytical theory of numbers, elliptical functions, continued fractions, and infinite series, and proved more than 3,000 mathematical theorems in his lifetime. Ramanujan stated that the insight for his work came to him in his dreams on many occasions.
Ramanujan said that, throughout his life, he repeatedly dreamed of a Hindu goddess known as Namakkal. She presented him with complex mathematical formulas over and over, which he could then test and verify upon waking. Once such example was the infinite series for Pi:

Describing one of his many insightful math dreams, Ramanujan said:

"While asleep I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen formed by flowing blood as it were. I was observing it. Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention. That hand wrote a number of results in elliptic integrals. They stuck to my mind. As soon as I woke up, I committed them to writing..."

5. Frederick Banting: Advances in Medicine

After his mother passed away from diabetes, Frederick Banting was motivated to find a cure. Eventually he found the next best thing: a treatment using insulin injections which, though not a true cure, could at least significantly extend the lifespan of sufferers. The discovery won him a Nobel Prize in Medicine at just 32 years old.
Although he lacked knowledge of diabetes and clinical research, his unique knowledge of surgery combined with his assistant's (Charles Best's) knowledge of diabetes made the ideal research team. While seeking to isolate the exact cause of diabetes, Banting had a dream telling him to surgically ligate (tie up) the pancreas of a diabetic dog in order to stop the flow of nourishment. He did - and discovered a disproportionate balance between sugar and insulin.
This breakthrough lead to another dream that revealed how to develop insulin as a drug to treat the condition.
Banting was named Canada's first Professor of Medical Research and by 1923, he was the most famous man in the country. He received letters and gifts from hundreds of grateful diabetics all over the world, and since then insulin has saved or transformed the lives of millions of people.