Of academic dreams

Increasingly I am dreaming dreams that are "academic", for want of a better word. The motifs are: research group meetings, meetings with adviser and informal (research kind of) discussions with fellow research students; "developing" algorithms or "finding answers"/ "convincing arguments" to research questions. Once in a while, I am not a part of of the cast, but a remote spectator to a small set of people (I think only two) engaged in a dialectic on a variety of topics. Sometimes in English, sometimes in Kannada. To be sure, in a conscious state I have none of the range, depth, vocabulary or fluency that characterise these dreams.

What is startling is not just the frequency, but also the lucidity of these dreamy or dream-like states. Unlike the other (non-academic) dreams, I can remember at least the broader details for a long time. A few weeks ago, I had a discussion, not with one of the usual suspects, but a close cousin of mine, about my thesis work! Specifically, about a paper which deals with work similar to mine; he was giving me advice based on the details in that paper. Alas! I only remember to the extent of the name of the paper, and not the advice :) Another time I had "figured out" that the results that I have got in a experiment are the best for the model that I am using. Again, while both the results and the model are real, the link has gone missing. More than a few times I leave the bed trying hard to remember the algorithm/model that I had "developed" for a problem I am working on.

Why, even this morning I broke away from an interesting discussion on publications etc. with two of my labmates (in Bangalore) ;) We were discussing how there are not enough conferences in a particular field of research, and how a lot of important work in that area is published in a seemingly unrelated (but important) journal. Anyway, these dreams constantly leave a nagging feeling behind -- "Did we actually discuss something substantive?", "Did I actually develop some useful ideas?" Though all this must be illusory, the possibility, however narrow, of making progress by sheer fluke is too attractive to completely rule out!

I have a few reasons that possibly explain why this happens: (1) I always start working late in the day, and most of (the very little) focussed work that I do, occurs during the wee hours. There is no gap between stopping working and hitting the bed. So, when I go to bed eventually, the work "continues" in the subconscious. (2) I spend a lot more time thinking about doing the work (and imagining how I am going to do it and the consequence of its completion) than actually doing the work! (3) I almost never complete things. Not on time, anyway. So, I never go to bed with a relaxed feeling; I sleep on the incomplete things. Probably, the subconscious projects a temporary illusion of having achieved something through the medium of dreams, thus putting the mind to rest. (4) This is especially true on days when I don't do much work (and there are more than a few). On those days, the guilty mind starts "doing research" and produces such a dream, just to make sure I can sleep a bit. ;)

Lest anyone misconstrue, let me make it clear again that none of this implies that I do a lot of research work. Quite on the contrary, they indicate that I need to (1) do a lot more work, than thinking about doing it, (2) regularly, and at regular hours, (3) towards completing things on time. This problem is fairly well defined. Now, I should see if I can actually solve it in reality.