沃克教授的“Why We Sleep”已经看了四分之三，收获良多。最重要的一点是从科学理论上知道了睡眠对健康的重要性，实际行动中有了更严格的标准。读书过程的所思所想也灌水了两三篇杂文。睡眠大致可以分为有梦的浅层睡眠和无梦的深层睡眠，二者有规律的交替出现构成了每个正常人生命的1/3时光。深度睡眠可以将交织的神经元分离，具有信息整理，也就是加强记忆的功能，同时为接受新知识做好准备。这一点让我想起鲁迅先生的杂文，为了忘却的纪念，不仅文字犀利，原来深有科学内涵。最重要的是，读了这本书我也知道了，有梦睡眠对于创造性思维以及问题解决也非常有意义。尽管很多关于神经科学的知识加上语言的障碍，对于有些内容我也不甚了了，我还是老夫聊发少年狂，给大家来个痴人说梦。

       古人已经对梦产生了浓厚兴趣，所以各种占卜从有文字记录的历史就开始了，中国最有名的应属周公解梦吧。周公是周文王之子，周武王之第，古代有名的政治家。不知道是不是也是资深心理学家而为后世留下这本周公解梦还是占卜者为了攀高枝附会的。另一个文明古国埃及解梦产业也应该很发达，旧约里就有以色列人的祖先在埃及因解梦而发达惠及后世的故事。到了近代，弗洛伊德的“解梦”据说是心理学领域的集大成者，不过沃克认为其缺乏科学依据。抛去神经科学心理学的恩怨情仇，我感兴趣的是有梦睡眠对创造性问题解决方案的贡献。神经科学证实有梦睡眠阶段，神经元间的交织程度加大，对于我这样的神经科学外行，可以设想这是信息交叉融合的硬件建设过程吧。科学发展史上有两位耳熟能详的牛人可以佐证做梦的重要性，其一是发明大王爱迪生，据说他擅长白日做梦，梦醒后总有很多惊世骇俗之作；另一位名门捷列夫，梦中把元素按图索骥编入元素周期表，我感觉这就是把化学从术上升为华丽篇章的序曲。既然貌似严谨的科学都能化梦而来，披头士乐队的艺术家在梦中获得灵感也就不足为奇了。昨晚睡觉前觉得自己可以写一篇杂文，如同科技论文，题目是一件费思量的事。昨晚预想的题目是周公解梦，并不是很满意。结果今早一梦醒来，痴人说梦就横空出世了。昨晚也梦与一位电池大牛讨论他的燃料电池论文，其中的氢电极采用了双电极模式，这是下一个诺贝奖吗（据说一位生理学家梦见研究并列的青蛙心脏而得炸药奖）？

      在科研路上上下而求索的同袍们，或许我们不再执着于把这纷扰看个清清楚楚明明白白，毕竟借一双慧眼是我们决定不了的。遇到难题，不妨做梦去吧，南柯一梦接着黄粱美梦，在梦中举一反三，融汇贯通，梦醒时分就是大功告成之时，可以再来一篇痴人说梦，岂不美哉。

2021-05-21于萨斯卡通

The idiot’s say on the dream

I have read three-quarters of "Why We Sleep" by Professor Walker’s and gained a lot. The most important point is that I know the importance of sleep for health which will encourage a stricter action. Sleep can be roughly divided into shallow sleep with dreams and deep sleep without dreams. The two regularly alternate and form 1/3 of the life of every normal person. Deep sleep can separate the intertwined neurons and has the function of information sorting, that is, strengthening the memory, and at the same time preparing for the acceptance of new knowledge. This reminds me of Mr. Lu Xun’s essays. In order to remember the oblivion, not only the writing is sharp, but it has deep scientific connotations. Most importantly, after reading this book, I also know that dreaming sleep is also very meaningful for creative thinking and problem solving. Although I don’t have a lot of knowledge about neuroscience I do want to talk about dreams.

       The ancients have developed a keen interest in dreams, so all kinds of fortune-telling began with written history. The most famous in China should belong to Zhougong's Dream Interpretation. Zhou Gong was the son of Zhou Wenwang, the brother of Zhou Wuwang, and a well-known politician in ancient times. Maybe Zhougong was also a senior psychologist who wrote this dream interpretation for future generations or the fortune-teller did it but adopt Zhougong as the author. The dream interpretation industry in Egypt, another ancient civilization, should also be very developed. In the Old Testament, there are stories about the ancestors of the Israelites who successfully interpreted dreams of Egyptian king and benefited future generations. In modern times, Freud's "dream interpretation" is said to be a master of psychology, but Walker believes that it lacks scientific basis. Putting aside the grievances and grudges of neuroscience psychology, I am interested in the contribution of dream sleep to creative problem solutions. Neuroscience has confirmed that in the dream sleep stage, the degree of interweaving between neurons increases. For a neuroscience layman like me, it can be imagined that this is a hardware construction process of information cross-fusion. In the history of scientific development, there are two familiar people who can prove the importance of dreaming. One is the invention king, Edison. It is said that he is good at day dreaming. After waking up from the dream, there are always many shocking ideas; the other famous one is Mendeleev, who developed the periodic table of elements in his dream, a perfect prelude to elevating chemistry from technology to a magnificent science. Dreams work so well in rigorous science, it is then not surprising that Beatles artists get inspiration in their dreams. Before I went to bed last night, I felt that I could write an essay about the dream but could not figure out a good title. The topic I envisioned last night was Zhou Gong's Interpretation of Dreams, and I was not very satisfied. Luckly, as soon as I woke up from a dream this morning, the idiot’s say on the dream turned out.

      I would like to suggest colleagues, who are searching up and down on the road of scientific research, no longer insist on working out a solution for the tough task in the daytime. When you encounter a problem, you might as well go to the bed room and dream, drawing inferences from one another in the dream, and integrating them together. When you wake up from the dream, you are done. You can come to another story about dreaming, isn't it beautiful.