You're Dreaming Trivia Quiz

Answer: Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was the most well-known surrealist painter and was as famous for his eccentric lifestyle as his art. His striking style combined technical realism with dreamlike imagery. One of the most famous of his paintings is "The Persistence of Memory" with its striking images of soft watches, which Dali stated were inspired by the sight of camembert cheese melting in the sun and which symbolically represented the flexible nature of time as revealed by Einstein's theory of relativity.

He stated that his best ideas came from his dreams and he developed what he called the "paranoiac-critical method" to induce hallucinatory experiences that he would attempt to reproduce in his paintings. More specifically, he developed a practice of taking micro naps during the day while sitting in a chair, while holding a heavy key dangled over the side above an upturned plate. Upon falling asleep, the key would drop with a loud clatter, which would awaken him. This would facilitate entry into a brief state between sleeping and waking in which vivid imagery would manifest, inspiring him with creative ideas.

Answer: Let it Be

The song "Let it Be" was the last single released by the Beatles before Paul announced his departure from the group. It famously contains the lines, "When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, Speaking words of wisdom, let it be."

Paul recounts that during the recording session for the Beatles' "White Album", he had a dream where his mother, named Mary, who died from cancer when he was 14, came to him and reassured him, saying, "It's gonna be OK. Just let it be..." He has stated that, "It was great to visit with her again. I felt very blessed to have that dream. So that got me writing 'Let It Be'." When asked if "Mother Mary" in the song refers to the Virgin Mary, he has responded that listeners can interpret the song however they like.

Answer: Devil's Trill Sonata

"Devil's Trill Sonata" is a work for a solo violin, written in four movements, and is noted for the technical difficulty of some of its passages. Tartini recounts a dream in which he made a pact with the Devil, who became his servant and gave him everything he wished.

The Devil requested a music lesson, at the end of which, Tartini gave him a violin to play. The result was the most magnificent performance he had ever heard! He gushed: "How great was my astonishment on hearing a sonata so wonderful and so beautiful, played with such great art and intelligence, as I had never even conceived in my boldest flights of fantasy. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted: my breath failed me." Upon awakening, he attempted to recreate what he had a heard, and although he described the resulting sonata as his favorite, he considered it to be "so inferior" to what he had heard in his dream, that if he could have afforded to do so, he would have given up music forever!

Answer: A snake seizing its own tail

In the mid-nineteenth century, although chemists had worked out the chemical composition of benzene, the nature of its molecular structure remained a mystery. Kekule stated that he came up with the novel idea that the carbon atoms in the benzene molecule were arranged in a ring, while in a dream-like state.

He recounts that he had been working on writing a textbook, which was not going well, when he dozed off in front of a fireplace. He entered a reverie, which he described thus: "the atoms were flitting before my eyes. Smaller groups now kept modestly in the background. My mind's eye, sharpened by repeated visions of a similar sort, now distinguished larger structures of varying forms. Long rows frequently close together, all, in movement, winding and turning like serpents. And see! What was that? One of the serpents seized its own tail and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. I came awake like a flash of lightning. This time also I spent the remainder of the night working out the consequences of the hypothesis." He goes on to add, "If we learn to dream, gentlemen, then we shall perhaps find truth."

Answer: The Terminator

Cameron recounts that in 1982 he was working on a low-budget horror film, "Piranha II: The Spawning," which was his directorial debut. The production was fraught with difficulty and he came down with a fever. During his illness, he had a nightmare about "a horrifying metal being, clawing its way towards him out of a sheet of fire, clutching a pair of kitchen knives."

Inspired by this dream imagery, Cameron initially intended to create a slasher film but eventually developed the idea of a killer robot, which became the basis for "The Terminator." As for "Piranha II: The Spawning," it received overwhelmingly negative reviews and was a box office bomb; Cameron largely disowned it for many years, although he later acknowledged it as the launching point for his directorial career. "The Terminator," on the other hand, had a much more favorable reception, so he perhaps he can thank the difficulties surrounding his first film for giving him a truly inspired idea.

Answer: He was interrupted by a visitor for over an hour

According to Coleridge's own account, he took some opium for medical reasons and fell asleep after reading about Xanadu (also known as Shangdu), the summer capital of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. While in "a profound sleep" he composed a complete poem of 200 or 300 lines, and upon awakening had the distinct impression of recalling the whole thing.

He set to work writing it down, but after writing down only a fragment of the original, was interrupted by a person on business from the local village of Porlock. Afterwards, he was mortified to find that he could no longer remember the rest of it. Although he wrote the poem in 1797, he did not decide to publish until nearly twenty years later in 1816. Since then, the term "person from Porlock" has become a figure of speech for a person who interrupts at an inconvenient moment.

Answer: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson's book famously tells the story of a reputable scientist who develops a serum that transforms him into an evil person so that he can indulge his personal vices without fear of discovery. In his 1888 essay, "A Chapter on Dreams," Stevenson credits what he calls his "little people" or "brownies" for providing him with "better tales than he could fashion for himself."

Regarding his book, "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde," he stated that "For two days I went about racking my brains for a plot of any sort; and on the second night I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterward split in two, in which Hyde, pursued for some crime, took the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his pursuers. All the rest was made awake, and consciously, although I think I can trace in much of it the manner of my Brownies."

Answer: Cannibals with spears

Elias Howe was a nineteenth century American inventor. Although not the first person to build a sewing machine, he developed an innovative design that had a major influence on modern sewing machines. According to a 1900 book recounting the genealogy of Howe's family, his problem occurred because the needle he originally used had a conventional design with the eye at the heel, and it did not occur to him to place the eye elsewhere.

He had a dream of being in a savage land, where the king ordered him to complete his sewing machine in 24 hours or he would be killed. Work as he might, he could not perfect the design and gave up. Warriors with spears took him away to be executed and he noticed that their spears were pierced near the head. Instantly, he realized that the eye of the needle should be located near the point. Upon awakening, he ran to his workshop and after several hours of work had fashioned a suitable needle that would allow the machine to operate. Beyond sewing machines, he later developed an odd place in modern pop culture: The Beatles' 1965 film "Help!" contains an end credit stating, "This film is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Mr. Elias Howe, who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine." No explanation is given; however, one theory, admittedly far-fetched, is that a scene from the film in which Ringo is surrounded by cult members preparing to sacrifice him, was inspired by Howe's dream.

Answer: Mathematics

Srinivasa Ramanujan was a largely self-taught child prodigy who made literally thousands of ground-breaking contributions in pure mathematics, despite his untimely death at the age of 32. A devout Hindu, he said that he dreamed of the family goddess Namagiri, who would show him mathematical proofs written in flowing blood, which he wrote down upon awakening.

He also recounts visions of scrolls of complex mathematical content. The English mathematician G. H. Hardy, who arranged for Ramanujan to work at the University of Cambridge, said of him, "His insight into formulae was quite amazing, and altogether beyond anything I have met with in any European mathematician."

Answer: Mary Shelley

In 1816, at the age of 18, Mary Shelly had been staying with Lord Byron, along with her lover Percy Shelley, and her half-sister Claire. In the evenings they would entertain themselves by telling ghost stories, and Byron suggested a ghost story writing competition.

In the preface to "Frankenstein," she recounted that she had tried to think of an idea for a story for several days without success. One night, while lying in bed, she had a "waking dream" in which she saw a succession of vivid images. "I saw-with shut eyes, but acute mental vision, -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. ..." This gave her the idea for her pioneering novel of a man who creates a monster through scientific processes rather than supernatural means.