I was reading Plato's "Phaedo" when, about a third of the way through, I was struck with a very exciting realization. This is the part of the book that I read that made me come upon it:

"Well, but there is another thing, Simmias: Is there or is there not an absolute justice?

Assuredly there is.
And an absolute beauty and absolute good?
Of course.
But did you ever behold any of them with your eyes?
Certainly not.
Or did you ever reach them with any other bodily sense? (and I speak not of these alone, but of absolute greatness, and health, and strength, and of the essence or true nature of everything). Has the reality of them ever been perceived by you through the bodily organs? or rather, is not the nearest approach to the knowledge of their several natures made by him who so orders his intellectual vision as to have the most exact conception of the essence of that which he considers?

Certainly.
And he attains to the knowledge of them in their highest purity who goes to each of them with the mind alone, not allowing when in the act of thought the intrusion or introduction of sight or any other sense in the company of reason, but with the very light of the mind in her clearness penetrates into the very fight of truth in each; he has got rid, as far as he can, of eyes and ears and of the whole body, which he conceives of only as a disturbing element, hindering the soul from the acquisition of knowledge when in company with her-is not this the sort of man who, if ever man did, is likely to attain the knowledge of existence?
"

Now this entire point made by Socrates was based upon the assumption that thought stemmed from an immaterial soul, able to continue on existing after the body perished. Accepting this, Socrates concluded that the place where one was able to solve problems and fully comprehend the abstract the easiest was death, for it was precisely in death that there was no external stimuli (which stems from the now deceased body) to distract one from applying all of their attention to thought and comprehension (their ability to think continuing to exist in the now freed soul).

Regardless of one's opinions about the existence of an immaterial soul, it can be accepted that being able to comprehend the abstract and solve a problem in absolute clarity in death does little to improve our lives right now, in life. So I looked for another state of existence in which external stimuli is the most limited and the brain is the most free to think and solve a problem in absolute clarity.

Such a state was obvious to me: REM sleep, where the body undergoes sleep paralysis and almost all external stimuli is shut off. And it just so happens that REM sleep is also where a large amount of brain activity (dreaming) occurs. Now if there was a way to harness that seemingly unconscious, wild and random state of mind, then one could be in a position of clarity of thought and be able to focus all of their attention on a single problem, therefore solving it much easier and quicker. It just so happens that there exists a tool to unlock the potential of the state of consciousness that exists in dreams. That tool is known as lucid dreaming, wherein one becomes consciously aware in the otherwise unconscious state of dreams. Following Socrates's reasoning, with a bit of modern reasoning applied to it, it would seem that through lucid dreaming, it is possible to solve problems that would normally be nye impossible to solve.

As I am certain that I am not the first to have come to such a realization, I would endeavor to pose a question to the dreaming community: has anyone attempted or succeeded in harnessing lucid dreaming in such a way as I have proposed here is possible? If so what were the results? I find the implications of this discovery to be of great worth if perchance it is true, and would love to here from anyone (if any exist at all) who has attempted such a Nobel intellectual feat.

As it is a fact that in history, dreams have contributed to grand discoveries (such as how Dmitri's Periodic Table of the elements came to him in a dream) it would be an exciting prospect indeed if one were able to harness this kind of creative, problem solving potential.