Descartes' 'Dream of Revelation': What Opened Up the Whole of Analytical Geometry and Philosophy for Humanity

Have you ever woken up from your sleep with a start, only to feel like your head was exploding? If so, you may be suffering from a strange condition called 'Exploding head syndrome' (EHS).

The exact translation of the English term is " Exploding Head Syndrome ". EHS belongs to a group of sleep disorders collectively known as parasomnias , which include sleep paralysis, also known as sleep paralysis, and the syndrome of being startled awake by falling or falling freely during a dream.

Now, there's some bad news and some good news.

The bad news is that scientists know very little about exploding head syndrome. There is no treatment if you have this strange condition.

So what's the good news?

It turns out that the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes also suffered from this syndrome. If an apple falling on Isaac Newton's head helped him discover gravity, then a dream with an exploding head helped Descartes invent the entire analytic geometry of space and modern philosophy for mankind.

So, the next time you wake up from a dream and your head feels like it's about to explode, try to think of something. Who knows, you might just be the next person to make history.

1. Descartes' Revelatory Dreams

René Descartes, famous for his statement " I think, therefore I am", was a French scientist, mathematician and philosopher who lived in the 17th century.

With statements that laid the foundation for metaphysical doubt and rationalism, Descartes emphasized that reason, not emotion, is what leads humans to truth and knowledge.

Post-Cartesian philosophers adopted his ideas to develop many monumental theories, including dualism, which later earned Descartes the title "Father of Modern Philosophy".

In addition, Descartes also made outstanding contributions in the field of mathematics , where he integrated algebra and geometry together to invent analytical geometry.

The Oxyz coordinate system, also named after him, the Cartesian coordinate system , has helped mathematicians and physicists solve many difficult problems such as describing the motion of objects in space, orbiting planets, and solving quantum mechanical equations.

Even Einstein's formulation of the Theory of Relativity required Descartes' analytical geometry.

Today, Oxyz coordinates are still the foundation for computer graphics and 3D simulation applications. They are the source of every virtual world, from the online games you played as a kid to Facebook's fictional Metaverse.

No wonder in the National High School Math exam, there are always 8 spatial geometry questions about Cartesian coordinates.

Throughout his life, René Descartes also made many important discoveries in the fields of biology, psychology and religion. But you may not know: All of Descartes' contemplation began with a dream when he was 23 years old - a revelatory dream that Descartes believed he received "divine" guidance, "inspired by God".

However, when looking back at history books, today's scientists believe that the dream was just a sign of a mental syndrome that Descartes unfortunately suffered from.

2. What did René Descartes see?

It all started on the night of November 10, 1619, when Descartes had a total of three different dreams. But how exactly do we know that? It turns out that the French genius always kept a dream notebook called Olympica , where he would write down all his dreams and their interpretations.

That night, Descartes told of his three strange dreams. The first dream , when Descartes was walking along a road, a strong wind caught him, causing him to lean and struggle to keep his balance.

Feeling threatened by some evil force, Descartes sought refuge in a church. But when he tried to enter, he found that he could not go, and felt himself being held back by a mysterious force.

Awakening from the dream, Descartes interpreted what had happened in it as a sign of his skepticism and uncertainty about life, where he faced difficulties and challenges in his search for truth and knowledge. His inability to enter the church symbolized his impediment in accessing salvation or liberation through religion.

In the second dream, Descartes describes hearing a loud noise like thunder and waking up with a feeling of extreme fear. Descartes saw this dream as a sign of the presence of supernatural forces, a warning from God.

It made him reflect on the meaning of his life and the role of God in guiding him to the path of knowledge. Descartes felt that the fear in this dream symbolized the difficulties and reverence for the power of the supreme being, through which he had to overcome to attain knowledge.

The third dream tells of Descartes meeting a stranger. The stranger gives him a dictionary and a book titled Corpus Poetarum (which means " Collection of Poets "). When he opens it, he sees a quote " Quod vitae sectabor iter? " ( What path shall I follow in life? ). Another person then approaches and praises a piece of poetry, but Descartes cannot remember what it is.

In this dream, Descartes felt he was being guided to follow the path of knowledge and science. The poem may symbolize the combination of art and science, and the question " What path shall I follow in life? ", suggests that he was searching for direction in his life.

In his later writings, Descartes believed that all three of these dreams were signs from God, guiding him to the truths of science. The second dream in particular, in which Descartes heard a deafening explosion, woke up immediately, only to find his room filled with sparkling light.

Descartes said he often encountered this phenomenon, and it was like a revelation.

3. God's guidance or just a mental syndrome?

Because Descartes' dreams were recorded so carefully, over the centuries they have become a scientific subject, where many psychologists have jumped in to dig deeper, hoping to decode what Descartes dreamed.

One of them was the famous Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud . Freud believed that Descartes' dreams originated from his subconscious conflicts during his youth.

The loud noise that Descartes heard in the second dream was symbolic of a powerful event or emotion that had been repressed in Descartes' unconscious. It could represent a shocking past event, or worries about the future that he could not control.

According to Freud, Descartes' dreams were not divine revelations from God. They simply showed that Descartes had psychological problems.

Freud's deductions, made in 1929, became the most likely explanation for Descartes' dreams more than 300 years ago. However, this was also a time when neuroscience was just beginning to develop and Hans Berger, a German neurologist, had just invented the electroencephalogram (EEG).

It was not until nearly a century later, exactly 400 years after Descartes' dreams, that they were truly understood.

In 2018, a study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine first raised the question: "Did René Descartes suffer from exploding head syndrome?"

Accordingly, scientists found that the second dream that Descartes described in his diary matched the symptoms of many patients suffering from a common mental syndrome called Exploding head syndrome (EHS) .

EHS belongs to a group of sleep disorders collectively known as parasomnias , which include sleep paralysis, also known as sleep paralysis, hypnic jerk syndrome, or awakening from a dream due to falling or free-falling.

'Descartes' experience after his first dream meets the diagnostic criteria for EHS of the International Classification of Sleep Disorders, Third Edition (ICSD-3),' the study writes:

1. First, he heard a sudden loud noise in his head as he transitioned from sleep to wakefulness.
2. Second , the explosion caused sudden awakening and a feeling of fear.
3. Third , the experience does not cause significant pain.

In addition, the sparkling lights that Descartes saw in his room after waking up are consistent with the hallucinations described by many patients with exploding head syndrome. There is no doubt that Descartes was suffering from the same sleep disorder that affects one in ten people.

4. What can cause our heads to "explode"?

Despite its prevalence, scientists have yet to delve deeply into the study of exploding head syndrome, leaving it a mystery and easily misunderstood as a revelation as Descartes understood it to be.

A 2017 study in the journal Sage found that about 11 percent of adults have experienced a Cartesian dream at least once in their lives, meaning they have woken up with their heads "exploding" after hearing a loud noise like a gunshot, a drum, a door slamming, etc.

Another study in the Journal of Sleep Research found that 17% of college students had experienced EHS. Another study found it was even more common, with 33% of the sample experiencing exploding head syndrome at least once a month.

So, revelatory dreams like Descartes' are not so rare. So what causes them? Where do these dreams come from? Why do we wake up from sleep with an explosion in our heads?

Because exploding head syndrome is a disorder that occurs during the twilight state between sleep and wakefulness, scientists suspect it must originate in the brain's reticular formation. The reticular formation is a collection of brain structures located primarily in the brain stem and hypothalamus that act as an "on-off" switch for the brain.

As the activity of the reticular formation slows down, as we transition from wakefulness to sleep, our sensory cortex also shuts down. This is the area that controls our vision, hearing, and muscle movements, preventing us from sleepwalking at night.

An abnormality in the brain's reticular structure causes this switch to be turned on or off, causing stimulation signals to our vision and hearing. As a result, we will hear explosions and experience visual hallucinations such as a bright light.

It can be similar to the phenomenon of turning an electrical switch on or off and seeing sparks flying out of it.

Many medical conditions can lead to this situation including:

1. A mild temporal lobe seizure
2. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
3. Damage or disorder of the inner ear structures
4. Post-antidepressant discontinuation syndrome
5. Calcium channel dysfunction in the brain
6. Anxiety or stress disorder

5. Is this syndrome dangerous?

For Descartes himself, the cause of his exploding head dream may have come from a large tumor inside his head.

As we know, Descartes did not live long. He died suddenly at the age of 53, in 1950, during a trip to the Swedish court to lecture to Queen Christina.

His death remains controversial. Theodor Ebert, a German philosopher, suggested that Descartes died from poisoning by Swedish Catholic missionaries who disagreed with the religious views he presented to the royal court.

However, according to official documents, Descartes died simply of pneumonia. After his death, his body was buried in Stockholm. 16 years later, the French who wanted to move Descartes' body back to France performed a reburial ceremony for him.

Descartes' grave was exhumed and his body was later taken to the church of Saint-Geneviève-du-Mont in Paris. However, during this process, Descartes' skull was stolen by a guard named Planström.

Planström was in great debt, so he took a risk and sold the skull of the eminent French philosopher to an antiquities collector. Descartes' skull then wandered from one collector to another for over 150 years, until it was purchased by a Swedish casino magnate.

It was not until 1821, after Jöns Jakob Berzelius, one of the pioneering Swedish chemists, learned of this, that he purchased Descartes' skull and donated it to France.

Since then, Descartes' skull has been preserved and displayed at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris.

In 2014, a research team at the French National Museum of Natural History conducted a CT scan of Descartes' skull and unexpectedly discovered that he had a giant tumor in his ethmoid sinus.

Although it was a benign tumor, researchers believe it was this tumor that caused the French philosopher to suffer from frequent migraines, accompanied by auditory and visual hallucinations.

It is possible that it affected Descartes' reticular formation, causing him to experience the revelatory dream, which we now know as exploding head syndrome.

Scientists say that in most cases, exploding head syndrome is not dangerous. It only causes fear and panic, with 45% of reported cases, but is hardly painful.

However, this is also the difference between benign exploding head syndrome and something potentially more dangerous to your health.

Doctors say that if your exploding head syndrome is accompanied by pain, or seizures, you need to see a doctor to rule out tumors in your head. Otherwise, the condition – despite its scary name – is benign.

So the next time you wake up and hear a loud bang in your head like a gunshot, a door slamming, or a clap of thunder, rest assured, it's just a hallucination. There's nothing to be afraid of, the world hasn't exploded, your city hasn't been hit by a nuclear bomb, and no asteroid has hit the Earth.

If you are more confident, when you encounter the exploding head syndrome, try to ponder profound questions like Descartes: "Quod vitae sectabor iter?" (What path will I pursue in life?) , who knows, you might have a magical moment of your own?