Early one morning, more than a hundred years ago, an
American inventor called Elias Howe finally fell asleep. He had been working
all night on the design of a sewing machine but he had run into a very
difficult problem: It seemed impossible to get the thread to run smoothly
around the needle.
Though he was tired, Howe slept badly. He turned and
turned. Then he had a dream. He dreamt that he had been caught by terrible
savages whose king wanted to kill him and eat him unless he could build a
perfect sewing machine. When he tried to do so, Howe ran into the same problem
as before. The thread kept getting caught around the needle. The king flew into
the cage and ordered his soldiers to kill Howe. They came up towards him with
their spears raised. But suddenly the inventor noticed something. There was a
hole in the tip of each spear. The inventor awoke from the dream, realizing
that he had just found the answer to the problem. Instead of trying to get the
thread to run around the needle, he should make it run through a small hole in
the center of the needle. This was the simple idea that finally made Howe
design and build the first really practiced sewing machine.
Elias Howe was not the only one in finding the answer
to his problem in this way.
Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric light,
said his best ideas came into him in dreams. So did the great physicist Albert
Einstein. Charlotte Bronte also drew in her dreams in writing Jane Eyre.
To know the value of dreams, you have to understand
what happens when you are asleep. Even then, a part of your mind is still
working. This unconscious(无意识的), but still active
part understands your experiences and goes to work on the problems you have had
during the day. It stores all sorts of information that you may have forgotten
or never have really noticed. It is only when you fall asleep that this part of
the brain can send messages to the part you use when you are awake. However,
the unconscious part acts in a special way. It uses strange images which the
conscious part may not understand at first. This is why dreams are sometimes
called “secret messages to ourselves”.
1.According to the passage, Elias Howe was________.
A. the first person we know of who solved problems in
his sleep
B. much more hard-working than other inventors
C. the first person to design a sewing machine that
really worked
D. the only person at the time who knew the value of
dreams
2.The problem Howe was trying to solve was________.
A. what kind of thread to use
B. how to design a needle which would not break
C. where to put the needle
D. how to prevent the thread from getting caught
around the needle
3.Thomas Edison is spoken of because________.
A. he also tried to invent a sewing machine
B. he got some of his ideas from dreams
C. he was one of Howe’s best friends
D. he also had difficulty in falling asleep
4.Dreams are sometimes called “secret messages to
ourselves” because ________.
A. strange images are used to communicate ideas
B. images which have no meaning are used
C. we can never understand the real meaning
D. only specially trained people can understand them