With more than 500 undergraduate students, 87 dreams were judged to be related to the problems students were assigned (53 directly related and 34 indirectly related). Yet of the people who had dreams that apparently solved the problem, only seven were actually able to consciously know the solution. The rest (46 out of 53) thought they did not know the solution.
[[Albert Einstein]] believed that much problem solving goes on unconsciously, and the person must then figure out and formulate consciously what the mindbrain{{jargon inline|date=September 2023}}brain has already solved unconciously. He believed this was his process in formulating the theory of relativity: "The creator of the problem possesses the solution."<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Fromm | first1 = Erika O. | year = 1998 | title = Lost and found half a century later: Letters by Freud and Einstein | journal = American Psychologist | volume = 53 | issue = 11| pages = 1195–1198 | doi = 10.1037/0003-066x.53.11.1195 }}</ref> Einstein said that he did his problem solving without words, mostly in images. "The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be 'voluntarily' reproduced and combined."<ref>{{cite book|last=Einstein|first=Albert|year=1954|chapter=A Mathematician's Mind|title=Ideas and Opinions|___location=New York|publisher=Bonanza Books|page=25}}</ref>
