The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

Scientific Daydreams

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Albert Einstein

When I was a young and curious general practitioner at the age of 28 years old, I developed the hypothesis about the "protective effect of minor thalassemia against cerebrovascular accidents." I had already gathered enough scientific evidence to back up my hypothesis. I felt I should talk with one of my professors, whom I trusted and valued his knowledge, to receive his recommendation of journals which would publish such ideas. Contrary to my expectations, he could not be of any help in this respect and discouraged me totally by saying that "Your idea, like a dream, is not scientifically valid. I think no international journal would publish a dream. International journals would publish only papers with hard and concrete data."

Evidently, this professor had no interest in psychology. It seemed that neither the university nor the professors were willing to support a young researcher. At that time the university did not accept research proposals from medical students or general practitioners directly. I was unable to test my idea by myself, so I decided not to "daydream" any more. Now the condition is somehow better; medical students and general practitioners may find support to work on their own proposals.

Since I was enthusiastic about psychoanalysis and had already read some of Freud’s works, one day when I was thinking about my idea and the professor's comment that “Your idea is like a dream,” these thoughts crossed my mind: “Aren’t dreams important? Isn’t the interpretation of dreams an integral part of psychoanalysis? My 'dream' may not be worthless. There should be a journal willing to publish scientific, well-supported ‘dreams”. I went to the Internet center and searched Yahoo for ‘Medical+Hypotheses.’ “Eureka!” I found an international journal, Medical Hypotheses, publishing scientific ‘daydreams.’

I submitted my paper to Medical Hypotheses. A few months later, I received a letter from late Dr. Horrobin, which read "I am pleased to say that your paper has been reviewed and we are willing to publish it in Medical Hypotheses…." I became far too happy. Recently a group of researchers have proved the validity of this hypothesis and submitted their paper for publication. Seven years since then, I have continued my ‘daydreaming’ and have succeeded in coming up with more than 65 hypotheses, and have found several journals willing to publish speculative papers. My works have inspired many medical students and faculty members of our university to publish their own speculations.

About the Author

M. R. Namazi is Assistant Professor of Dermatology, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.

Published: June 13, 2007