August Kekulè the German chemist had a somnolent dream or reverie of a snake swallowing its own tail. A dream that had led him to discover the ring shaped structure of the Benzene molecule.
It was hailed during that time (1865) as the greatest discovery to revolutionize organic chemistry.
Ring around the Rosies :
As Kekulè narrates his dream ” I was sitting writing in my text book, but the work did not progress, my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair towards the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gambolling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by repeated ideas of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation: long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together; all twinning and twisting in snake like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of is own tail and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time I also spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis”
Historians have alleged that Kekulè stole the discovery of the Benzene ring from his contemporaries, Scottish chemist Archiebald Couper and Austrian scientist Josef Loschmidt by fabricating a fascinating story of an ouroboro dream.
It is curious that a similar humorous depiction of Benzene had appeared in 1886 in the Berichte der Durstigen Chemischen Gesellschaft ( Journal of the thirsty chemical society ) a parody of the same journal , only the parody had monkeys seizing each other in a circle, rather than snakes as in Kekulè s anecdote.
Some historians have suggested that the parody was a lampoon of the snake anecdote, possibly already well known through Oral transmission even if it had not yet appeared in print. Others have speculated that Kekulè s story in 1890 was a re-parody of thre monkey spoof, and was a mere invention rather than a recollection of an event in his life
We will never know if Kekulé claims were true or make believe dreams.
As in his own words ” let us learn to dream, then we may perhaps find the truth “