This is absolutely wild. I do subscribe to Thomas Edison’s advice to never fall asleep without giving your subconscious a project. And I often have ideas come to me upon waking. But I haven’t tried the opposite approach. Although I have noticed recently I often have this weird sensation as I fall asleep that I have trouble discerning the real from the imagined. Send help LOL!
I love that, Lissa—"never fall asleep without giving your subconscious a project." I wonder if one could do that while doing other things as well: "never take a shower without . . . " or "never take a walk without . . ."
Yes to dreams (and daydreams) for stimulating creativity! The Default Mode Network (DMN) is busy at work when the mind is unfocused and relaxed. I've certainly experienced this upon waking and writing Morning Pages, as Julia Cameron prescribes in The Artists Way.
It can also be great hack for learning, as you've likely documented elsewhere, Annie. While studying for an AP exam in Modern European History in high school back in the day, I remember reading back my notes into a tape recorder repeating essential facts, people and connections and other important material that I wanted to remember, and then playing it every night for several weeks just as I was falling asleep.
Not sure if it my study habits necessarily correlated with the test outcome in any measurable way, but I did score a 5/5 on the AP history exam!
Thank you for mentioning The Artist's Way, Robin. I enjoyed reading a recent interview with Julia Cameron in which she said that she still does her Morning Pages every AM. She told the interviewer: "The decision of what to prioritize comes from Morning Pages. They will give me a sense of urgency in one direction or another. So I do Morning Pages and, as I said, I try to listen for what should come next."
I would have my best ideas come to me after going to bed for the night. And it would be just before drifting off that I would have one or two ideas come to me for a logo design. Or a catchy phrase for a brochure cover or the logo’s tagline. I have always kept pencil & paper in my nightstand drawer. I would also drop right to sleep after I had gotten it quickly sketched out!
That sounds like cognitive offloading at work, Pam! If you DIDN'T write it down, it might be that the effort to remember that new idea would have kept you awake.
My personal experience has been that most creativity seems to strike me when I am waking, but only partially awake, in the early morning hours. I find it interesting that you only refer to the time when you are falling asleep. It has also been said that you should take power naps (15 minutes) throughout the day. I wonder if I would be more creative while waking up from short naps.
That's a really good point, Don. Apparently the twilight state leading OUT of sleep is called hypnopompia. One resource I consulted noted that "hypnogogia and hypnopompia resemble dreams in that both are marked by 'primary process' thinking and contain visual, auditory, and/or kinesthetic imagery. However, material from these twilight states is not typically characterized by narration, as are dreams." I'd been thinking about the difference between hypnogogia and dreams since reading Joy's comment (above) earlier today. This difference--that hypnogogic/hypnopompic states includes imagery but not narration--seems fascinating to me.
Your point about naps is also well taken. If nothing else, taking naps (in addition to nighttime sleeping) increases the amount of time one spends in a hypnogogic and a hypnopompic state, possibly increasing opportunities for creativity!
Great to see your newsletter back up and running Annie! As an artist whose life-hacks often do not fit the grid, your work has been both validating and fascinating. Sleep is such divine magic, I love to see this coverage. I wish the therapists in this article on couples and sleep had looked at your blog today! It's such a big issue for creatives in relationships. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/realestate/couples-separate-bedrooms.html
Thank you, Alexa! I agree that sleep has a powerful and multifaceted relationship with creativity. There are hypnogogic/hypnopompic states, dreams, and also the simple fact that sleeping well, and for a sufficient length of time, makes most of us feel more alert and positive and therefore more able to be creative.
I'm especially interested in the research on "sleep extension," which finds that sleeping for an extra-long time has a lot of benefits. I know that, on the very unusual occasions when I can sleep for, say, 10 hours, I wake up feeling like I can conquer the world!
My stories are informed by my nocturnal inspirations. Sometimes, I'm up half the night taking notes on characters or dialogue arriving after the lights go out. My wife has resigned herself to me and the cat coming and going at any hour. If I don't write it down, it may be lost. There's often too much to remember overnight and my tossing and turning is worse than just getting up to note it.
Your wife sounds very patient, John :-). The muse doesn't always visit at a convenient time! When we sit down at our desks and say to ourselves, "Now I'm going to be creative," inspiration often evaporates, I find. Your comment also puts me in mind of the concept of "cognitive offloading": the notion that once we put a thought down, so to speak, and no longer have to carry it around in our heads, we can clear our heads and go back to sleep (or go on with our day).
True. I find that often, once an idea has been offloaded, as my head hits the pillow, another idea or dialogue springs forth beginning the cycle once more. And so on, and so on. I keep 3X5 note cards at hand around the house for the purpose of not losing a fresh inspiration.
Just last night in that twilight zone I had a brilliant opening line for my next book, so brilliant I was sure it would be there in the morning.... and you know what happened this morning. Gone. These evanescent ideas occur often enough that I’m going to put a notebook by my pillow. Thanks for the nudge!
You're welcome, Joy! It's odd that we can be SO SURE that we will remember the brilliant idea that seems so clear to us in the moment, and then—it disappears without a trace. Memory is funny that way. I will also say that I've had ideas that I THOUGHT were brilliant, wrote them down, returned to them later—and found that they were dumb or even nonsensical. I guess not every twilight inspiration is a good one!
When I first wake up, I tend to recall my dreams and jot down notes, then write the full dream in my journal. After that, I often note any interpretations, followed by writing inspired by the dream - poetry, a short story, part of a current or new book. It takes time, but I do find that tapping into my dreams connects me to that powerful creativity you mention.
That sounds like an excellent habit, Lisa. I do the same with my dreams, including the interpretations. I often find that the interpretations I make of a dream shift and deepen over time--but I'm always glad that I have a record of the dream itself and my original thoughts about it to return to.
My best ideas often come to me just as I'm drifting off to sleep. My lazy voice says, "Don't worry. You'll remember this idea in the morning."
But I know from experience that if you don't record an idea when it comes to you, no matter how compelling, it will be forever lost to the cosmos. So usually I pull out a journal, or a piece of scrap paper, or (I grudgingly admit) the voice memo app on my phone, and I record it for later consideration.
It never occurred to me, however (and I'm having a big "Oh, duh" moment right now), to deliberately take advantage of this tendency. I'm going to be more intentional about harvesting the creative potential of the sleep-onset period.
I should probably explain this to my girlfriend before she finds a bunch of ball bearings next to my bed.
This is absolutely wild. I do subscribe to Thomas Edison’s advice to never fall asleep without giving your subconscious a project. And I often have ideas come to me upon waking. But I haven’t tried the opposite approach. Although I have noticed recently I often have this weird sensation as I fall asleep that I have trouble discerning the real from the imagined. Send help LOL!
I love that, Lissa—"never fall asleep without giving your subconscious a project." I wonder if one could do that while doing other things as well: "never take a shower without . . . " or "never take a walk without . . ."
Yes to dreams (and daydreams) for stimulating creativity! The Default Mode Network (DMN) is busy at work when the mind is unfocused and relaxed. I've certainly experienced this upon waking and writing Morning Pages, as Julia Cameron prescribes in The Artists Way.
It can also be great hack for learning, as you've likely documented elsewhere, Annie. While studying for an AP exam in Modern European History in high school back in the day, I remember reading back my notes into a tape recorder repeating essential facts, people and connections and other important material that I wanted to remember, and then playing it every night for several weeks just as I was falling asleep.
Not sure if it my study habits necessarily correlated with the test outcome in any measurable way, but I did score a 5/5 on the AP history exam!
Thank you for mentioning The Artist's Way, Robin. I enjoyed reading a recent interview with Julia Cameron in which she said that she still does her Morning Pages every AM. She told the interviewer: "The decision of what to prioritize comes from Morning Pages. They will give me a sense of urgency in one direction or another. So I do Morning Pages and, as I said, I try to listen for what should come next."
https://www.thecut.com/2023/01/how-julia-cameron-gets-it-done.html
I would have my best ideas come to me after going to bed for the night. And it would be just before drifting off that I would have one or two ideas come to me for a logo design. Or a catchy phrase for a brochure cover or the logo’s tagline. I have always kept pencil & paper in my nightstand drawer. I would also drop right to sleep after I had gotten it quickly sketched out!
That sounds like cognitive offloading at work, Pam! If you DIDN'T write it down, it might be that the effort to remember that new idea would have kept you awake.
My personal experience has been that most creativity seems to strike me when I am waking, but only partially awake, in the early morning hours. I find it interesting that you only refer to the time when you are falling asleep. It has also been said that you should take power naps (15 minutes) throughout the day. I wonder if I would be more creative while waking up from short naps.
That's a really good point, Don. Apparently the twilight state leading OUT of sleep is called hypnopompia. One resource I consulted noted that "hypnogogia and hypnopompia resemble dreams in that both are marked by 'primary process' thinking and contain visual, auditory, and/or kinesthetic imagery. However, material from these twilight states is not typically characterized by narration, as are dreams." I'd been thinking about the difference between hypnogogia and dreams since reading Joy's comment (above) earlier today. This difference--that hypnogogic/hypnopompic states includes imagery but not narration--seems fascinating to me.
Your point about naps is also well taken. If nothing else, taking naps (in addition to nighttime sleeping) increases the amount of time one spends in a hypnogogic and a hypnopompic state, possibly increasing opportunities for creativity!
Unfortunately, I would have to make time for naps, LOL.
Great to see your newsletter back up and running Annie! As an artist whose life-hacks often do not fit the grid, your work has been both validating and fascinating. Sleep is such divine magic, I love to see this coverage. I wish the therapists in this article on couples and sleep had looked at your blog today! It's such a big issue for creatives in relationships. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/realestate/couples-separate-bedrooms.html
Thank you, Alexa! I agree that sleep has a powerful and multifaceted relationship with creativity. There are hypnogogic/hypnopompic states, dreams, and also the simple fact that sleeping well, and for a sufficient length of time, makes most of us feel more alert and positive and therefore more able to be creative.
I'm especially interested in the research on "sleep extension," which finds that sleeping for an extra-long time has a lot of benefits. I know that, on the very unusual occasions when I can sleep for, say, 10 hours, I wake up feeling like I can conquer the world!
Here's a recent study on sleep extension, showing that it resulted in higher positive and lower negative daily emotion (possibly the kind of finding we didn't need a study to demonstrate!): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352721822000791
"Sleep extension" - that is exactly it that I find to be essential for a creative push. Thank you!
My stories are informed by my nocturnal inspirations. Sometimes, I'm up half the night taking notes on characters or dialogue arriving after the lights go out. My wife has resigned herself to me and the cat coming and going at any hour. If I don't write it down, it may be lost. There's often too much to remember overnight and my tossing and turning is worse than just getting up to note it.
Your wife sounds very patient, John :-). The muse doesn't always visit at a convenient time! When we sit down at our desks and say to ourselves, "Now I'm going to be creative," inspiration often evaporates, I find. Your comment also puts me in mind of the concept of "cognitive offloading": the notion that once we put a thought down, so to speak, and no longer have to carry it around in our heads, we can clear our heads and go back to sleep (or go on with our day).
True. I find that often, once an idea has been offloaded, as my head hits the pillow, another idea or dialogue springs forth beginning the cycle once more. And so on, and so on. I keep 3X5 note cards at hand around the house for the purpose of not losing a fresh inspiration.
Just last night in that twilight zone I had a brilliant opening line for my next book, so brilliant I was sure it would be there in the morning.... and you know what happened this morning. Gone. These evanescent ideas occur often enough that I’m going to put a notebook by my pillow. Thanks for the nudge!
You're welcome, Joy! It's odd that we can be SO SURE that we will remember the brilliant idea that seems so clear to us in the moment, and then—it disappears without a trace. Memory is funny that way. I will also say that I've had ideas that I THOUGHT were brilliant, wrote them down, returned to them later—and found that they were dumb or even nonsensical. I guess not every twilight inspiration is a good one!
One of the best recent podcasts I've listened to on creativity: https://hubermanlab.com/rick-rubin-how-to-access-your-creativity/
Thank you for this, Mark! I really enjoy Huberman's podcast.
When I first wake up, I tend to recall my dreams and jot down notes, then write the full dream in my journal. After that, I often note any interpretations, followed by writing inspired by the dream - poetry, a short story, part of a current or new book. It takes time, but I do find that tapping into my dreams connects me to that powerful creativity you mention.
That sounds like an excellent habit, Lisa. I do the same with my dreams, including the interpretations. I often find that the interpretations I make of a dream shift and deepen over time--but I'm always glad that I have a record of the dream itself and my original thoughts about it to return to.
Your insights are SO USEFUL!
My best ideas often come to me just as I'm drifting off to sleep. My lazy voice says, "Don't worry. You'll remember this idea in the morning."
But I know from experience that if you don't record an idea when it comes to you, no matter how compelling, it will be forever lost to the cosmos. So usually I pull out a journal, or a piece of scrap paper, or (I grudgingly admit) the voice memo app on my phone, and I record it for later consideration.
It never occurred to me, however (and I'm having a big "Oh, duh" moment right now), to deliberately take advantage of this tendency. I'm going to be more intentional about harvesting the creative potential of the sleep-onset period.
I should probably explain this to my girlfriend before she finds a bunch of ball bearings next to my bed.