Confessions of an Outlaw: The Alchemy of Sleep | Big Think

When I review or try to describe my creativity, I realize it’s a nonstop train, and people say, "Yeah, well, at some point you go to sleep." Well, actually, this moment where we think we rest, when the brain is floating, you know, in sleep, is actually a moment where I could be very creative in a very strange, uncontrolled way.

Metaphorically speaking, of course, if I put a problem behind my pillow and fall asleep very often because my brain went to sleep with that idea or the problem alive, very often in the middle of the night, I wake up, and I wake up with a solution or with a direction of solution.

And I always have a little notepad and a pen because when I wake up in the middle of the night, if I don’t immediately jot the solution to my problem, it evaporates in thin air, and I wake up naturally the next morning having forgotten the incident.

Even if you experiment with that, if you fall asleep with an idea that is not solved yet, you might very well wake up naturally, or wake up, you know, before you wake up naturally with some sense of the solution.

And I find that fascinating, and it’s not something unique to me, so try it, and you’ll be amazed too.