The hidden secret of pure creativity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

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Hypnagogia is the semi-conscious state between wakefulness and sleep. It has been recognized for hundreds of years as a source of creative thought and intuition. In terms of brainwave patterns, Hypnagogia is the interval just preceding stage 1 sleep characterized by a slowing of the alpha rhythm (8 - 12 Hz) which then breaks up and is replaced by a slower and smaller amplitude theta rhythm (4 - 7 Hz).

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This process can even lead to genuine insight into a problem, a well known example being the story of August Kekulé’s discovery of the structure of benzene. Many other artists, writers, scientists and inventors – including Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Walter Scott, Thomas Edison and Isaac Newton – have credited hypnagogia and related states with enhancing their creativity. Also, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem Kubla Khan was (according to its author) "a fragment" inspired by an opium-induced dream, its composition interrupted by a person from Porlock after which Coleridge found he had forgotten all but some "eight or ten scattered lines and images".

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/4159

http://www.subter.com/is/?p=19

I thought I would share this information as there are many creative types of people on watmm who engage in various states of altered awareness to further enhance their creative pursuits. I've actually been unknowingly experiencing this state as I do suffer from constant insomnia where I'm awake for 30 hours and I continually fade in and out of consciousness but not fully achieving pure REM sleep. I actually DO feel the most creative during this, (apart from the flow state) but I just barely have the energy to accomplish anything or even move, let alone trying to focus on software or anything actually important. This is totally different from lucid dreaming and also forms of meditation which I have been both continuously unsuccessful with. It's actually really difficult to describe it fully, it just sort of happens when I least expect it while I'm trying to sleep. It's like I all of a sudden start hearing new possibilities of music, fully formed song ideas, strange images, etc. I always thought this was my 'mind wandering' which was the main reason why I couldn't get to sleep in the first place but it actually has a scientific basis that I was completely unaware of. Has anyone else experienced something like this or have heard of this before? Now that I know what this is I plan to try to take advantage of it, I might actually start sleeping with my midi keyboard next to me

whenever I am in that state I am confronted with the most abstract of all sensual/conceptual ideas, these scenarios that have full visual and audio and even spatial/tactile (like 3-dimensional spaces) parts. I cannot articulate what they are because they are utterly alien. The closest thing that gets near describing what they are is McKenna when he talks about alien artifacts.

countdown to troon in

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the true secret to creativity is talent.

i always get really creative thoughts and ideas while i am falling asleep. i also practice lucid dreaming and that is another very good way.

I get this if I'm falling asleep while trying to do something, especially reading. I often hear music that I don't feel like I'm thinking about. It's not much use though because then I fall asleep.

That must be why I get really good ideas when I'm in bed trying to get some sleep, but am too lazy to go write it down, so I forget the idea.

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Ive heard this before, just artists saying the go a few days maybe even a week without sleep.

I hadnt realised that I nearly always lucid dream. Ive never had a nightmare that I couldnt turn around, so to speak, to become something not so terrifying.

I always hear awesome songs before going to sleep, wish I could make them. I also see visuals, faces, shapes and light.

some of my most enjoyable music listening experiences have been in the hypnagogic state

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  On 12/14/2009 at 6:20 PM, kaini said:

some of my most enjoyable music listening experiences have been in the hypnagogic state

 

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Yeah this happened to me the other night while listening to Bola

i think up my best watmm threads in this state

  On 12/14/2009 at 6:25 PM, Benedict Cumberbatch said:

i think up my best watmm threads in this state

OMG! Did you make the Boob thread.

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Fucking hippies.

the main thing i get is like a thought or idea shown visually in a completely funky way. The thought/idea might make complete sense or be completely bizarre but either way it will be shown visually. I'll be thinking about something totally on autopilot before sleep - say, something like how different personalities react to fear in different situations and a huge tree will represent fear, the leaves will represent how well someone copes with fear in a given situation and maybe it's windy, so that represents some other factor like anger. But then maybe there will also be some completely unrelated sound that means something else. Usually the visuals will be something more abstract though and maybe less intuitive than the fear tree thing. It's due to parts of the brain that don't usually connect, connecting and working together isn't it? I'm pretty sure that's the deal with autism too.

*fart*

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Interesting thread, I've heard some fantastic music while falling asleep. I've known about this for a long time but my ability to utilize it has been rather limited.

I'm quite familiar with this state of mind, but the "Night Train", as I like to call it, seems to do nothing but impede my sleep. For example, I've just spent FIVE HOURS trying hard to get to sleep (which means I'm at 22.5 hrs), and all my brain can do is remember annoying musical jingles, give vague analysis for events (memories or ad-libs) that pop up for no reason, and convince me why I should just sit here on my computer listening to music and playing tetris 24/7.

I guess some of the conversations I'm coming up with would make good webcomics, but I can never remember them by the time I try to write them down because they seem so insignificant.

OK, I just had this idea where a guy is recording his voice and he suddenly tries to tell himself something and then blocks out the memory of saying it so he finds the recording later and gets freaked out.

I'm listening to Words [Processed] right now. God I wish I could just talk in that tone of voice with that vocoder whenever I spoke and everything I said would sound all solemn and serious even if you couldn't understand it. Man that would be awesome. I like hanging from bars.