Sleep as a Creativity Skill? Sleep on it.
Someone is stuck on a problem. They’ve thought about it endlessly to no avail. Someone suggests that they “sleep on it” and, lo-and-behold, the following morning the solution is staring them in the face. We’ve probably all had experiences like this and wondered if the emergence of a solution was by the chance passage of time or was genuinely associated with restorative sleep. I will argue that sleep is the magic ingredient.
I looked recently at the research that shows that disruption of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep has been shown to seriously compromise the acquisition and integration of new learning. It seems that, having been introduced to new skills or information, REM sleep (basically dream sleep) is then required to integrate and consolidate that new learning. Effectively, the metaphorical night shift takes what has been learnt during the day and associates it and makes sense of it in terms of all the other knowledge and learning we have. It takes the new ‘paperwork’ of the day and ‘files’ it in the right place where it makes sense.
The degree of insight, problem-solving and creativity that this sleeping integration produces can be remarkable and, literally, world changing. Many famous inventions and masterpieces have originated in dream states.
The chemist, Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz, day-dreamed a symbolic representation of the structure of the benzene molecule – a task that had completely eluded his conscious, waking intelligence. The inventor, Elias Howe, similarly had a dream that symbolised the solution to a vexing obstacle in the invention of the sewing machine. Paul McCartney dreamt the classic song, Yesterday. German physiologist, Otto Loewi, had a dream that led him to the discovery of the chemical transmission of nerve impulses. Golfer Jack Nicklaus dreamt of a new golf swing that, when he tried it in real life, transformed his game. Writer Mary Shelley was inspired to create Frankenstein after the story came to her in a dream. In all of these, and many other cases, the raw materials for the creation or discovery were already to hand, but it was the alchemy of sleep (the right type of quality sleep, I posit) that allowed their synthesis into something new and remarkable. Dr. Loewi, who received a Nobel Prize for his discovery, realised this when he stated:
“Most so called ‘intuitive’ discoveries are such associations made in the subconscious.”
Over a number of blogs I have given many, many reasons why sleep should be valued and prioritized. The evidence suggests that if you want your people to be good intuitive problem solvers and to be able to access their creativity, sleep again is a vital ingredient.
Innovative methods such as this sit side by side with more conventional tools on our Creativity Skills course available in London, Cheshire and Belfast.
Tags: creativity, creativity and innovation, creativity skills, sleep
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