19 ms·

Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works

737 points by ohiovr 5y ago

arbuge 5y ago
> To use the technique, visionaries such as Dalí and Edison would hold an object, such as a spoon or a ball, while falling asleep in a chair. This one isn't going to work for me, I think. I can never fall asleep in chairs or anywhere except comfortably lying down. Perhaps I could try holding one arm with a ball in it off the edge of the bed.
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p10jkle 5y ago
I have aphantasia, but this exact state (just as I fall asleep) is the only time I can consciously see images in my head. It’s very odd
- JshWright 5y ago
  Same here— though it's not "images" in my case, best I can manage is a blob of either green, red, or purple (but I can consciously control which color it is, so that's neat)
- srcreigh 5y ago
  Same. I also see images while dreaming though. And after drinking alcohol, after lying down to sleep, but in an earlier state than about-to-fall-asleep, I see weird star patterns. My pre-sleep alcohol induced imagination is like a colored star which keeps changing in different ways. It follows a rhythm, maybe similar to my heartbeat. Maybe the color will change, maybe the center of the star will grow in size, maybe the star will get more spikes. It often fills my mind's eye quickly. It usually lasts just a few seconds right as I lay down. Sometimes at the end it develops into more like images than star patterns, but it feels similar.
adrianmonk 5y ago
> One participant said "At one point, I saw a horse in the hospital. And that study participant's name? John Mulaney.
ankitg12 5y ago
A powernap (one good audio here - https://soundcloud.com/withandrewjohnson/power-nap-with-andrew-johnson https://soundcloud.com/withandrewjohnson/power-nap-with-andr...) can be helpful to get into some of this state.
ohiovr 5y ago
"As legend goes, Edison would sit in a chair when he got sleepy, holding a ball bearing in his left hand. Soon, he would enter the “hypnagogic state,” a stage between wakefulness and sleep where many people claim to have visual and auditory hallucinations." https://cityftmyers.com/1871/Standing-Thomas-Edison#:~:text=As%20legend%20goes%2C%20Edison%20would,have%20visual%20and%20auditory%20hallucinations https://cityftmyers.com/1871/Standing-Thomas-Edison#:~:text=.... This technique should work if you can fall asleep without consciously thinking about what is in your hand. I have taken naps at 3pm now and then when I'm exhausted from studying a problem and fall asleep. Recently in a nap dream I come to a part that seemed to beg my belief even while dreaming. And I was somehow able to arise out of my dream state with conscious effort. I should note that I have been quite productive with the problem I was considering. I can't remember what the problem was. I just saw the article and thought it would be fun to share. Edison's technique should be automatic. Maybe something like a soft object that when a few moments after it is released makes a squeak sound. Might make a fun toy for inventors looking to maximize on this dream boost effect.
- mkaic 5y ago
  >Maybe something like a soft object that when a few moments after it is released makes a squeak sound. Could use some kind of heat or capacitive touch sensor to detect when it's no longer in contact with your hand. Or I guess the KISS version of that would just be to use some sort of physical switch to detect when the object hits the floor. I could totally see there being a market for something like this!
  - ohiovr 5y ago
    Make it and give me one. I'm working on a spelling bee.
  - mabcat 5y ago
    I spent a bit of time trying to do it with flex sensors. Strap one to your hand, make a fist, take your nap, detect when muscle tone is lost and it unbends. I ran out of interest before I got it to work but I still think it's viable. Probably smart to build the flex sensor into a glove for ease of use, and you could put the microcontroller on there too. https://core-electronics.com.au/flex-sensor-2-2.html https://core-electronics.com.au/flex-sensor-2-2.html
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mkaic 5y ago
This is absolutely fascinating. I'm really interested to learn why this seems to work so reliably well. What's going on on a chemical/electrical level in the brain during N1 sleep that gives it this unique ability, and why does it go away if you go too deep and enter N2 sleep? Also, I'm incredibly eager to try this out now. First I've heard of it and it seems too good to be true.
- johnisgood 5y ago
  I was also amazed when I could solve logic puzzles (it was a logic game) after having looked at it[1] for a couple of seconds. I cannot/could not explain how I solved it, I could not tell you in advance that I have to move left, then right to connect this and that and so forth, but after having looked at it for a couple of seconds, I pressed the keys "intuitively" and solved it! I did not believe that it really worked at first, but after I solved many difficult levels this way, I was pleasantly shocked. I remember being somewhat sleep deprived at that time as well. [1] As in... simply looked. I did not try to solve it consciously.
  - posix86 5y ago
    I've had a similar experience but, but my takeaway was: what does it mean to solve something? Consciously? You still skip so many steps; often, I think we just "think through" the state of the puzzle in order to load its configuration; the solution pops into our head, which then think through again - and we call it conscious thought. It's like an idea popping into your head: You instantly take credit for it, but frankly, did you come up with the idea? Didn't you just start feeling like you got something and you started talking, and the words kept making sense? lmao
- ohiovr 5y ago
  Looks like the brain has several layers of conscious states. The brain consumes many calories and thinking hard can make you tired. Especially if you have been very productive for a long time and then hit a wall. At the point of mental exhaustion, the brain desires sleep. You fall asleep and begin having a psychosis. The brain uses symbols that represent the psychosis causing hallucination. There is something about breaking the psychosis at the right time that alleviates some mental problems. Disclosure: I'm bipolar. I have some experience with psychosis I can tell you! All dreams are like psychoses..
novosel 5y ago
We must not forget to mention Einstein, who also was in the habit of taking naps in a an armchair while holding a rock in his hand.
- Reflecticon 5y ago
  Fo real?
  - the_gipsy 5y ago
    His name was Einstein, which means literally “one stone”.
  - dagurp 5y ago
    > Luckily for Einstein, he also took regular naps. According to apocryphal legend, to make sure he didn’t overdo it he’d recline in his armchair with a spoon in his hand and a metal plate directly beneath. He’d allow himself to drift off for a second, then – bam! – the spoon would fall from his hand and the sound of it hitting the plate would wake him up https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170612-what-you-can-learn-from-einsteins-quirky-habits https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170612-what-you-can-lea...
    - Reflecticon 5y ago
      Wow, I didn't know this technique was so widespread. Thank you for the source!
thejackgoode 5y ago
Sometimes I get into what feels like similar state during meditation, particularly when tired. It definitely produces "different" thoughts, but I never thought of it this way. Interesting.
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ohiovr 5y ago
My Dad also took a lot of naps. I've never been able to fill his shoes figuratively or literally. He was sharp as a pin.
- stavros 5y ago
  He also had big feet?
  - ohiovr 5y ago
    Sure did. He stood 6 foot 4 inches. I'm 5'9. His shoes were quite fascinating growing up as a little guy.
sammalloy 5y ago
I’ve experimented with all of these techniques, and you basically get the same benefit from 20 minutes of vigorous exercise.
- jmkd 5y ago
  For years this has been a personal joy of cycling to work...arriving at work with a thousand ideas of how to solve various challenges, and returning home scrambling for a notebook to capture the wild thoughts that emerged on the last half of the journey.
- pvarangot 5y ago
  I have some success with the TM technique, some days I'm just drained and don't want to do anything and after 20 minutes of TM in the afternoon I spring up and engage in hobbies or social activities as if it was a new day. It's better than a nap, which just gets rid of the heavy bodied tiredness. I also tried mindfulness before but I feel I get kinda like the creativity boost but not the rested state.
  - faeyanpiraat 5y ago
    TM?
    - pvarangot 5y ago
      Transcendental Meditation. It's a more passive way of meditation than mindfulness that was kinda like a big I thing I think in the 70s or something? A lot of rich people are into it, most notable David Lynch and I think Jim Carrey... they have good marketing and it's kinda expensive if you are on a high earning bracket but of the woo woo weird things I spent money on it's one I don't regret.
  - soared 5y ago
    Is ‘tm’ transcendental meditation in this context?
    - 5y ago
kreeben 5y ago
This sleep technique can be easily replicated in modern life: work from home, have lunch then a lie-down then have the Teams app's blippedy blip blip blip incoming message audio notifications wake you up to the harsh world of reality. Haven't felt this leads to me feeling especially creative, though.
- cgb223 5y ago
  It makes me imagine creative ways to quit my job and run away to an island somewhere ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - ohiovr 5y ago
    Don't go to an island: every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. [rev 16:20]
- pluc 5y ago
  Someone needs to measure the anxiety between the first blip and the potential second/multiple blips or expectation thereof
  - kreeben 5y ago
    My anxiety curve is exponential. First blip: Don't care Second blip: Holy moly, is the world on fire?
    - mkaic 5y ago
      wow, that's quite the coefficient on that exponential lol
- aaron695 5y ago
  This is just napping, which many people do. It's about alertness (or lack of, if you nap to long) - http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/naps/ http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/naps/ What you need for this if it's real is your fitbit to wake you at the exact time, or perhaps something that measure muscle tension or brain waves.
pier25 5y ago
I think I once got into this hypnagogic state by accident. I was having a nap and my dogs woke me up because it was time for their walk. I felt sleepy while walking the dogs but also had a clarity regarding anything I examined in my mind. It's as if my regular state of mind was like walking in a forest with limited visibility, and now I could see the territory from a bird's perspective. This lasted for about 15 mins maybe. I've never been able to experience this again. Maybe I should try this technique :)
- papandada 5y ago
  I guarantee that someone out there can recommend a substance which achieves that effect
  - post-it 5y ago
    Weed could do it. Other things too, but weed is always a good first stop for nice mind effects.
  - d1lanka 5y ago
    Half a tab of LSD can get you there and keep you there for hours. BRB, trying.
  - taneq 5y ago
    And then a dozen others will jump in saying that regardless of the actual authenticity of the experience it doesn't count if you did it by directly altering brain chemistry rather than indirectly altering brain chemistry.
  - pier25 5y ago
    Honestly, I've experimented a lot with mind altering substances and that was something quite different.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Meditation, if you don't overdo it (namely no longer than 30 minutes) has the same effect.
syspec 5y ago
Sounds interesting, but I have such a hard time falling asleep, that the last thing I want to do is be woken up once just as I do.
ardrak 5y ago
Modern day version of the technique is the phone falling in your face.
- balaji1 5y ago
  not before misclicking a few likes or ads
  - boublepop 5y ago
    Or sending out a tweet about covfefe.
    - lucb1e 5y ago
      I had never heard of covfefe before, that's a funny read on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covfefe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covfefe). Thanks for that one.
    - WA 5y ago
      Or finally agreeing to the new Whatsapp terms of privacy.
denvaar 5y ago
Sometimes I fall asleep with my hands on the keyboard and wake up soon after to find jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj... in my editor
hardwaregeek 5y ago
I don’t know if this is precisely that state but I’ve found that when I drift off while reading, there will be a moment where the text melds with the dream state. A text on surveillance capitalism will sudden include a narrative or will merge with something else that I’ve read. Dreams are such a lovely experience. I love recounting them and the corresponding dream logic. I especially treasure filmmakers who can recreate that dream feeling. Fellini comes to mind.
vorpalhex 5y ago
I use the hypnogagic state as part of my meditation routine. I always shower before bed and that's when I tend to start getting sleepy. So I started meditating during that time. I can get to the phase of seeing shifting colors and patterns very easily in this setup. I've been able to get there outside the hypnogagic state but only with some difficulty and not consistently.
- claylimo 5y ago
  Meditation is about being alert and present. Hypnagogia in my experience is a hindrance that impedes meditation progress since it dulls the senses and experience.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    Meditation is a wide range of practice. If your goal is to be aware of yourself in the immediate, to feel things directly, then the hypnogagic state can work well. Obviously your mileage may vary.
  - pvarangot 5y ago
    Mindful meditation, a technique very popular among big tech HR departments that want alert and present employees, is about being alert and present. There's many techniques and first hand stories of people achieving states more similar to like the one in the article with more let's say "older" or simpler and more basic meditation techniques that don't require too much mental gymnastics. Bodhidharma staring at a wall comes to mind.
flint 5y ago
We did that in high school physics. Physics was last period and before swim practice. We'd put a pencil in our hands and dangle our hand off the edge of the desk. When you dropped your pencil it'd wake you up. Hopefully it'd wake you up so the team wouldn't skeak off an leave you sleeping in the physics lab.
tempestn 5y ago
This does sound very cool, although I wouldn't be shocked to read at some point in the future that it couldn't be replicated.
amelius 5y ago
Instead of holding a pencil, can't a smartwatch detect your sleep state and wake you up at exactly the right moment?
- robbiep 5y ago
  You’re not going to get that sort of fidelity from a smart watch, you need some brain traces
  - amelius 5y ago
    I suppose that dropping of the pencil is caused by muscles relaxing. I'm surprised a smartwatch can't detect this relaxation. But perhaps it's at the wrong location for that.
- michaelcampbell 5y ago
  Maybe? Why would you want to when a simple solution exists?
  - dinkleberg 5y ago
    Is this a legit question? Instead of trying to sleep in an awkward position where you can drop something and have it wake you up, you could sleep in your bed and be woken up at the right time.
    - michaelcampbell 5y ago
      OTOH, this just feels like pushing some app solution on something that doesn't need it. Different strokes. And "right time" is highly debateable given the current tech at determining sleep cycles.
- o_____________o 5y ago
  Maybe from velocity? Just hold your hand up, and when it drops...
bakul 5y ago
This may have to do with being relaxed, not really thinking about the problem at hand and letting your intuition take over. I have had experiences where working intensely on a problem, even for weeks, didn't solve it but walking away from it and being totally relaxed and the solution just popped in my head. It could be in a shower, having a meal with friends, in the middle of the night or on a walk. You already have the necessary facts and observations but somehow you have not made that last intuitive leap. And when you do, you instantly know it is right as all of a sudden the cloud of possibilities collapses to a single point! I don't think of it as creativity as much as sparking one's intuition. The "sleep technique" test also relies pattern recognition, which is sort of a limited creativity. You are making the final connection as opposed to opening up a whole new world of possibilities.
- loehnsberg 5y ago
  I often have really good ideas under the shower that eluded me while thinking hard about it at my desk. I really wonder when they can reproduce the creative boost of taking a shower in a lab experiment.
theartfuldodger 5y ago
I thought Edison's "visionary" status had been discarded and his primary skillsets were deceit and self publicity? How much meditation time does it take to strong arm other people's work over and over again? It's a talent, but visionary doesn't seem apt.
- cryptonector 5y ago
  Let's say Edison created none of his lab's inventions. But it was still a lab he put together, was it not? He should get some credit -- so should the individual inventors, no doubt, but the question is just how visionary Edison was, and if his only real vision was creating a lab, hiring, and so on, then visionary he most definitely was.
- ethanpil 5y ago
  I have always felt that Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison are two sides of one coin... it seems that both of their successes are related to the mix of a driving vision, controversial management style and relentless push for innovation. Different eras, similar results...
- ohiovr 5y ago
  Culminating ideas to place items in a market place and market them to be desirable to the public, while electrocuting elephants is hard work for any man.
Sparrowhawk21 5y ago
Same thing as yoga nidra? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_nidra https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_nidra
okareaman 5y ago
I once fell asleep while coming down from LSD and woke up with sleep paralysis. I was wide awake, still buzzed from the acid and completely paralyzed. Fortunately I didn't panic despite not knowing about sleep paralysis and thinking the LSD had paralyzed me. It took me awhile but I managed to shake myself into movement finally.
thesz 5y ago
Both Dali and Edison did not have families and children to rise. They were multimillionaries also. If you are also childless and multimillionaire, you can experiment with what essentially a sleep deprivation, having hallutinations that are useful in a work of... genius? Also, in case of Edison, he used an army of assistants to comb through his ideas and patents avaiable at the time to find what is useful. Again, a privilege of multimillionaire These techniques cannot be used by a person who have to walk a dog early every morning, help his son to go to a school and work with complex code base.
- vernon99 5y ago
  A comment from a passerby. You say it like this is something you don’t have agency over (at least early on). It’s like saying that “yeah, you cannot be a good painter if you are solving math problems all the time”. Same with childless multimillionaires - it’s not like you are born into being one.
  - rnd0 5y ago
    >Same with childless multimillionaires - it’s not like you are born into being one. I'm reasonably sure you're not saying no one is born into wealth, and I'm equally sure that all multimillionaires are born childless
- bener 5y ago
  You could quite easily use this technique when your child is in bed, before your usual bedtime. It would be an interesting thing to try in the evening when you're stuck on a coding problem. It's only really useful if you can get to that stage of N1 sleep quite quickly anyway so it wouldn't apply to all people. I don't think it's the domain of childless millionaires.
- aydwi 5y ago
  > These techniques cannot be used by a person who have to walk a dog early every morning, help his son to go to a school and work with complex code base. Of course they can. Just not by you. Mutual exclusion does not apply here.
marcodiego 5y ago
I'd doubt it works well for tasks that require concentration. A good period of sleep is important for these.
zagrebian 5y ago
> In N1, you can imagine shapes, colors or even bits of dreams in front of your closed eyes It happened to me on several occasions that I would wake up after 10 minutes of early sleep, and I would see things that aren’t there, like photographs projected on the blank walls of my bedroom. I was definitely awake, in the dark, and I would see these images for a minute or so before they faded away.
josefrichter 5y ago
Wow. I didn’t know this, but I was actually able to observe this state on myself. When going to sleep, my mind is wandering. But at one point it drifts from real world thoughts to completely abstract concepts and wild imagination that sometimes makes no sense. It’s almost like a hallucination. What’s most interesting is that sometimes I am able to notice the transition to this state and consciously observe it. Usually it makes me happy because I know I’m about to fall asleep within the next few seconds (which I often have problem with, writing this comment at 1:26am again..). I am also able to consciously observe the images being generated. It’s very weird, because it feels like one brain looking into someone else’s brain to the extent that is impossible by any technology or in any other way. Sometimes I’m able to consciously wake up from this state, because I have weird “sleep phobias”. Sometimes I am fascinated by the idea generated at that stage. But unless I write them down or really get up, they are typically lost if I fall asleep within next 5 minutes - maybe I’d have a Nobel prize already, if only I kept a pen and paper ready next to my bed. Or apartment full of crappy kitch paintings..
- chrisweekly 5y ago
  IIRC this is the "hypnopompic" state and yeah, it's weird and cool. Personally I have more memories at the other end ("hypnogogic"?) on the transition to waking up.
  - 123pie123 5y ago
    Me too, I used to be able do this in the morning for what felt like hours in a extremely vivid dream like state It's how I got into self-hypnosis to help with my exams
- t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
  the state you describe i only, but then very clearly, experience when falling asleep while being stoned.
  - pvarangot 5y ago
    Do you also have the visualizations of interlinked concepts? I find weed makes me have "the thoughts" and they are very present and come fast, but being absolutely sober sometimes those thoughts are there but not moving as fast and they it's more likely they also come with visualizations of the thought process.
gnicholas 5y ago
> The researchers found that the participants who spent at least 15 seconds in the N1 stage had an 83% chance of discovering the hidden rule, compared with a 30% chance for those who remained awake. "The only difference between the two groups is one minute," Oudiette said. That's "kind of a spectacular result." But if the participants drifted into N2 sleep, the effect disappeared. Why don't they say what the rate was for people in N2 sleep? Presumably it's more than the 30% chance, but less than the 83%?
Terry_Roll 5y ago
"In N1, you can imagine shapes, colors or even bits of dreams in front of your closed eyes, yet still hear stuff in your room" So is this when DMT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine starts to rise? It would make sense if it does, but melatonin increases before you get to N1 so I wonder what DMT is like without the melatonin? Maybe that's why there are rumours of some coders microdosing LSD in Silicon Valley, to keep up the creativity, but I cant help but think DMT might be better. Now if you take some Lecithin before sleep maybe a gram or two, you will dream, but your dreams if you remember them which you probably will, will be based around events before you went to sleep. This then leads further credence to dreams being an indicator to help you process previous days or more historical events. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecithin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecithin This is what I think is really helping your brain though, choline is used in the connections between neurons and explains baby brain forgetfulness with pregnant women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphatidylcholine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphatidylcholine
- ohiovr 5y ago
  I think DMT changed my friend Dairy Haas in a way that was negative.
svachalek 5y ago
When I was younger, often "falling" asleep felt like literally falling. I'd slam my arms down on the bed to "catch" myself, and shoot straight into a panicked awake state until my heart was ready to sleep again. I'd usually have memories just as described, weird combinations of the physical reality of my bedroom with random dream-stuff. I've also felt this on airplanes, not able to fall into any deeper level of sleep but fast-forwarding through time in a semi-aware state. I did have some really interesting ideas, but usually without writing them down they are forgotten, so I tried that for a while. Can't say I ever thought of anything actually useful this way though, or ever thought about doing it to myself on purpose.
- s0rr0wskill 5y ago
  This happens to me usually once every week ever since covid started and I got better sleep
- bener 5y ago
  That is called a hypnic (or hypnagogic) or myoclonic jerk, it's pretty common just before you fall asleep.
giantg2 5y ago
I feel like this is only helpful if one has the resources to pursue the ideas. Otherwise it could be depressing.
diatone 5y ago
Anecdote: I distinctly remember being on the edge of sleep writing a song one night in 2019. I was about to fall asleep on the floor with a notebook in my hand, and just at that moment, the music came into my mind. For whatever reason, I was able to stay awake and flesh it out as a recording. After reflecting on it the next day I realised I had written an acoustic fingerstyle piece that moved across keys as if there were multiple voicings in the accompaniment all moving independently in polyphony. Far more harmonically complex than anything I had written before, or since. Three weeks later my partner and I played it for the first time in a pub, and the normally cosy and laugh-filled room fell silent. We had the exact same experience in another open mic night a couple of weeks afterwards, where we took the first-place prize before the competition even finished. It was as if people were moved by it without any effort or coercion, like we cast a spell over people. Now it makes sense! I’ve heard music play in my mind as I’ve fallen asleep before; this news explains this story almost perfectly. Unreal. Live on the edge of sleep and magic can happen. I wonder what health risks there are with prolonged use?
- _dain_ 5y ago
  Can you share this piece? I want to hear it now.
- waltbosz 5y ago
  Do you have a recording of the song online? You story reminds me of a video by Jack Conte and his wife about their experience with lucid dreaming. They talk about how he wrote a song while dreaming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yti4yYZqtMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yti4yYZqtMo
- pier25 5y ago
  Wow what a story! Is this available anywhere?
- saltyfamiliar 5y ago
  That reminds me of this quote from Dick Dale, "I still remember the first night we played it ('Misirlou'). I changed the tempo, and just started cranking on that mother. And ... it was eerie. The people came rising up off the floor, and they were chanting and stomping." It seems like people really are susceptible to a sort of mass hypnosis if you can make the right noises.
thoraway66 5y ago
Oh this is a thing? This happens to me when I’m working all night. I don’t work late often but when I do I’ll drift in and out of a half dozing state to reset and have a burst of coding energy. I never knew this was a Dali thing. I purposely push myself those nights to get to the point of drifting in and out. Again, not something I do often, and when I do I’m already in a pretty creative mood.
lukas099 5y ago
I notice this state quite often in myself. Not every night, but enough that it's not really notable anymore. Usually, two seemingly unrelated concepts that I have been thinking about will become joined in strange ways — sometimes literally (some code I have been working on will be playing a song I have been listening to), sometimes in ways that I can't understand or describe. Other times, I will hear music as loudly and clearly as if I were at a concert. It can be music that is actually playing, or not. I find the experience pleasant and wish I could extend it.
dougmwne 5y ago
I suppose it depends on the person but my N1 sleep state contains a bunch of compelling nonsense. The moment I wake back up I can see it's randomness. I just went to a Dali museum and I can't say I'm very surprised he was a fan.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  Not to be rude, but I find that interesting and would like to guess.. Do you deal with a lot of random data in your daily/work life? Are you regularly compelled to deal with nonsense? Conversely, have you any hobbies that you try to progress deeply into; like a sport, or music?
chromejs10 5y ago
Didn't Benjamin Franklin do this? If I recall from his biography, he'd essentially hold a marble or something while in his rocking chair and it would drop onto a plate
soheil 5y ago
Can we please respect readers and not post ad riddled sites like this to HN? It’s impossible to read a paragraph without an ad jumping in the way.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Adblock is your friend. There are mobile browsers which support this (Firefox notably), and mobile-device adblock apps as well, in the event you're not on a desktop system. If you're in a corporate environment, put in a request for adblock on your network as, amongst other things, a security feature: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28631005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28631005
  - soheil 5y ago
    Thanks I didn’t know Firefox with Adblock was an option on mobile.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      It is, and is a lifesaver. Essential extensions: uBlock Origin, Decentralize, Ghostery, Privacy Possum, Privacy Badger, NoScript, Ghostery. You might also appreciate Dark Reader. I wish Stylus (CSS manager) was supported. Its tab management / display is also vastly superior to Chrome's. Firefox/Android (or Fennec via F-Droid) has some annoyances: - No keyboard hotkeys. - Doesn't full-screen maximise. - No print-to-PDF. - No per-site font or zoom settings. - No per-site cookie management. - Weak Bookmarks controls (bookmarks cannot be reordered once saved). For a mobile browser, though, it's pretty good. Far superior to Chrome IMO, except on older devices where there's still a noticeable performance penalty (a 2015-era Samsung tablet).
agumonkey 5y ago
I heard the pre nap brain was also more creative. Just laying down on bed was enough to change your imagination.
srcreigh 5y ago
I've experienced similar effects first hand. University algorithm class assignment is due tomorrow at 1pm. I start working on it at midnight the day of. At around 4-5am I was stumped from a few problems, and went to campus to get some coffee. Tim Horton's doesn't open until 7am. I sit down in a chair and fall asleep. While I was sleeping (half sleeping?), I dream-solved the remainder of the problems. At 7am, I awoke, got my coffee, then went to type up the solutions.
- texasbigdata 5y ago
  Did you get the right answers? :) Hat tip for Timmies though.
  - srcreigh 5y ago
    I didn't get a perfect grade, but I think the insights did help somewhat. Maybe if I did this 1 day prior and edited my answers, I would have done perfectly :)
- elboru 5y ago
  I had a really similar experience during college. I was trying to display a binary tree in the command line. I was not able to solve it while awake. I went to bed with that problem in my mind. Then I dreamt the solution. I woke up and the dream made sense. I couldn’t believe it so I tried in the code and it worked! That was a surreal experience.
  - emi2k01 5y ago
    Dreaming of code is something that happens to me very frequently when I'm working on difficult problems and only the first few times was cool. Now, when I dream of code, I can hear my inner self saying "no, please! I actually want to rest" because most of the times I feel like I'm in a loop exploring the same solutions over and over. I've had to get out of bed and do something else so I can go back to sleep without having one of those weird dreams.
    - 5y ago
balaji1 5y ago
Curse the wretched spoon for disturbing you and go back to sleep.
djtriptych 5y ago
I was so inspired by this concept a decade ago that I registered hypnagogics.com (currently down)
hbarka 5y ago
I wonder if this creativity effect is related to sudden serendipitous moments while in the shower.
voidhorse 5y ago
Yes, tis true, it’s a state called hypnogogia, everyone experiences it. In my personal experience, it’s most easy to dive into a hypnogogic state if you simply attempt to go to bed, i.e. don’t read before bed, spend time on the phone etc. just lie down and let your brain meander.
rebuilder 5y ago
I’m a visual artist and I guess I use this all the time, although I don’t have any wake-up device. I just lie down for a nap and loosely let my mind wander around whatever I’m trying to work on, or just undirected. The images just start to come, not like visual hallucinations, but like someone else were imagining things for me, almost. I guess it’s good I work from home, and not in an office somewhere…
boublepop 5y ago
It sounds like this study has a series of problems. No control group, no reference measurement, no predefined hypothesis, and it doesn’t seem to mention number of participants, unless I missed it suggesting that it’s a small number. From this read I doubt it would replicate under stricter experimental conditions and with more rigor. Edit: Oh and I forgot that the noted effect being equated with creativity is somewhat unreliable. Essentially they where given a math problem that randomly seems to also give an answer you can find in the number itself, but anyone would know that this can’t be relied upon and might lead to errors if you just assume that’s the answer. That is unless your unfocused or just less logical. They could repeat the test and replace the sleep element with getting drunk and they would likely see an effect.
- pelario 5y ago
  Isn't the group that stayed awake the control group? Number of participants is mentioned repeatedly, also per group. I suspect you just read the press article and not the study (linked in the press article). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj5866 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj5866
fortysixdegrees 5y ago
I have bad sleep aponea, so awake up constantly through the night. I am also very creative. It never occurred to me these things may be linked. My new CPAP machine may stifle my creativity. Huh
arpa 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoiac-critical_method https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoiac-critical_method
AdamJMarsh 5y ago
This is interesting. In our never-ending 24 hour news cycle, our central nervous systems are hijacked by adrenaline, glucose, nicotine & caffeine. It is a never ending struggle for our bodies to feel relaxed. I fully believe this is a major hindrance to creativity as the logical, ordered side takes over and rules the roost like a dictator. Although I haven't used this specific technique, I have however done Alexander Technique in my theatre training. It's incredible how much tension our bodies can hold without our minds being aware or conscious of it.
- leobg 5y ago
  > I have however done Alexander Technique in my theatre training. It's incredible how much tension our bodies can hold without our minds being aware or conscious of it. I find that very interesting. Can you share more? Specifically, what exercises do you suggest for letting go of such unconsciously held tension in the body? Any books or other resources you can recommend? Thanks!
fareesh 5y ago
Anecdotally I can confirm that a lot of this is true
jb1991 5y ago
It would be neat if instead of holding objects that you drop, the Apple Watch could somehow sense this change in your heart rhythm or some other factor and wake you up.
smusamashah 5y ago
Lying down holding phone right above your face reading HN at 2am should work the same.
c64d81744074dfa 5y ago
Just realized that there's almost no mention in the comments so far about the similarity to hypnosis: access to previously inaccessible memories, hallucinations, high suggestibility... Not sure how much I believe about hypnosis, but maybe it's related. Could it be just helping people get into this N1 state while awake?
ben_bai 5y ago
So my smartphone hitting me in the head every night when i loose grip b.c. of N1, shows how creative i am?
dlkf 5y ago
There is an interesting discussion to be had about the experimental design. The intervention was essentially: "the subject managed to fall asleep, and then woke up in the N1 stage." This assignment is not "random" in the same way that a drug trial is random. There are many general-state variables which likely govern our ability to fall asleep (anxiety, hunger, etc) and this study doesn't block any of them in the same way that a drug trial would (via randomization). That being said, the fact that participants who fell asleep and _didn't_ wake during N1 did not see improvement over control makes me more intrigued. (Assuming this is all true: brain scan research is really noisy and small-sample-size and has an atrocious replication record).
mdp2021 5y ago
Other commentary on the original research article, on Scientific American: Spark Creativity with Thomas Edison's Napping Technique - Waking yourself from the twilight state just before sleep may help you to solve a challenging problem, a study shows https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thomas-edisons-naps-inspire-a-way-to-spark-your-own-creativity/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thomas-edisons-na... Even better, there is an article from the very original research coordinator Delphine Oudiette on The Conversation [Fra] https://theconversation.com/pour-doper-votre-creativite-faites-des-microsiestes-173278 https://theconversation.com/pour-doper-votre-creativite-fait... which, miraculously - since a dozen online magazines commented on this but never linked it (?! !!! !) -, contains the link to the original research article, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079201901455 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10870...
zahma 5y ago
I always tried to time this so that I didn’t oversleep and disrupt my sleep pattern for later when I actually want to sleep through the night. I never really noticed a difference in my creativity, but maybe I need to try some specific activities after waking.
pubutil 5y ago
This “hold an object while falling asleep” technique sounds very similar to a technique I read about maybe 15 years ago at an avant-garde sleep away arts camp. It was in the context of lucid dreaming and not increasing creativity, though. That technique didn’t involve holding an object, but going to sleep with your elbow against the floor/bed and your forearm raised. When you started to fall asleep your arm would fall and wake you up as it hit the floor/bed. It also suggesting sleeping with your head facing north, but that part seems less scientific to me. Nevertheless, very interesting how this came back around.
Nomentatus 5y ago
FWIW, I've found it easier to lie on my back in bed and hold a chopstick just over my nose or forehead. Thumb has to be under the chopstick, fingers over (a normal grip can freeze the stick in place.) After a while I shifted to using a slightly larger penny whistle, actually.
aacook 5y ago
There have been a bunch of times in my life where I spent all day or even a few days on a difficult design and/or code problem. Then as I'm just barely coming out of it in the morning — bam — some novel solution to what I'd spend hours on the day prior. Not N1 as mentioned in the post but a very cool experience.

737 points by ohiovr 5y ago

> To use the technique, visionaries such as Dalí and Edison would hold an object, such as a spoon or a ball, while falling asleep in a chair. This one isn't going to work for me, I think. I can never fall asleep in chairs or anywhere except comfortably lying down. Perhaps I could try holding one arm with a ball in it off the edge of the bed.

deleted 5y ago

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p10jkle 5y ago

I have aphantasia, but this exact state (just as I fall asleep) is the only time I can consciously see images in my head. It’s very odd

JshWright 5y ago
Same here— though it's not "images" in my case, best I can manage is a blob of either green, red, or purple (but I can consciously control which color it is, so that's neat)
srcreigh 5y ago
Same. I also see images while dreaming though. And after drinking alcohol, after lying down to sleep, but in an earlier state than about-to-fall-asleep, I see weird star patterns. My pre-sleep alcohol induced imagination is like a colored star which keeps changing in different ways. It follows a rhythm, maybe similar to my heartbeat. Maybe the color will change, maybe the center of the star will grow in size, maybe the star will get more spikes. It often fills my mind's eye quickly. It usually lasts just a few seconds right as I lay down. Sometimes at the end it develops into more like images than star patterns, but it feels similar.

adrianmonk 5y ago

> One participant said "At one point, I saw a horse in the hospital. And that study participant's name? John Mulaney.

ankitg12 5y ago

A powernap (one good audio here - https://soundcloud.com/withandrewjohnson/power-nap-with-andrew-johnson https://soundcloud.com/withandrewjohnson/power-nap-with-andr...) can be helpful to get into some of this state.

ohiovr 5y ago

"As legend goes, Edison would sit in a chair when he got sleepy, holding a ball bearing in his left hand. Soon, he would enter the “hypnagogic state,” a stage between wakefulness and sleep where many people claim to have visual and auditory hallucinations." https://cityftmyers.com/1871/Standing-Thomas-Edison#:~:text=As%20legend%20goes%2C%20Edison%20would,have%20visual%20and%20auditory%20hallucinations https://cityftmyers.com/1871/Standing-Thomas-Edison#:~:text=.... This technique should work if you can fall asleep without consciously thinking about what is in your hand. I have taken naps at 3pm now and then when I'm exhausted from studying a problem and fall asleep. Recently in a nap dream I come to a part that seemed to beg my belief even while dreaming. And I was somehow able to arise out of my dream state with conscious effort. I should note that I have been quite productive with the problem I was considering. I can't remember what the problem was. I just saw the article and thought it would be fun to share. Edison's technique should be automatic. Maybe something like a soft object that when a few moments after it is released makes a squeak sound. Might make a fun toy for inventors looking to maximize on this dream boost effect.

mkaic 5y ago
>Maybe something like a soft object that when a few moments after it is released makes a squeak sound. Could use some kind of heat or capacitive touch sensor to detect when it's no longer in contact with your hand. Or I guess the KISS version of that would just be to use some sort of physical switch to detect when the object hits the floor. I could totally see there being a market for something like this!
- ohiovr 5y ago
  Make it and give me one. I'm working on a spelling bee.
- mabcat 5y ago
  I spent a bit of time trying to do it with flex sensors. Strap one to your hand, make a fist, take your nap, detect when muscle tone is lost and it unbends. I ran out of interest before I got it to work but I still think it's viable. Probably smart to build the flex sensor into a glove for ease of use, and you could put the microcontroller on there too. https://core-electronics.com.au/flex-sensor-2-2.html https://core-electronics.com.au/flex-sensor-2-2.html

deleted 5y ago

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mkaic 5y ago

This is absolutely fascinating. I'm really interested to learn why this seems to work so reliably well. What's going on on a chemical/electrical level in the brain during N1 sleep that gives it this unique ability, and why does it go away if you go too deep and enter N2 sleep? Also, I'm incredibly eager to try this out now. First I've heard of it and it seems too good to be true.

johnisgood 5y ago
I was also amazed when I could solve logic puzzles (it was a logic game) after having looked at it[1] for a couple of seconds. I cannot/could not explain how I solved it, I could not tell you in advance that I have to move left, then right to connect this and that and so forth, but after having looked at it for a couple of seconds, I pressed the keys "intuitively" and solved it! I did not believe that it really worked at first, but after I solved many difficult levels this way, I was pleasantly shocked. I remember being somewhat sleep deprived at that time as well. [1] As in... simply looked. I did not try to solve it consciously.
- posix86 5y ago
  I've had a similar experience but, but my takeaway was: what does it mean to solve something? Consciously? You still skip so many steps; often, I think we just "think through" the state of the puzzle in order to load its configuration; the solution pops into our head, which then think through again - and we call it conscious thought. It's like an idea popping into your head: You instantly take credit for it, but frankly, did you come up with the idea? Didn't you just start feeling like you got something and you started talking, and the words kept making sense? lmao
ohiovr 5y ago
Looks like the brain has several layers of conscious states. The brain consumes many calories and thinking hard can make you tired. Especially if you have been very productive for a long time and then hit a wall. At the point of mental exhaustion, the brain desires sleep. You fall asleep and begin having a psychosis. The brain uses symbols that represent the psychosis causing hallucination. There is something about breaking the psychosis at the right time that alleviates some mental problems. Disclosure: I'm bipolar. I have some experience with psychosis I can tell you! All dreams are like psychoses..

novosel 5y ago

We must not forget to mention Einstein, who also was in the habit of taking naps in a an armchair while holding a rock in his hand.

Reflecticon 5y ago
Fo real?
- the_gipsy 5y ago
  His name was Einstein, which means literally “one stone”.
- dagurp 5y ago
  > Luckily for Einstein, he also took regular naps. According to apocryphal legend, to make sure he didn’t overdo it he’d recline in his armchair with a spoon in his hand and a metal plate directly beneath. He’d allow himself to drift off for a second, then – bam! – the spoon would fall from his hand and the sound of it hitting the plate would wake him up https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170612-what-you-can-learn-from-einsteins-quirky-habits https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170612-what-you-can-lea...
  - Reflecticon 5y ago
    Wow, I didn't know this technique was so widespread. Thank you for the source!

thejackgoode 5y ago

Sometimes I get into what feels like similar state during meditation, particularly when tired. It definitely produces "different" thoughts, but I never thought of it this way. Interesting.

deleted 5y ago

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ohiovr 5y ago

My Dad also took a lot of naps. I've never been able to fill his shoes figuratively or literally. He was sharp as a pin.

stavros 5y ago
He also had big feet?
- ohiovr 5y ago
  Sure did. He stood 6 foot 4 inches. I'm 5'9. His shoes were quite fascinating growing up as a little guy.

sammalloy 5y ago

I’ve experimented with all of these techniques, and you basically get the same benefit from 20 minutes of vigorous exercise.

jmkd 5y ago
For years this has been a personal joy of cycling to work...arriving at work with a thousand ideas of how to solve various challenges, and returning home scrambling for a notebook to capture the wild thoughts that emerged on the last half of the journey.
pvarangot 5y ago
I have some success with the TM technique, some days I'm just drained and don't want to do anything and after 20 minutes of TM in the afternoon I spring up and engage in hobbies or social activities as if it was a new day. It's better than a nap, which just gets rid of the heavy bodied tiredness. I also tried mindfulness before but I feel I get kinda like the creativity boost but not the rested state.
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  TM?
  - pvarangot 5y ago
    Transcendental Meditation. It's a more passive way of meditation than mindfulness that was kinda like a big I thing I think in the 70s or something? A lot of rich people are into it, most notable David Lynch and I think Jim Carrey... they have good marketing and it's kinda expensive if you are on a high earning bracket but of the woo woo weird things I spent money on it's one I don't regret.
- soared 5y ago
  Is ‘tm’ transcendental meditation in this context?
  - 5y ago

kreeben 5y ago

This sleep technique can be easily replicated in modern life: work from home, have lunch then a lie-down then have the Teams app's blippedy blip blip blip incoming message audio notifications wake you up to the harsh world of reality. Haven't felt this leads to me feeling especially creative, though.

cgb223 5y ago
It makes me imagine creative ways to quit my job and run away to an island somewhere ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- ohiovr 5y ago
  Don't go to an island: every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. [rev 16:20]
pluc 5y ago
Someone needs to measure the anxiety between the first blip and the potential second/multiple blips or expectation thereof
- kreeben 5y ago
  My anxiety curve is exponential. First blip: Don't care Second blip: Holy moly, is the world on fire?
  - mkaic 5y ago
    wow, that's quite the coefficient on that exponential lol
aaron695 5y ago
This is just napping, which many people do. It's about alertness (or lack of, if you nap to long) - http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/naps/ http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/naps/ What you need for this if it's real is your fitbit to wake you at the exact time, or perhaps something that measure muscle tension or brain waves.

pier25 5y ago

I think I once got into this hypnagogic state by accident. I was having a nap and my dogs woke me up because it was time for their walk. I felt sleepy while walking the dogs but also had a clarity regarding anything I examined in my mind. It's as if my regular state of mind was like walking in a forest with limited visibility, and now I could see the territory from a bird's perspective. This lasted for about 15 mins maybe. I've never been able to experience this again. Maybe I should try this technique :)

papandada 5y ago
I guarantee that someone out there can recommend a substance which achieves that effect
- post-it 5y ago
  Weed could do it. Other things too, but weed is always a good first stop for nice mind effects.
- d1lanka 5y ago
  Half a tab of LSD can get you there and keep you there for hours. BRB, trying.
- taneq 5y ago
  And then a dozen others will jump in saying that regardless of the actual authenticity of the experience it doesn't count if you did it by directly altering brain chemistry rather than indirectly altering brain chemistry.
- pier25 5y ago
  Honestly, I've experimented a lot with mind altering substances and that was something quite different.
pdimitar 5y ago
Meditation, if you don't overdo it (namely no longer than 30 minutes) has the same effect.

syspec 5y ago

Sounds interesting, but I have such a hard time falling asleep, that the last thing I want to do is be woken up once just as I do.

ardrak 5y ago

Modern day version of the technique is the phone falling in your face.

balaji1 5y ago
not before misclicking a few likes or ads
- boublepop 5y ago
  Or sending out a tweet about covfefe.
  - lucb1e 5y ago
    I had never heard of covfefe before, that's a funny read on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covfefe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covfefe). Thanks for that one.
  - WA 5y ago
    Or finally agreeing to the new Whatsapp terms of privacy.

denvaar 5y ago

Sometimes I fall asleep with my hands on the keyboard and wake up soon after to find jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj... in my editor

hardwaregeek 5y ago

I don’t know if this is precisely that state but I’ve found that when I drift off while reading, there will be a moment where the text melds with the dream state. A text on surveillance capitalism will sudden include a narrative or will merge with something else that I’ve read. Dreams are such a lovely experience. I love recounting them and the corresponding dream logic. I especially treasure filmmakers who can recreate that dream feeling. Fellini comes to mind.

vorpalhex 5y ago

I use the hypnogagic state as part of my meditation routine. I always shower before bed and that's when I tend to start getting sleepy. So I started meditating during that time. I can get to the phase of seeing shifting colors and patterns very easily in this setup. I've been able to get there outside the hypnogagic state but only with some difficulty and not consistently.

claylimo 5y ago
Meditation is about being alert and present. Hypnagogia in my experience is a hindrance that impedes meditation progress since it dulls the senses and experience.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  Meditation is a wide range of practice. If your goal is to be aware of yourself in the immediate, to feel things directly, then the hypnogagic state can work well. Obviously your mileage may vary.
- pvarangot 5y ago
  Mindful meditation, a technique very popular among big tech HR departments that want alert and present employees, is about being alert and present. There's many techniques and first hand stories of people achieving states more similar to like the one in the article with more let's say "older" or simpler and more basic meditation techniques that don't require too much mental gymnastics. Bodhidharma staring at a wall comes to mind.

flint 5y ago

We did that in high school physics. Physics was last period and before swim practice. We'd put a pencil in our hands and dangle our hand off the edge of the desk. When you dropped your pencil it'd wake you up. Hopefully it'd wake you up so the team wouldn't skeak off an leave you sleeping in the physics lab.

tempestn 5y ago

This does sound very cool, although I wouldn't be shocked to read at some point in the future that it couldn't be replicated.

amelius 5y ago

Instead of holding a pencil, can't a smartwatch detect your sleep state and wake you up at exactly the right moment?

robbiep 5y ago
You’re not going to get that sort of fidelity from a smart watch, you need some brain traces
- amelius 5y ago
  I suppose that dropping of the pencil is caused by muscles relaxing. I'm surprised a smartwatch can't detect this relaxation. But perhaps it's at the wrong location for that.
michaelcampbell 5y ago
Maybe? Why would you want to when a simple solution exists?
- dinkleberg 5y ago
  Is this a legit question? Instead of trying to sleep in an awkward position where you can drop something and have it wake you up, you could sleep in your bed and be woken up at the right time.
  - michaelcampbell 5y ago
    OTOH, this just feels like pushing some app solution on something that doesn't need it. Different strokes. And "right time" is highly debateable given the current tech at determining sleep cycles.
o_____________o 5y ago
Maybe from velocity? Just hold your hand up, and when it drops...

bakul 5y ago

This may have to do with being relaxed, not really thinking about the problem at hand and letting your intuition take over. I have had experiences where working intensely on a problem, even for weeks, didn't solve it but walking away from it and being totally relaxed and the solution just popped in my head. It could be in a shower, having a meal with friends, in the middle of the night or on a walk. You already have the necessary facts and observations but somehow you have not made that last intuitive leap. And when you do, you instantly know it is right as all of a sudden the cloud of possibilities collapses to a single point! I don't think of it as creativity as much as sparking one's intuition. The "sleep technique" test also relies pattern recognition, which is sort of a limited creativity. You are making the final connection as opposed to opening up a whole new world of possibilities.

loehnsberg 5y ago
I often have really good ideas under the shower that eluded me while thinking hard about it at my desk. I really wonder when they can reproduce the creative boost of taking a shower in a lab experiment.

theartfuldodger 5y ago

I thought Edison's "visionary" status had been discarded and his primary skillsets were deceit and self publicity? How much meditation time does it take to strong arm other people's work over and over again? It's a talent, but visionary doesn't seem apt.

cryptonector 5y ago
Let's say Edison created none of his lab's inventions. But it was still a lab he put together, was it not? He should get some credit -- so should the individual inventors, no doubt, but the question is just how visionary Edison was, and if his only real vision was creating a lab, hiring, and so on, then visionary he most definitely was.
ethanpil 5y ago
I have always felt that Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison are two sides of one coin... it seems that both of their successes are related to the mix of a driving vision, controversial management style and relentless push for innovation. Different eras, similar results...
ohiovr 5y ago
Culminating ideas to place items in a market place and market them to be desirable to the public, while electrocuting elephants is hard work for any man.

Sparrowhawk21 5y ago

Same thing as yoga nidra? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_nidra https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_nidra

okareaman 5y ago

I once fell asleep while coming down from LSD and woke up with sleep paralysis. I was wide awake, still buzzed from the acid and completely paralyzed. Fortunately I didn't panic despite not knowing about sleep paralysis and thinking the LSD had paralyzed me. It took me awhile but I managed to shake myself into movement finally.

thesz 5y ago

Both Dali and Edison did not have families and children to rise. They were multimillionaries also. If you are also childless and multimillionaire, you can experiment with what essentially a sleep deprivation, having hallutinations that are useful in a work of... genius? Also, in case of Edison, he used an army of assistants to comb through his ideas and patents avaiable at the time to find what is useful. Again, a privilege of multimillionaire These techniques cannot be used by a person who have to walk a dog early every morning, help his son to go to a school and work with complex code base.

vernon99 5y ago
A comment from a passerby. You say it like this is something you don’t have agency over (at least early on). It’s like saying that “yeah, you cannot be a good painter if you are solving math problems all the time”. Same with childless multimillionaires - it’s not like you are born into being one.
- rnd0 5y ago
  >Same with childless multimillionaires - it’s not like you are born into being one. I'm reasonably sure you're not saying no one is born into wealth, and I'm equally sure that all multimillionaires are born childless
bener 5y ago
You could quite easily use this technique when your child is in bed, before your usual bedtime. It would be an interesting thing to try in the evening when you're stuck on a coding problem. It's only really useful if you can get to that stage of N1 sleep quite quickly anyway so it wouldn't apply to all people. I don't think it's the domain of childless millionaires.
aydwi 5y ago
> These techniques cannot be used by a person who have to walk a dog early every morning, help his son to go to a school and work with complex code base. Of course they can. Just not by you. Mutual exclusion does not apply here.

marcodiego 5y ago

I'd doubt it works well for tasks that require concentration. A good period of sleep is important for these.

zagrebian 5y ago

> In N1, you can imagine shapes, colors or even bits of dreams in front of your closed eyes It happened to me on several occasions that I would wake up after 10 minutes of early sleep, and I would see things that aren’t there, like photographs projected on the blank walls of my bedroom. I was definitely awake, in the dark, and I would see these images for a minute or so before they faded away.

josefrichter 5y ago

Wow. I didn’t know this, but I was actually able to observe this state on myself. When going to sleep, my mind is wandering. But at one point it drifts from real world thoughts to completely abstract concepts and wild imagination that sometimes makes no sense. It’s almost like a hallucination. What’s most interesting is that sometimes I am able to notice the transition to this state and consciously observe it. Usually it makes me happy because I know I’m about to fall asleep within the next few seconds (which I often have problem with, writing this comment at 1:26am again..). I am also able to consciously observe the images being generated. It’s very weird, because it feels like one brain looking into someone else’s brain to the extent that is impossible by any technology or in any other way. Sometimes I’m able to consciously wake up from this state, because I have weird “sleep phobias”. Sometimes I am fascinated by the idea generated at that stage. But unless I write them down or really get up, they are typically lost if I fall asleep within next 5 minutes - maybe I’d have a Nobel prize already, if only I kept a pen and paper ready next to my bed. Or apartment full of crappy kitch paintings..

chrisweekly 5y ago
IIRC this is the "hypnopompic" state and yeah, it's weird and cool. Personally I have more memories at the other end ("hypnogogic"?) on the transition to waking up.
- 123pie123 5y ago
  Me too, I used to be able do this in the morning for what felt like hours in a extremely vivid dream like state It's how I got into self-hypnosis to help with my exams
t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
the state you describe i only, but then very clearly, experience when falling asleep while being stoned.
- pvarangot 5y ago
  Do you also have the visualizations of interlinked concepts? I find weed makes me have "the thoughts" and they are very present and come fast, but being absolutely sober sometimes those thoughts are there but not moving as fast and they it's more likely they also come with visualizations of the thought process.

gnicholas 5y ago

> The researchers found that the participants who spent at least 15 seconds in the N1 stage had an 83% chance of discovering the hidden rule, compared with a 30% chance for those who remained awake. "The only difference between the two groups is one minute," Oudiette said. That's "kind of a spectacular result." But if the participants drifted into N2 sleep, the effect disappeared. Why don't they say what the rate was for people in N2 sleep? Presumably it's more than the 30% chance, but less than the 83%?

Terry_Roll 5y ago

"In N1, you can imagine shapes, colors or even bits of dreams in front of your closed eyes, yet still hear stuff in your room" So is this when DMT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine starts to rise? It would make sense if it does, but melatonin increases before you get to N1 so I wonder what DMT is like without the melatonin? Maybe that's why there are rumours of some coders microdosing LSD in Silicon Valley, to keep up the creativity, but I cant help but think DMT might be better. Now if you take some Lecithin before sleep maybe a gram or two, you will dream, but your dreams if you remember them which you probably will, will be based around events before you went to sleep. This then leads further credence to dreams being an indicator to help you process previous days or more historical events. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecithin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecithin This is what I think is really helping your brain though, choline is used in the connections between neurons and explains baby brain forgetfulness with pregnant women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphatidylcholine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphatidylcholine

ohiovr 5y ago
I think DMT changed my friend Dairy Haas in a way that was negative.

svachalek 5y ago

When I was younger, often "falling" asleep felt like literally falling. I'd slam my arms down on the bed to "catch" myself, and shoot straight into a panicked awake state until my heart was ready to sleep again. I'd usually have memories just as described, weird combinations of the physical reality of my bedroom with random dream-stuff. I've also felt this on airplanes, not able to fall into any deeper level of sleep but fast-forwarding through time in a semi-aware state. I did have some really interesting ideas, but usually without writing them down they are forgotten, so I tried that for a while. Can't say I ever thought of anything actually useful this way though, or ever thought about doing it to myself on purpose.

s0rr0wskill 5y ago
This happens to me usually once every week ever since covid started and I got better sleep
bener 5y ago
That is called a hypnic (or hypnagogic) or myoclonic jerk, it's pretty common just before you fall asleep.

giantg2 5y ago

I feel like this is only helpful if one has the resources to pursue the ideas. Otherwise it could be depressing.

diatone 5y ago

Anecdote: I distinctly remember being on the edge of sleep writing a song one night in 2019. I was about to fall asleep on the floor with a notebook in my hand, and just at that moment, the music came into my mind. For whatever reason, I was able to stay awake and flesh it out as a recording. After reflecting on it the next day I realised I had written an acoustic fingerstyle piece that moved across keys as if there were multiple voicings in the accompaniment all moving independently in polyphony. Far more harmonically complex than anything I had written before, or since. Three weeks later my partner and I played it for the first time in a pub, and the normally cosy and laugh-filled room fell silent. We had the exact same experience in another open mic night a couple of weeks afterwards, where we took the first-place prize before the competition even finished. It was as if people were moved by it without any effort or coercion, like we cast a spell over people. Now it makes sense! I’ve heard music play in my mind as I’ve fallen asleep before; this news explains this story almost perfectly. Unreal. Live on the edge of sleep and magic can happen. I wonder what health risks there are with prolonged use?

_dain_ 5y ago
Can you share this piece? I want to hear it now.
waltbosz 5y ago
Do you have a recording of the song online? You story reminds me of a video by Jack Conte and his wife about their experience with lucid dreaming. They talk about how he wrote a song while dreaming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yti4yYZqtMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yti4yYZqtMo
pier25 5y ago
Wow what a story! Is this available anywhere?
saltyfamiliar 5y ago
That reminds me of this quote from Dick Dale, "I still remember the first night we played it ('Misirlou'). I changed the tempo, and just started cranking on that mother. And ... it was eerie. The people came rising up off the floor, and they were chanting and stomping." It seems like people really are susceptible to a sort of mass hypnosis if you can make the right noises.

thoraway66 5y ago

Oh this is a thing? This happens to me when I’m working all night. I don’t work late often but when I do I’ll drift in and out of a half dozing state to reset and have a burst of coding energy. I never knew this was a Dali thing. I purposely push myself those nights to get to the point of drifting in and out. Again, not something I do often, and when I do I’m already in a pretty creative mood.

lukas099 5y ago

I notice this state quite often in myself. Not every night, but enough that it's not really notable anymore. Usually, two seemingly unrelated concepts that I have been thinking about will become joined in strange ways — sometimes literally (some code I have been working on will be playing a song I have been listening to), sometimes in ways that I can't understand or describe. Other times, I will hear music as loudly and clearly as if I were at a concert. It can be music that is actually playing, or not. I find the experience pleasant and wish I could extend it.

dougmwne 5y ago

I suppose it depends on the person but my N1 sleep state contains a bunch of compelling nonsense. The moment I wake back up I can see it's randomness. I just went to a Dali museum and I can't say I'm very surprised he was a fan.

mandmandam 5y ago
Not to be rude, but I find that interesting and would like to guess.. Do you deal with a lot of random data in your daily/work life? Are you regularly compelled to deal with nonsense? Conversely, have you any hobbies that you try to progress deeply into; like a sport, or music?

chromejs10 5y ago

Didn't Benjamin Franklin do this? If I recall from his biography, he'd essentially hold a marble or something while in his rocking chair and it would drop onto a plate

soheil 5y ago

Can we please respect readers and not post ad riddled sites like this to HN? It’s impossible to read a paragraph without an ad jumping in the way.

dredmorbius 5y ago
Adblock is your friend. There are mobile browsers which support this (Firefox notably), and mobile-device adblock apps as well, in the event you're not on a desktop system. If you're in a corporate environment, put in a request for adblock on your network as, amongst other things, a security feature: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28631005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28631005
- soheil 5y ago
  Thanks I didn’t know Firefox with Adblock was an option on mobile.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    It is, and is a lifesaver. Essential extensions: uBlock Origin, Decentralize, Ghostery, Privacy Possum, Privacy Badger, NoScript, Ghostery. You might also appreciate Dark Reader. I wish Stylus (CSS manager) was supported. Its tab management / display is also vastly superior to Chrome's. Firefox/Android (or Fennec via F-Droid) has some annoyances: - No keyboard hotkeys. - Doesn't full-screen maximise. - No print-to-PDF. - No per-site font or zoom settings. - No per-site cookie management. - Weak Bookmarks controls (bookmarks cannot be reordered once saved). For a mobile browser, though, it's pretty good. Far superior to Chrome IMO, except on older devices where there's still a noticeable performance penalty (a 2015-era Samsung tablet).

agumonkey 5y ago

I heard the pre nap brain was also more creative. Just laying down on bed was enough to change your imagination.

srcreigh 5y ago

I've experienced similar effects first hand. University algorithm class assignment is due tomorrow at 1pm. I start working on it at midnight the day of. At around 4-5am I was stumped from a few problems, and went to campus to get some coffee. Tim Horton's doesn't open until 7am. I sit down in a chair and fall asleep. While I was sleeping (half sleeping?), I dream-solved the remainder of the problems. At 7am, I awoke, got my coffee, then went to type up the solutions.

texasbigdata 5y ago
Did you get the right answers? :) Hat tip for Timmies though.
- srcreigh 5y ago
  I didn't get a perfect grade, but I think the insights did help somewhat. Maybe if I did this 1 day prior and edited my answers, I would have done perfectly :)
elboru 5y ago
I had a really similar experience during college. I was trying to display a binary tree in the command line. I was not able to solve it while awake. I went to bed with that problem in my mind. Then I dreamt the solution. I woke up and the dream made sense. I couldn’t believe it so I tried in the code and it worked! That was a surreal experience.
- emi2k01 5y ago
  Dreaming of code is something that happens to me very frequently when I'm working on difficult problems and only the first few times was cool. Now, when I dream of code, I can hear my inner self saying "no, please! I actually want to rest" because most of the times I feel like I'm in a loop exploring the same solutions over and over. I've had to get out of bed and do something else so I can go back to sleep without having one of those weird dreams.
  - 5y ago

balaji1 5y ago

Curse the wretched spoon for disturbing you and go back to sleep.

djtriptych 5y ago

I was so inspired by this concept a decade ago that I registered hypnagogics.com (currently down)

hbarka 5y ago

I wonder if this creativity effect is related to sudden serendipitous moments while in the shower.

voidhorse 5y ago

Yes, tis true, it’s a state called hypnogogia, everyone experiences it. In my personal experience, it’s most easy to dive into a hypnogogic state if you simply attempt to go to bed, i.e. don’t read before bed, spend time on the phone etc. just lie down and let your brain meander.

rebuilder 5y ago

I’m a visual artist and I guess I use this all the time, although I don’t have any wake-up device. I just lie down for a nap and loosely let my mind wander around whatever I’m trying to work on, or just undirected. The images just start to come, not like visual hallucinations, but like someone else were imagining things for me, almost. I guess it’s good I work from home, and not in an office somewhere…

boublepop 5y ago

It sounds like this study has a series of problems. No control group, no reference measurement, no predefined hypothesis, and it doesn’t seem to mention number of participants, unless I missed it suggesting that it’s a small number. From this read I doubt it would replicate under stricter experimental conditions and with more rigor. Edit: Oh and I forgot that the noted effect being equated with creativity is somewhat unreliable. Essentially they where given a math problem that randomly seems to also give an answer you can find in the number itself, but anyone would know that this can’t be relied upon and might lead to errors if you just assume that’s the answer. That is unless your unfocused or just less logical. They could repeat the test and replace the sleep element with getting drunk and they would likely see an effect.

pelario 5y ago
Isn't the group that stayed awake the control group? Number of participants is mentioned repeatedly, also per group. I suspect you just read the press article and not the study (linked in the press article). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj5866 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abj5866

fortysixdegrees 5y ago

I have bad sleep aponea, so awake up constantly through the night. I am also very creative. It never occurred to me these things may be linked. My new CPAP machine may stifle my creativity. Huh

arpa 5y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoiac-critical_method https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoiac-critical_method

AdamJMarsh 5y ago

This is interesting. In our never-ending 24 hour news cycle, our central nervous systems are hijacked by adrenaline, glucose, nicotine & caffeine. It is a never ending struggle for our bodies to feel relaxed. I fully believe this is a major hindrance to creativity as the logical, ordered side takes over and rules the roost like a dictator. Although I haven't used this specific technique, I have however done Alexander Technique in my theatre training. It's incredible how much tension our bodies can hold without our minds being aware or conscious of it.

leobg 5y ago
> I have however done Alexander Technique in my theatre training. It's incredible how much tension our bodies can hold without our minds being aware or conscious of it. I find that very interesting. Can you share more? Specifically, what exercises do you suggest for letting go of such unconsciously held tension in the body? Any books or other resources you can recommend? Thanks!

fareesh 5y ago

Anecdotally I can confirm that a lot of this is true

jb1991 5y ago

It would be neat if instead of holding objects that you drop, the Apple Watch could somehow sense this change in your heart rhythm or some other factor and wake you up.

smusamashah 5y ago

Lying down holding phone right above your face reading HN at 2am should work the same.

c64d81744074dfa 5y ago

Just realized that there's almost no mention in the comments so far about the similarity to hypnosis: access to previously inaccessible memories, hallucinations, high suggestibility... Not sure how much I believe about hypnosis, but maybe it's related. Could it be just helping people get into this N1 state while awake?

ben_bai 5y ago

So my smartphone hitting me in the head every night when i loose grip b.c. of N1, shows how creative i am?

dlkf 5y ago

There is an interesting discussion to be had about the experimental design. The intervention was essentially: "the subject managed to fall asleep, and then woke up in the N1 stage." This assignment is not "random" in the same way that a drug trial is random. There are many general-state variables which likely govern our ability to fall asleep (anxiety, hunger, etc) and this study doesn't block any of them in the same way that a drug trial would (via randomization). That being said, the fact that participants who fell asleep and _didn't_ wake during N1 did not see improvement over control makes me more intrigued. (Assuming this is all true: brain scan research is really noisy and small-sample-size and has an atrocious replication record).

mdp2021 5y ago

Other commentary on the original research article, on Scientific American: Spark Creativity with Thomas Edison's Napping Technique - Waking yourself from the twilight state just before sleep may help you to solve a challenging problem, a study shows https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thomas-edisons-naps-inspire-a-way-to-spark-your-own-creativity/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thomas-edisons-na... Even better, there is an article from the very original research coordinator Delphine Oudiette on The Conversation [Fra] https://theconversation.com/pour-doper-votre-creativite-faites-des-microsiestes-173278 https://theconversation.com/pour-doper-votre-creativite-fait... which, miraculously - since a dozen online magazines commented on this but never linked it (?! !!! !) -, contains the link to the original research article, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079201901455 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10870...

zahma 5y ago

I always tried to time this so that I didn’t oversleep and disrupt my sleep pattern for later when I actually want to sleep through the night. I never really noticed a difference in my creativity, but maybe I need to try some specific activities after waking.

pubutil 5y ago

This “hold an object while falling asleep” technique sounds very similar to a technique I read about maybe 15 years ago at an avant-garde sleep away arts camp. It was in the context of lucid dreaming and not increasing creativity, though. That technique didn’t involve holding an object, but going to sleep with your elbow against the floor/bed and your forearm raised. When you started to fall asleep your arm would fall and wake you up as it hit the floor/bed. It also suggesting sleeping with your head facing north, but that part seems less scientific to me. Nevertheless, very interesting how this came back around.

Nomentatus 5y ago

FWIW, I've found it easier to lie on my back in bed and hold a chopstick just over my nose or forehead. Thumb has to be under the chopstick, fingers over (a normal grip can freeze the stick in place.) After a while I shifted to using a slightly larger penny whistle, actually.

aacook 5y ago

There have been a bunch of times in my life where I spent all day or even a few days on a difficult design and/or code problem. Then as I'm just barely coming out of it in the morning — bam — some novel solution to what I'd spend hours on the day prior. Not N1 as mentioned in the post but a very cool experience.