Sleep onset is a creative sweet spot - Sorbonne Université
Journal Articles Science Advances Year : 2021

Sleep onset is a creative sweet spot

Abstract

The ability to think creatively is paramount to facing new challenges, but how creativity arises remains mysterious. Here, we show that the brain activity common to the twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness (nonrapid eye movement sleep stage 1 or N1) ignites creative sparks. Participants (N = 103) were exposed to mathematical problems without knowing that a hidden rule allowed solving them almost instantly. We found that spending at least 15 s in N1 during a resting period tripled the chance to discover the hidden rule (83% versus 30% when participants remained awake), and this effect vanished if subjects reached deeper sleep. Our findings suggest that there is a creative sweet spot within the sleep-onset period, and hitting it requires individuals balancing falling asleep easily against falling asleep too deeply.
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Origin Publication funded by an institution

Dates and versions

hal-03474706 , version 1 (10-12-2021)

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Célia Lacaux, Thomas Andrillon, Céleste Bastoul, Yannis Idir, Alexandrine Fonteix-Galet, et al.. Sleep onset is a creative sweet spot. Science Advances , 2021, 7 (50), ⟨10.1126/sciadv.abj5866⟩. ⟨hal-03474706⟩
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