Sleep & Creativity

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Laer Carroll

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Every writer is different, so what works for one may not work for another.

Recently I noticed something that works for me. It had been working for at least a year but improving so gradually it came as a sudden revelation. This is the effect of sleep on story problems.

I improvise my stories, though they are planned in the sense that from the first I know where I want them to end up, and very roughly how they’ll get there. It has always worked so far.

As with most other writers I regularly realize I have a problem, usually a couple of pages into a scene. Often it’s the plot going off the rails, sometimes the characters aren’t believable, rarely the setting does not feel right.

So begins the stewing stage. It lasts a few days, which I spend doing other essential work such as copyediting another book. Meanwhile at random moments my mind will return to the problem, I’ll ponder it a few minutes, then go back to working on something else or doing chores or relaxing.

Then one morning as I slowly awake from sleep my mind will return to the problem and I think: What if ...? And I see a way to my problem’s solution.

It would be nice if I could speed up this problem-solving process. But it’s working and maybe I shouldn’t try to tinker with it.
 
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Hanson

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Yup, big believer in sleep.

it's the lying down and words/ images flooding in BEFORE sleep that annoys me.

Still, better they come at a bad time, than not come at all.
 

Mr Flibble

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it's the lying down and words/ images flooding in BEFORE sleep that annoys me.

uhuh, I hear ya. Only I do (or did before I changed jobs) use that -- if I had a knotty problem I'd "go for a snooze". Guaranteed I'd be downstairs half an hour later knowing where I needed to go!
 

Hanson

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uhuh, I hear ya. Only I do (or did before I changed jobs) use that -- if I had a knotty problem I'd "go for a snooze". Guaranteed I'd be downstairs half an hour later knowing where I needed to go!
Yes, if it's early enough, it's great.

But if it's actual bedtime...arghhhh.
 

Mr Flibble

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I've go used to waking at 2am, scribbling on my arm cos I can't find paper cos turning the light on would wake the old man, then wondering what the hell it was I scribbled on my arm when I wake up the next day because now it's all a blurred...

And that, right there, is a reason that many writers drink -- it turns off the brain
 

chompers

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When I'm dealing with a particularly troublesome scene, I will literally go lay down. It's not the sleeping process that helps me. I've found it's the act of being horizontal, for some strange reason. The answers will then come to me quickly. The only problem is I fall asleep quickly too, and sometimes I end up dozing off before the solution works itself out.
 

Hanson

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I've go used to waking at 2am, scribbling on my arm cos I can't find paper cos turning the light on would wake the old man, then wondering what the hell it was I scribbled on my arm when I wake up the next day because now it's all a blurred...

And that, right there, is a reason that many writers drink -- it turns off the brain
that and the ink poisoning....

:D

Oh, the struggle, the struggle. Still, if it means saving the world from mediocrity...
 

bearilou

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Hm. Not me. Sleep is needed for sure. I'm far more creative after I'm rested, yes. But sleeping is sleeping and when my brain is ready to switch off it does with no fanfare.

Doing the dishes and showering are guaranteed ways to unstick me in a thorny problem. Or anything that engages my hands where I am not available to free them immediately to write something down.
 

StormChord

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I've found that my sleep tends to leave my ideas disorganized and all over the place - it's a bit problematic when I'm trying to figure out a backstory and I wake up convinced that candy-cane tsukumogami are secretly infiltrating my sock drawer.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Have you tried teaching yourself lucid dreaming? It's a lot of fun, even if it doesn't help with your writing, though it probably will.
 
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