Making the case for hypnagogia: The creative hack bosses hate
Thomas Edison naps under a tree. July 19, 1921.
Dear tech overlords of the 2020s…
I know you’re looking for more. More output. Better KPIs than last quarter. More bright ideas squeezed out of people like the final scrapings from a toothpaste tube.
Naturally, the first instinct is to speed up, clog the calendar with syncs, and get the productivity numbers up; to treat creativity like a factory line.
But creativity isn’t a batched process. It’s more like a cat — you have to ignore it long enough for it to approach you.
With that in mind, what if I said the best creative breakthroughs could come while your colleagues nap at their desks? This is where hypnagogia comes in: a favorite trick of creative geniuses where ideas don’t arrive through acceleration, but by hitting the brakes.
Meet hypnagogia, the creative sweet spot at the onset of sleep
Hypnagogia is a surreal half-dream state that can last as short as a minute before you fall asleep. It’s when thoughts turn liquid, time gets wobbly, and we start having dreamlike visions (mostly related to our most recent experiences).
Dream and nightmare researcher Michelle Carr, Ph.D. says that the mind is more fluid and “hyperassociative” in this state, and the brain makes rapid, unexpected, and often unconventional connections between ideas, concepts, or memories.
In this state, creative people can form new connections between separate contexts, leading towards solutions based on intuition — and ones you might not consider with a rational, Slack-distracted mind.
In his book 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship, Salvador Dali — perhaps the most famous fan of the hypnagogic state — prescribed his napping technique to all artists as a problem-solving hack:
“[Y]ou will secretly, in the very depths of your spirit, solve most of [your work’s] subtle and complicated technical problems, which in your state of waking consciousness you would never be humanly capable of solving.”
The hypnagogia hall of fame
Who else used this problem-solving sweet spot that led to some groundbreaking ideas? You might recognise some of these names...
Salvador Dalí dozed in an armchair in the afternoon and held a spoon over a plate, drifting into a hypnagogic state until the clanging of the spoon woke him. He yanked back bizarre ideas from this void, assessing them with his rational (if you could call it that) artist’s mind.
Thomas Edison had multiple naps ever day, sometimes holding metal balls in his hands that would wake him when they hit the floor. He used these naps to harvest flashes of genius.
Mary Shelley had a hypnagogic vision days after Lord Byron challenged her to write a ghost story. The vision? A scientist working on a patchwork man made of stolen body parts, which later became her infamous Frankenstein.
Edgar Allen Poe wrote about the fancies he would experience, “where the confines of the waking world blend with those of the world of dreams”. This led him to some of American literature’s greatest works of poetry and fiction.
Franz Kafka was so sleep-deprived from working his bank job all day and writing all night that he basically lived in a hypnagogic state, which explains a lot about his vibe.
Depiction of Franz Kafka in Kafka, by Robert Crumb and David Z. Mairowitz. “Writing is a deeper sleep than death. Just as one wouldn't pull a corpse from its grave, I can't be dragged from my desk at night.”
So what the heck is happening here? (The sciencey bit)
To find out if Edison and Dali’s ‘lazy’ creative hack had some validity, scientists ran an experiment, recruiting 103 easy sleepers and assigning them a maths test. The twist? Some had to take a quick nap before working on it.
Those who napped reported strange visions (as is custom with hypnagogic states) that were not related to the problem, but after the break, they returned to the maths test with a renewed focus.
Those who napped and were interrupted during the first phase of sleep were three times better at finding the hidden solution to the problem compared to those who remained awake. Twenty out of 24 of these nappers (83%) found the hidden key to the challenge, versus only 15 out of the 59 (30%) that stayed awake.
But the trick didn’t work for those who reached later stages of sleep. “Our findings suggest there is a creative sweet spot during sleep onset,” says Delphine Oudiette, a sleep researcher at the Paris Brain Institute. “It is a small window which can disappear if you wake up too early or sleep too deep.”
Part of the explanation behind this incredible finding is our shift in brainwave states. When we enter a hypnagogic state, we move from alpha waves (relaxed wakefulness) to theta waves (deep creativity and problem-solving). We move past the over-editing filter of our conscious mind.
How to trigger hypnagogic states (AKA how to sleep on the job)
I understand why workplaces might not be ready for “Mandatory Nap Time.” So in the meantime, here are some quick ways anybody who needs a creative boost in a creative capacity can incorporate hypnagogia state. Feel free to also copy-paste these if you need an excuse for falling asleep at your desk.
1. The Dalí-style creative nap
Grab an object (a pen, your AirPods, preferably something shatter-proof) and hold it loosely while you doze on a chair or sofa. The moment it drops, you will wake up — hopefully with an idea, or if you’re in the office, at least an excuse to go home early.
2. Pre-creative meditation
Meditation slows your brainwaves and increases dopamine, which in turn, boosts visual imagery and imagination. You might even slip into a creative nap here. Renowned music producer Rick Rubin prescribes meditation to the artists he works with. He says: “There’s a great deal of bullshit that people think about when they make music, things that don’t matter. [Transcendental Meditation] kind of wipes that away, and you focus on the real job at hand.”
3. The bedside journal
A bedside journal can help you connect to the unconscious — either by unearthing ideas just before you go to sleep, or first thing in the morning. Josh Waitzkin, author of The Art of Learning, uses a decision-making tactic called the MIQ (Most Important Question) to reach a creative insight during his sleep, and brainstorms in his journal as soon as he wakes.
Opportunities open when we let our brains breathe
Let’s be real — AI is making “quick thinking” obsolete. If a chatbot can generate ten mediocre ideas in seconds, then creative value isn’t in speed... It’s in depth and originality.
Think about the companies that innovate. They don’t just grind harder. They think differently:
Nap pods aren’t uncommon in Silicon Valley.
Google’s famous “20% time” has led to products like Gmail and AdSense.
Bill Gates took “Think Weeks” with no distractions.
Real breakthroughs often happen when you stop trying so hard, and even — paradoxically — as you’re just about to drift to sleep.
