Power Up by Shutting Down: Why Do The Best Ideas Come Before Sleep?

I’ve noticed recently, or not very recently, that I have very vivid, and truth be told, ingenious thoughts right before I hit the hay for the day. It is both exciting, unsettling, and frustrating at the same time. On one hand, I’m intrigued by the excellent ideas that begin to form in my head as my body shuts down and my eyes shut. The part that pisses me off is that, as soon as I wake up, I forget all about it. Every single detail. The idea or creative thought I had? Gone. And I’m too tired to wake up mid-thought to write it down or record it. It’s kind of like my brain making fun of me – the fact that it’s taunting me with these amazing ideas and then refuses to let me actually make use of any of them.

Like one time, I had this amazing melody in my mind right before sleep, and it was both catchy and unique at the same time. I remember thinking Wow, this would be an absolute hit. I wanted to grab my phone and record the melody; in fact, I actually dreamt about grabbing my phone and recording the melody, so that I could wake up and know my hit single would be safe in the digital world of my phone. Yet, when I woke up and checked my phone, nothing was there. That really pissed me off.

Another time, I thought up one of the most hilarious and unique comedy shows ever that delivered perfectly witty lines, while not being cringe or cliché. The lines didn’t seem like they were trying to be funny, they just were. But then, guess what? Poof. Idea gone as soon as my alarm went off. Not even a single memory of where the show would take place, what characters would exist, let alone a single good line from the show.

I’m starting to believe perhaps that when I have these “amazing” ideas, they’re actually mediocre ideas that my brain doesn’t recognise as mediocre since it’s beginning to shut down. Like sometimes, instead of thinking about the idea before sleeping, the idea comes in my dreams. And I actually manage to remember them this time. Yet, when I wake up and excitedly go to my phone to jot it down, I realise how stupid the idea truly was. Like an app that gives you directions from one place to another? It’s called Google Maps you idiot. And seriously, an app to waste time training your finger swipes? Yeah, already done, it’s called Tinder. It either didn’t make sense at all or had been done a million times before. But I choose to ignore this possibility to fuel my ego. The chance that my brain is so genius that it can think of these million-dollar ideas at the time my body is the most vulnerable makes me feel invincible. That was, until I realised, I wasn’t alone on this experience.

In fact, it seems like every single person has these types of experiences, and there’s a science behind it. What’s the science? I have no idea; I’m a computer science student. Anyways, one reddit user theorises that your body relaxes and allows the mind to open up. This means the “inner critic (frontal lobe of the brain) is relaxed and thoughts are able to flow without a filter”. Sounds about right to me. Another person confirmed my theory of how the ideas actually suck, and how we’re too tired to know that. They state that we’re simply “too tired to judge them properly”. Then they make a reference to that one Seinfield episode The Heart Attack. Personally, never seen Seinfield, and it pisses me off to know that usually I’m the one making references in these blogs, and the one time I talk about another person referencing popular culture, I’m the one who doesn’t get it.

I hopped on Quora to check too, and this guy Anthony says that it’s “all a matter of brainwaves”. When we’re awake apparently our brain gives off Beta waves, where we’re the most intelligent, but not the most creative. But when we relax, we enter Alpha supposedly. Then there’s something to do with hemispheric synchronisation and peak performance correlation (blah blah blah am I right). Then right before sleep, we enter Theta, which is a highly creative brainwave state. As Elton John once said, “all this science, I don’t understand”. Because I sure as shit don’t understand any of it. But it’s persuaded me enough that I’m certainly not cool or different for having these experiences.

Another reddit user said some guy named Dali had a method where he would hold a ball on his hand whenever he took a nap on his chair, so that whenever he fell asleep, the ball dropped and the noise woke him up, which apparently gave him many ideas for his drawings. Call this guy da Vinci because he’s a genius and can paint. Also, what’s up with geniuses that can paint? That’s a topic for next time, I guess.

Anyways, my question is, knowing there’s all this fancy pants science behind these experiences, what’s stopping scientists from strapping people to chairs, forcing them to get into these Alpha or Theta brainwave states or whatever, then getting them to spew out their greatest ideas? Wouldn’t civilisation advance tenfold if this happened? I hope some neuroscientist can drop a comment telling me why this wouldn’t work. And if you’re a neuroscientist looking for easy money, I have the perfect business plan for you: set up a storefront and charge clients a fee, claiming that you will help people get into these Alpha, Theta, whatever brainwaves so that they can get super-duper genius ideas, then help them record their ideas. It’s basically a win-win: you get rich, and the clients think they’re getting crazy good ideas, when in fact they actually just suck, and they were simply too tired to recognise that. Then they’ll just keep coming back, because their bad ideas won’t take them anywhere, and boom bam bop you’re a millionaire.

All in all, I guess it doesn’t really matter whether the ideas amazing or not. All that really matters, is that for one brief moment every single day, my mind persuades myself that I am a complete and utter genius. (Or jeen-yuhs, if you will).