Most humans tend to view sleep as downtime for the brain, disrupted only by crazy dreams of dubious significance. In like manner, highly productive workaholics often dismiss sleep as a waste of time, bragging about their limited need for sleep. But medical science has discovered that a certain amount of sleep (generally in the range of 7-8 hours per day) is important for our health and that, contrary to popular perception, sleep is a active neurological process.
Indeed, persons engaged in creative fields of endeavor (writing, music, art, architecture, design, etc.) can recount incidences in which they awoke from sleep with a unique and often detailed idea, unrelated to any rumination that might have occurred prior to sleep. I can personally attest to the fact that a dozen or more of my blog posts were written in the middle of the night, almost fully constructed at the time that I awoke. There is little doubt in my mind that the brain synthesizes, analyzes and correlates ideas during sleep, drawing data from our conscious experiences and stored memories.
To be fully transparent, this post was prompted by the "appearance" of a person in a dream whom I have not seen and not consciously thought about in more than 40 years. Our conscious memories are but a small fraction of those stored in the circuitry of our brains and sleep allows us to "explore" that hidden data, providing fuel for our creativity. It seems to me that those who shun sleep to increase their productivity are failing to take advantage of a valuable creative resource.
Indeed, persons engaged in creative fields of endeavor (writing, music, art, architecture, design, etc.) can recount incidences in which they awoke from sleep with a unique and often detailed idea, unrelated to any rumination that might have occurred prior to sleep. I can personally attest to the fact that a dozen or more of my blog posts were written in the middle of the night, almost fully constructed at the time that I awoke. There is little doubt in my mind that the brain synthesizes, analyzes and correlates ideas during sleep, drawing data from our conscious experiences and stored memories.
To be fully transparent, this post was prompted by the "appearance" of a person in a dream whom I have not seen and not consciously thought about in more than 40 years. Our conscious memories are but a small fraction of those stored in the circuitry of our brains and sleep allows us to "explore" that hidden data, providing fuel for our creativity. It seems to me that those who shun sleep to increase their productivity are failing to take advantage of a valuable creative resource.
