An overview of the link between creativity and sleep: creativity models, napping behavior of famous creative people, the role of REM in novel concepts, and creativity tests.

1. Creativity
and Sleep

2. Creativity
The forming of associative combinations which
either meet specified requirements or are in
some way useful.
Cognitive flexibility
Finding remote associations

3. Creativity Model #1
1. Confront problem intensely, without success.
2. Put the problem aside.
3. Enter dormancy, putting no conscious work
on the problem (incubation).
4. Get the aha—an insight flash to
consciousness while in idle thought.

4. Creativity
Model #2
1. Preparation
2. Incubation
3. Illumination
4. Implementation
Graham Wallas 1926

6. Paul McCartney
Yesterday
Robert Louis Stevenson
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Albert Einstein
multiple discoveries
Otto Loewi
synaptic connections
Mary Shelley
Frankenstein

7. Does sleep aide creativity?

8. And is REM sleep the key player
in creativity?

9. REM Refresher
1. Rapid, random side-to-side eye movements
2. occurs in ~90-120 minute cycles at night
3. up to 20-25% of total sleep time in adults
4. proportion decreases with age
(a newborn may spend 80% of sleep in REM).
5. Dominates the latter half of the sleep period,
especially the hours before waking
6. REM typically increases each sleep cycle in the
night
7. Atonia

10. REM Refresher
1. REM sleep: bizarre and hallucinatory compared
to thought-like NREM
2. Paradoxical sleep

11. REM Refresher
areas involved with LT
memory and emotion
are highly active in REM

12. REM Neurotransmitters
• Norepinephrine is inhibitory in locus coeruleous
of the pons  atonia
• Acetylcholine is active during REM
• Serotonin inhibits REM

13. Study #1

14. Study #1
1. Measure creative problem solving after REM sleep
through the Remote Associates Test (RAT).
• 77 people, aged 18-35
• No personal reported history of illness
• Sleep at least 6 hrs/night for the 5 days up to the
experiment
• Sleep at least 6.5 hours before test day
• Kept sleep diaries; wore actigraphs 5-7 days before testing
• No alcohol or caffeine 24 hrs before and during experiment

15. Remote Associates Test (RAT)
1. Falling
2. Actor
3. Dust
?

16. Remote Associates Test (RAT)
1. Falling
2. Actor
3. Dust
STAR

17. Remote Associates Test (RAT)
1. Home
2. Sea
3. Bed
?

18. Remote Associates Test (RAT)
1. Home
2. Sea
3. Bed
SICK

19. FAST:SLOW as HARD:E
zzz ZZZ♪♬♭♫

20. REM improved PM primed
performance—almost 40%--
over the other two groups

21. Study #2

22. Study #2
700ms fixation point
200ms prime
Indefinite ms target
ID word/nonword
keypress
Semantic priming can test associate memory processes.

23. Study #2
Contrary to the overall
patterns, subjects awakened
from REM showed greater
priming by weak primes than
strong primes (p=0.01)

24. Factors contributing to creativity and
sleep
1. REM, not incubation, improves creativity by
priming associative networks
2. Creativity benefits from prior exposure
3. Sleep selectively enhances memory expected
to be of future relevance

25. Discussion
1. REM is important for creative thinking,
particularly for highly difficult problems with a
visual solution or that challenge the prior
paradigm of thinking.
2. Sleep insomnia may prime the brain for
divergent thinking, because of its fatigue,
thereby letting thoughts that would have
otherwise been controlled by areas like the
dlPFC to get through.

26. Questions
1. Is creativity best measured through words and
vocabulary?
2. Can other senses, such as olfactory and auditory
ability, be tested and used for creativity tasks?
1. Creativity across age spans: does creative
performance persist in the same way by age
group?

27. In closing
Let us learn to dream.
--Nobel Laureate Friedrich A. Kekulé

28. In closing
Let us dream to learn.
--April Gardner