by Paul Rance

Created on: June 08, 2010

Insomnia can sometimes help the creative process, as the restlessness during sleep can often be induced by creative thoughts anyway!

Lack of sleep by itself will not help creativity. When we are tired, it is difficult to find the spark needed for any creative activity. But insomnia can be looked at slightly differently when there is the need to release something creatively, and we are affected in a subconscious way, and in as way which forces us to wake up.

The creative part of the brain is extraordinary, when you think that every human being has a creative side, but that none of us would ever, consciously, create anything exactly the same. Every person is so unique that insomnia could be an inspirational driving force, however inconvenient, for some people, but have the opposite effect on others.

We have all had that feeling, after something exciting, of struggling to get to sleep, and this can happen with creative people quite often. They go to bed thinking of what they have achieved during the day, and they are already thinking of what they are going to do the next day before their head hits the pillow. This can lead to us struggling to get to sleep, and when we finally do fall asleep, the closing conscious thoughts are at the forefront of our mind. So in the forefront of our mind that they compel us to wake up.

A creative idea can come at any time, and that is the beauty of creativity. One can sit down and try and write, or paint, or try and write a song, and what comes may be poor. Yet another time, when we are thinking of something mundane, a creative idea can just hit us. This is true, sometimes, of when we are asleep. A good deal of great pieces of work have been lost forever, no doubt, as the recipient of this unwelcome muse tosses and turns in an effort to fight against waking up, and the idea is gone.

We can't, unfortunately, choose the time and place when our creativity will be at its height, and so it's probably always an idea to have a pen and scrap of paper by our bedside, or even an old envelope, to scribble down any gems gleaned through a bleary-eyed night of insomnia.

It is impossible to say whether insomnia helps or hinders creativity, as everyone is much too much of an individual to say for certain one way or the other.

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