by Laurie Childree

Created on: May 05, 2007   Last Updated: September 07, 2009

A definite opportunity for enhanced creativity is available with the onset of insomnia. What? You're wondering how you can be creative when you are wishing for sleep that seems to be eluding you. It is possible to be creative and not be rested, sometimes when the mind begins to play tricks on you a whole new world opens up to you.

Insomnia can help creativity if you use it to your advantage. When you have insomnia you are awake when you would normally be asleep so there is nothing else you are supposed to be doing. The mere effort of getting to sleep is useless. Do what ever comes to mind.

Cleaning house, rearranging furniture or even planning a trip. You can sit down and try to focus if you want but the key to letting insomnia help instead of hinder creativity is to allow yourself not to focus too hard.

Simply let your thoughts wander where they may. You will often times be surprised at what you can come up with when you least expect it. Remember in school when the teacher would have you do the free writing exercise. Anything that came to mind you wrote down with little bubbles, then you picked one thing and wrote what ever came to mind on the subject for a certain amount of time.

When you can not sleep you can apply this same technique only without any confinements or restrictions.

You can write poetry, novel chapters or a paper. Therefore insomnia can definitely help creativity if you allow yourself to release the inhibitions of restraint on your time and your mind.

The time that you spend on other projects during the day can cause you to lose focus on the matter at hand. The fact the night is not a scheduled time makes it easier not to lose focus on the matter at hand.

Do you have a novel in your head? Writing down whatever comes to mind for the characters in the middle of the night would be great. The next morning you can look over it and see what does and doesn't seem right at the time. An outline for a story can be created as well.

The events from your life can come to you and you can analyze them closely during this time. Memories can take a turn from reality and become a short story for your children. Some people love pictures so you can take the time to organize them. Maybe even do some scrap booking.

The scrap book pages may even inspire a story. Does your memory fill with cute stories when you look at the pages? Continue with them and see if the journaling of the scrap book page can develop into more.

Insomnia is definitely an outlet for creativity.

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