October 27, 2009
sleep on it
By which, I assume, unconscious thought means an accumulation of past experiences.
Previous research suggests that sometimes the more consciously we think about a decision, the worse the decision made. Sometimes what’s needed is a period of unconscious thought – equivalent to “sleeping on it” according to the researchers – in order to make better decisions. Here’s how they study this phenomenon:
“[... In a] typical experiment demonstrating this effect, participants choose between a few objects (e.g., apartments), each described by multiple aspects. The objects differ in desirability, and after reading the descriptions, participants are asked to make their choice following an additional period of conscious thought or unconscious thought. In the original experiments, unconscious thinkers made better decisions than conscious thinkers when the decisions were complex.”
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I have been rolling this article over in my head for a few hours now and I am not so sure about it.
take a nap and maybe get back to me.
i especially think this applies with writing & art. Best to put under the mattress for a spell to age like wine.
Yeah, I love that part of a project where you go to sleep and it sort of bakes overnight, and you wake up fresh and see exactly what needs to be done. But I think you need to be very intensely involved with the project for that to work.
It happens in the shower (that’s what I would have titled the post). I wake up, hop in the shower and I can see the idea; I once wrote half a paragraph of a story in the fog on the glass door so I wouldn’t forget.
Yes! I totally know that shower moment! Oh God I love that moment. You’ve had four hours sleep and you wake up and attempt to humanise yourself in the shower, and there it is.
i have those moments when running, but then usually forget by the time i get home.
That happens to me on my bike sometimes it helps if I imagine myself writing it. Something about the process of transfering a thought to paper locks the idea away in my head (it doesn’t work with typing)…sometimes imaginary paper works.
If you haven’t listened to the Radiolab podcast about sleep, I highly recommend it. It answered all my questions about why I always play a new song on the cello better on the second or third night, no matter how long I practice on the first.