Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that purposeful daydreaming during the sleep onset phase can increase creativity. The results of the research of scientists have been published. magazine scientific reports
The sleep onset phase is described in the work as the period before sleep, when the person comes to the brink of sleep and wakefulness. Scientists have suggested that this stage may have an impact on people’s creativity.
Scientists have developed a device called the Dormio that can be used to target the dream brood. It consists of a glove that measures three physiological indicators of sleep (changes in muscle tone, heart rate, and skin conductivity) and transmits them to a smartphone or laptop app.
When a person enters the sleep initiation phase while falling asleep, the device invites them to dream about a particular subject. A few minutes later, when the user begins to go into the next phase of sleep, the app wakes him up, asks him to describe his dream, and records his response.
The authors conducted a 45-minute experiment involving 49 people divided into groups. The first group, Dormio, was asked to imagine a tree, which woke the volunteers up as soon as they fell asleep – the actions were repeated throughout the experiment. Participants of the second were allowed to fall asleep peacefully after daydreaming, and participants of the third did not sleep at all.
Subjects were then asked to complete three creativity tasks. Participants of the first group showed better results compared to the second group, which outperformed the second.