Narcoleptic Naps Linked to Creativity; What Is Narcolepsy?

A powerful nap can add to your creativity; that is the case with George Church, who is a narcoleptic. He said most of his ideas came when he was having a narcoleptic nap.

George Church Details His Narcolepsy Condition

Narcolepsy is a rare disorder that causes sudden attacks of sleep. Church was diagnosed with the condition. From time to time, his eyelids will grow heaving, inclining toward slumber, Nautilus reported.

Due to his condition, he had to give up driving because he might fall asleep behind the wheel. However, narcolepsy also offers him something else - brilliant ideas during his naps, Nautil reported.

According to the Harvard geneticist, known for his innovative contributions to numerous fields, most of his prescient ideas come to him during his narcoleptic naps.

Church admitted to falling asleep several times a day. However, during those nap sessions, he devised a quick and simple way to read DNA, resulting in the first commercial genome sequence of the human pathogen H. pylori.

He also conceived editing genomes with CRISPR and built new genomes with off-the-shelf molecules during his narcoleptic naps. In December, he developed a new idea for a space probe that could reach distant stars at one-fifth the speed of light.

The ideas reportedly come to him in unexpected images. He said that he turns science fiction into science fact.

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Sleep, Dreaming and Creativity Have a Connection

The outlet noted that there had been reports of creative inspiration from renowned artists and scientists while dreaming. For instance, Russian scientist Dimitri Mendeleev said he had a vision of the periodic table in a dream three days after an exhaustive study of the matter. Stephen King also claimed he dreamt up his novel Misery during a somnolent flight crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

American inventor Thomas Edison also noticed the same pattern. So, he strategized a way to mine his dreams for materials.

He would hold a steel ball in each of his hands when he dozed off, so when his body limped, the balls would drop and wake him up. Then, he could recall the details of his dreams and record them for insights.

Several creative giants followed the same strategy, including inventor Nikola Tesla, surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, and Romantic writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe.

Scientific studies seem to validate those claims. One study asked the participants to "incubate" a problem in their dreams, and they often came up with a useful solution. The frequency and complexity of one's dream correlate with higher creativity scores.

The stage of sleep associated with creative inspiration is REM (rapid eye movement). REM sleep begins about 70 minutes after a person loses consciousness. REM sleeps have been shown to improve subjects' skills in solving anagrams and puzzles requiring association between loosely related ideas.

What is Narcolepsy?

Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological disorder affecting the brain's ability to control sleep-wake cycles. People with this condition, like Church, may feel rested after waking, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

However, they will feel sleepy throughout much of the day. Many narcoleptics experience uneven and interrupted sleep involving waking up frequently during the night.

The typical symptoms include excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, and hallucinations. Fragmented sleep and insomnia could also be symptoms.

According to Nautilus, the "more symptoms of narcolepsy subjects had, the greater their creativity."