Does sleeping on an idea work? Here’s what science says.

睡一觉能让灵感迸发吗？来看看科学是怎么说的。

When inventor Thomas Edison would hit a creative block, he would use a trick to help his mind get unstuck.

发明家托马斯·爱迪生遇到创意瓶颈时，他会使用一个小技巧，帮助自己跳脱出思维的僵局。

He would sit in his favorite chair holding steel balls in his hands and begin to doze off. Once his muscles relaxed enough, the balls would slip from his hands into pans on the floor. The loud noise would jar him awake.

他会坐在最喜欢的椅子上，手里握着钢球，之后开始打盹。一旦肌肉放松到一定程度，钢球就会从手中滑落，掉进地板上的盘子里。接着，巨大的声响会将他震醒。

Edison claimed that he would often wake up from these cat naps with new ideas to continue his work.

爱迪生表示，他常在这样的“打盹”中醒来，灵感随之涌现，驱使他继续投入工作。

Salvador Dalí had a similar technique using a heavy key and credited it as one of his secrets to mastering the art of painting.

萨尔瓦多·达利也采用类似的方法，只不过他手里拿的是一把沉重的钥匙，并视其为掌握绘画艺术的秘密之一。（译者注：萨尔瓦多·达利是20世纪最具影响力的西班牙超现实主义艺术家之一，以其怪诞奇幻的画风、标志性的翘胡子和充满象征意味的作品闻名于世。）

The “slumber with a key” process, as detailed in his 1948 book, “50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship,” was “a repose which walks in equilibrium on the taut and invisible wire which separates sleeping from waking.” ***

在1948年出版的《魔法技艺的50个秘密》中，他详细描绘了这一“钥匙小憩”法：仿佛行走在一根紧绷却无形的钢丝上，为了维持平衡，在清醒与沉睡之间缓缓穿行。

Now, scientists are finding experimental evidence that supports what Edison and Dalí knew all along — that the transition between wakefulness and sleep is a portal for creative thought.

如今，科学家们正在寻找实验证据，以证实爱迪生与达利早已感知的一种状态——那介于清醒与入睡之间的过渡时刻，正是通往创造性思维的大门。

N1 sleep and creativity

N1阶段睡眠与创造力

This first stage of sleep, called N1 or hypnagogia, lasts only one to seven minutes but can invoke spontaneous, vivid dreams that often incorporate recent wake experiences.

睡眠的第一个阶段称为N1阶段，也叫入睡期，仅仅能够维持一到七分钟，却可能唤起自发而生动的梦境，而这些梦境往往与近期清醒时分的经历相关。

There are five stages of sleep: wakefulness, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and non-REM Stage 1, 2 and 3 (N1, N2 and N3).

睡眠总共分为五个阶段：清醒、快速眼动（REM）睡眠，以及非快速眼动（NREM）阶段1、2和3（N1、N2 和 N3）。

“N1 sleep is this liminal half-state. It’s totally strange,” said Adam Haar Horowitz, a former postdoctoral associate at MIT. “N1 is more hallucinatory than REM sleep in terms of being a state that mixes elements of wake and sleep, than it is purely like a dream where you’re completely immersed.” ***

麻省理工学院前博士后研究员亚当·哈尔·霍洛维茨表示：“N1阶段的睡眠是一种介于清醒和睡眠之间的半意识状态，非常奇特。”“与快速眼动（REM）睡眠相比，N1阶段更具有幻觉性质，因为它是一种清醒与睡眠元素交织在一起的状态，而并非一种完全沉浸于梦境的状态。”

Brain imaging studies have shown that N1 engages networks involved in spontaneous thinking and cognitive control, both instrumental to creativity.

脑部成像研究显示，N1阶段会激活与自发思维和认知控制相关的神经网络，而这两者正是创造力的关键。

More recently, researchers using the Edison method discovered that spending as little as 15 seconds in N1 sleep tripled the chance of participants subsequently having a moment of creative insight on a math problem compared with those who stayed awake or reached deeper sleep.

最近，研究人员借助“爱迪生法”发现：相比于保持清醒或进入深睡的个体，仅在N1阶段停留15秒的受试者，在解决数学难题时获得创造性洞察力的几率也提升了三倍之多。

In a 2023 study, Stickgold, Horowitz and others reported enhanced performance on three creativity tasks after N1 sleep, corroborating previous work identifying N1 as a creative sweet spot.

在2023年的一项研究中，斯蒂克戈尔德、霍洛维茨等人报告称，在进入N1睡眠后，参与者在三项创造力任务中的表现均有所提升，这一发现验证了以往研究提出的观点，即N1是提升创造力的最佳阶段。

But they went a step further, using targeted dream incubation — a technique that guides the content of dreams — on participants, which led to an even greater boost in creative insight.

然而，他们进一步开展实验，采用了一种有针对性的梦境培养技术，通过引导梦境内容，使参与者的创造性洞察力得到了更显著的提升。

They created a device that modernizes and improves on the Edison method by using a hand-worn sleep tracker and app to both influence and record dream content.

他们发明了一种设备，对爱迪生小憩法进行了现代化改进，利用手戴式睡眠追踪器和应用程序来引导并记录梦境内容。

In the experiment, as participants drifted off to sleep, an audio recording in the device instructed them to “remember to think of a tree.” A non-dream incubation group was simply told to observe their thoughts.

实验过程中，当参与者逐渐进入睡眠状态时，该设备会播放一段语音提示：“请记住要想象一棵树”。然而，对照组的参与者则未接受梦境引导，仅被要求观察自己的思维。

Physiological sensors in a sleep tracker automatically detected sleep onset through decreased heart rate and muscle tone, as well as electrical changes in the skin.

睡眠追踪器中的生理传感器通过检测心率下降、肌肉张力减弱以及皮肤电变化，自动识别睡眠的开始。

After being in N1 for a few minutes, the device delivered an auditory prompt to wake them up and immediately ask about their dream, recording the response.

在进入N1睡眠几分钟后，该设备会发出声音提示唤醒参与者，并立即询问他们的梦境，记录他们的回答。

Over 70 percent of people in the incubation group — as opposed to 1.4 percent of the non-incubation group — dreamed about trees.

超过70%的梦境培养组参与者（译者注：指上文中被引导去特意想象一棵树的参与者）梦到了树，而对照组的这一比例仅为1.4%。

Afterward, the researchers gave them creativity tests in line with the incubated dream topic, including writing a story about a tree and thinking of alternative uses for a tree.

随后，研究人员根据梦境主题对参与者进行了创造力测试，包括要求他们写一个关于树的故事以及思考树的替代用途。

Overall, the incubation group scored 48 percent higher on the creativity metrics than the non-incubation group.

整体而言，培养组在创造力评估指标上的得分比非培养组高出48%。

“The people who were asked to think about trees as they were falling asleep had significantly more creative responses than those who were just asked to pay attention to their thoughts,” Stickgold said. “In fact, the more references to trees they had in their dream reports, the higher they scored on the creativity tests.”

斯蒂克戈尔德教授表示：“相较于仅关注自身思维的参与者，那些在入睡前围绕‘树’展开联想的参与者，其回答更具创造力。”“事实上，参与者的梦境报告提到树的次数越多，他们在创造力测试中的得分也越高。”

More research on the connection is needed

仍需更多研究以进一步探讨这一联系

However, more research is needed to better understand the connection between sleep stages, dreaming and creativity.

然而，仍需更多研究，去更好地理解睡眠阶段、梦境与创造力之间的关系。

A 2024 preprint — a study posted before peer review — that included 90 participants found greater likelihood of insight on a task after N2 sleep, but not N1 sleep.

一项2024年的预印本研究（尚未经过同行评审）对90名参与者进行了调查，发现N2阶段睡眠后，参与者在完成任务时更有可能获得洞察力，而N1阶段并未表现出类似效果。（译者注：“预印本研究”指的是研究者将尚未经过同行评审的学术论文或研究成果提前公开在预印本平台上，供学术界和公众免费查阅和讨论。）

While N1 is considered light sleep, N2 represents deeper sleep where both heart rate and body temperature drop. The brain moves into a synchronized state characterized by sleep spindles, which are short bursts of neuronal firing that occur during memory consolidation.

尽管N1被认为是浅睡眠阶段，N2则代表更深的睡眠阶段，此时心率和体温都会下降。大脑进入同步状态，以睡眠纺锤波为特征，即一种在记忆巩固过程中发生的神经元短暂爆发性放电。（译者注：“神经元短暂爆发性放电”指的是大脑中神经元在处理信息、记忆形成或感知刺激时的活跃状态。）

“It might well be that different forms of insight benefit differently from different sleep stages,” said preprint author Nicolas Schuck, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Hamburg. “A well-known cognitive function of N2 is that it aids memory formation. In some tasks, that can be a good thing for insight, and maybe in other tasks, it can be a bad thing.”

该预印本研究的作者、汉堡大学认知神经科学教授尼古拉斯·舒克表示：“不同形式的洞察力可能受益于不同的睡眠阶段。”“N2阶段一个众所周知的认知功能是促进记忆形成。在某些任务中，这有助于洞察力的产生，而在其他任务中，则可能适得其反。”

Experts also emphasize that discrimination between different sleep stages can be fuzzy and somewhat arbitrary.

专家们还强调，不同睡眠阶段之间的区分可能模糊且带有一定主观性。

For example, manual scoring and annotation of sleep stages in clinical practice follows guidelines based on electroencephalography observations in healthy young males almost 70 years ago.

例如，临床实践中睡眠阶段的手动评分和注释仍遵循近70年前基于健康年轻男性脑电图观察结果制定的指南。

“This whole thing of sleep stage classification is drawing, to some extent, artificial boundaries in a biological continuum,” Schuck said. “Sleep stages do exist, and one can see them in the EEG, but especially transitions, like many things in biology, are certainly messier.”

舒克教授表示：“睡眠阶段分类的整体概念，是指在某种程度上，在生物学连续体中划出的人为界限。”（译者注：“生物学连续体”是一个在生物学与进化学中常被使用的术语，表示连续变化的生物体的特征、行为和形态。）“睡眠阶段确实存在，并且可以通过脑电图观察到，但特别是在过渡阶段，就像生物学中的许多现象一样，显然更加复杂。”

How to use sleep for creativity

如何利用睡眠激发创造力

For those who want to use dream content for creativity at home, Horowitz recommends not jumping out of bed upon waking from a nap or overnight sleep. Instead, lie still with your eyes closed.

对于那些想在家中利用梦境内容激发创造力的人，霍洛维茨建议不要在午睡或夜间睡眠醒来后立即起床。相反，应该闭着眼睛静静地躺着。

“Try and recall a dream, what sounds you heard, who you met, what things looked like to the left and the right,” he said. “Let it all come back and explore it while you still have all the neurochemistry of sleep lingering in your brain.”

他表示：“试着回忆梦境，回想听到的声音，遇到的人以及左右两边的景象，”“趁脑中还残留着睡眠神经化学物质时，让所有记忆浮现到脑海中，并进行探索。”