Dissociative or semi-conscious states—like those moments right before you drift off to sleep—can spark incredible creative breakthroughs. Some believe inventor Thomas Edison used a unique/smart technique to capture these twilight moments: holding steel balls that clattered to the floor when he nodded off, jolting him awake just in time to write down any new ideas. While the story may be apocryphal, it highlights an important truth: when our minds are relaxed, we’re more likely to stumble upon fresh perspectives we might otherwise dismiss as impossible.
1. Subconscious Sparks of Innovation
In these dreamlike states, mental filters (normally planted in our heads by years of education teaching us what people think to be impossible) that tell us what “can’t be done” tend to fall away. That openness can lead to surprising inventions—solutions that we might consciously reject if we were fully awake and recalling all our learned constraints.
2. Practical Tips
- Keep a Pad Handy
Whether you’re napping, meditating, or simply in a relaxed state, have a notepad or digital recorder ready. Even if the ideas seem odd at first, write them down. Some may lead nowhere, but others could become significant breakthroughs. - Exploit Digital Assistants
You can also ask your AI to take notes. A silly but useful trick (it works as of now) is to have an Amazon Echo in your bedroom and say “Alexa, add using carbonic acid to reduce bacterial growth to my shopping list”. Sure, it shows up on a “shopping list”, but it can double as an “idea list”. For longer notes, you can use voice to text in an app, or even just make a video on your phone (a blank video because it is dark) where you explain the breakthrough. This way you don’t need to worry about whether you can read your “I was almost asleep” handwriting. Just today I was driving and got an idea. I was wearing Meta Ray Bans (I’ve got a patent matter involving wearables, so I’ve got to test drive a few of them) and just hit the “record video” function and made the patent disclosure verbally on video. Boring video of traffic, but the transcript is what matters. - Review Later
After you’ve noted an idea, revisit it when you’re fully alert. Look for real-world applications or ways to refine the concept.
3. Potential for Patents
Even the wildest ideas can develop into patentable inventions if they meet certain criteria like novelty and non-obviousness. If your next daydream yields a new technical solution, consider documenting it thoroughly and consulting a patent professional.
Want More Details?
To learn more about how these “in-between” mental states can fuel inventive thinking, check out the accompanying video on Innovation Cafe.
A quick PS: It isn’t my business what people do, so this is just my opinion. I have not found that disinhibition via drugs (cannabis, legal here in Canada or times I’ve been given opiates by prescription or in a hospital) are a good way to reach disinhibition. You are disinhibited, but much less able to tell the difference between a good idea and a dumb one, and far less able to record the idea in a way that you can later understand. I only came up with a single “invention” while using cannabis, and it is pretty impractical (cool conceptually though): If you take a date (say 2.334 million years ago), a place in the sky (so X, Y, Z position), and a depth of field, you can use stars as a “dot matrix printer” to create any image you want. You can even achieve grayscale by using star brightness in the mix. It would be computationally impractical, and of no value. But still, exactly the kind of useless but cool invention that drug-assisted disinhibition leads to.
Pingback: Disinhibition and Innovation: Why Drugs Aren’t the Answer