Sleeping Creatively?

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Last night I had the strangest dream! I can't even remember all the details, really only a vague impression of being on a different world with mythical creatures and I was trying to get back home to go to work but just couldn't find the way!  I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept at all.

Usually, I find dreaming very rejuvenating.  It's a culmination of the imagination being pushed back by my active brain while I have to live in the real world.

It got me thinking about how sleep and dreaming fit into the whole idea of creativity thought.  Boy, when I'm tired, I can't think of simple things, let alone get creative.  I noticed the same thing in my kids - the poorer quality/length of sleep, the less creatively they can think!

When your child over reacts to small issues (like their cookie breaking) because of a lack of sleep, we automatically say "poor little thing needs a nap".  We're thinking of their ability to be and respond rationally.

But what do we say and do when they can't do or act creatively?  Do we even recognize that as a problem the same way?

Well, maybe we should!  Had little Suzy had enough sleep when her cookie broke, she might have had the presence of mind to take the pieces of that cookie and turn it into little characters in a story, and she could have been the giant chasing them and then laughed the whole incident off....

Okay, lame, maybe, but you get the idea.  She could have had a much different reaction than crying (or worse!).  Had she had enough sleep, she would have been able to figure her way through the situation to an end that would have brightened her day.  That's all creative thinking is - looking for non-obvious solutions to the situations/issues  you're presented in life.

Today, I didn't have enough sleep because of that dream.  So instead of being a rational (like usual) human being today, I'm just not.  And because of it, I don't have the creative resources to write a really interesting blog/essay on the benefit of sleep in living creatively. I guess that gives me license to take up this topic again in future!

Until next time:  Inspire...imagine...invent!