Here's a frustrating situation I have. All of my best ideas, my most personally inspiring thoughts, come while I'm trying to go to sleep. Whether it's an excellent rebuttal for an argument I was having earlier that day, or just something that would make a good blog post, these ideas always come to me at the most inconvenient of times: while I'm about to doze off...
It'd be great if I could think of these things on the fly, right when I needed them. Is it better, then, to have high quality thoughts when you don't really need them, or low quality thoughts at exactly the right moment? The problem is, I often cannot remember the awesome idea I had the morning after I wake up. It's mental torture - I know I had something really good in my head the previous night, a golden little kernel of opinion, and yet I can't remember for the life of me what it was.
Similarly, sometimes I spend 30 minutes longer in the shower than is necessary because I'm lost in thought. It's pretty frustrating (not to mention the water bills...). Or a little more dangerous: I think while I'm driving. That's one habit I have to stop. But, then again, if that's the best time to grind some gears, fine with me. I'd rather be able to think during the most inappropriate of times than not think at all.
I suppose that at these times my mind is most at ease, totally unoccupied, and so that opens up the doors for some deep thinking. That's the best reason I could think of at the moment.
Am I alone in this? It seems unlikely to me, so anyone know what I'm talking about?
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
While I cannot offer an explanation, I can assure you that you're not alone.
My husband, who is an artist and poet, often struggles with precisely the same problem: he has great ideas when he's on the brink of sleep. Often he'll stay awake into the wee hours penning ideas, but just as often he beats himself up for not being able to remember ALL of the great ideas that occur to him midway to slumber.....
So much as I can tell, it's just one of those things that you have to learn to deal with about the way your brain works, especially where original ideas are concerned.
Retrospect and hindsight, however, can drive one to madness if you spend too much time considering how you *could have* done or said this or that better....
/jkh
I think of poetry while dreaming. Incredibly good poetry. But when I wake up, all but a few words is gone--the rest is like a cloud. I've remembered one entire poem ever upon waking.
It's incredibly frustrating.
Read my Blogs!
This is Why I'm Hot
And My Other Blogs