Liminal Dreams: The Creative Sweet Spot

When you drift into sleep or slowly wake up, you pass through what is known as liminal dream states—periods where your mind is fluid, unrestricted by the constraints of rational thought. These states, known as hypnagogia (falling asleep) and hypnopompia (waking up), are highly creative. So much so that in recent research, they have been referred to as a "creative sweet spot" because the brain enters a highly associative mode, allowing distant ideas to connect in novel ways.

In a recent study, participants who spent only 15 seconds in this sleep stage were three times more likely to solve creative problems compared to those who stayed awake or those who reached deeper sleep. A model proposed by Zadra and Stickgold (2021) suggests that creating these unusual associations that often lead to creative solutions is a function of dreaming, implying a very different cognitive processing of information from the waking mind.

For creatives and innovators, this "in-between" zone offers an opportunity to harness the subconscious for groundbreaking ideas. Salvador Dali (explored in a previous post) and Thomas Edison used this state intuitively, and you can learn how to do it, too.

Hypnagogia: On the Brink of Sleep

Hypnagogic experiences occur when your brain begins to relax from wakefulness, and abstract thoughts, vivid images, and sensory experiences arise.

Salvador Dalí famously called this state "sleeping without sleeping." He used what he called "the slumber with a key" technique to induce hypnagogia for creative inspiration. He would sit in a chair holding a key, allowing himself to drift into sleep. As soon as he relaxed enough to drop the key, the sound would wake him, and he would immediately capture his hypnagogic experience. Thomas Edison employed a similar technique using steel balls. Lacaux et al. (2021) followed a similar procedure for their 2021 study, for which participants sat in a semi-reclined position in a chair, holding a light object. Horowitz et al. (2023) threw dream incubation into the mix, showing that priming the sleeping brain produces even more creative results.

In my own research conducted at the University of Swansea sleep lab, I asked poets to engage with hypnagogic imagery and then complete creative tasks. Participants wrote poems that mirrored the dreamlike experiences they encountered in this state, resulting in an improvement in emotional and symbolic expression, as well as flow. In another study I conducted with fiction writers, participants developed characters and story worlds in this liminal state. For example, one participant revisited her story world to build a rapport with her protagonist, who wouldn’t speak to her at first, and over time told her many details about her life that helped develop the story.

As a writer, I’ve used this state myself. Most recently, I used it to understand the protagonist of my latest novel, who was a mental patient who had stopped talking. In the liminal state, I pushed her to the edge, where she admitted that she was lying about everything she had said to that point, changing the direction of my novel completely. Suddenly, her silence made sense!

How to Guide Hypnagogic Imagery for Creativity

You can actively guide hypnagogic imagery to inspire creative ideas or solve problems. By setting clear creative intentions before you drift into sleep, you can prime your mind to focus on specific challenges, which is called dream incubation. In the hypnagogic state, then, you can consciously guide your thoughts toward a solution as ideas become more and more dreamlike. You then want to wake up before you reach deeper sleep.

1. Set your intention: Before bed, write down a clear creative goal or problem you want to solve. It could be as specific as solving a plot issue in a novel or finding a fresh approach to a business strategy, or as vague as asking for "a new idea" or "something interesting."
2. Visualise: As you close your eyes and relax, visualise the problem or creative task. For example, if you're working on a painting, mentally picture the unfinished canvas or scene. Walking through a portal into a specific or new scene always helps me with visualisation.
3. Drift into hypnagogia: Allow yourself to drift into the hypnagogic state, paying attention to any emerging images or thoughts. Stay open and passive, allowing your mind to make unexpected connections.
4. Capture: When you notice yourself slipping deeper into sleep, gently wake yourself up—hold an object to drop if necessary—and immediately record any images, thoughts, or ideas that surfaced. You can write, draw, or sing it out—whatever works for you!

Hypnopompia: On the Brink of Wakefulness

On the other side of sleep is the hypnopompic state, the transition from sleep to wakefulness. Just as the brain enters an associative mode when falling asleep, it also exhibits this behaviour during hypnopompia. This state is just as fleeting and often comes with partial dream memories, abstract thoughts, and emotional residue from the night.

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What I call "morning writing" is a powerful way to capture hypnopompic insights before they vanish. By writing immediately upon waking, you can document the fragments of your dreams, which can then serve as material for creative work. In my research, participants who engaged in morning writing after or during hypnopompia often retrieved vivid perceptual experiences and turned these into poetry, short stories, novels, or visual art.

Steps for Morning Writing:

1. Don’t rush: Upon waking, stay still for a few moments and linger in the hypnopompic state. Let your thoughts and images flow without forcing them.
2. Write freely: Grab a notebook or voice recorder and write continuously for 5 to 10 minutes. Don’t worry about grammar, coherence, or structure. The goal is to capture the raw material of your mind.
3. Review later: After you’ve recorded the dream fragments or morning thoughts, return to them later. You’ll often find they contain powerful creative seeds or solutions to problems that seemed unsolvable the day before.

Liminal Dreaming Beyond the Arts

While liminal dreams are traditionally associated with artistic endeavours, they can also be applied to creative problem-solving in business, science, and other fields. I recently had a chat with Steve Willis, a climate solutions innovator and author of Fairhaven: A Novel of Climate Optimism. He told me that he uses the liminal state every day to brainstorm solutions to complex environmental issues.

The fluidity of thought during liminal dreams allows individuals to break free from traditional, linear thinking and approach problems from novel angles. Whether through hypnagogia or hypnopompia, you can intentionally access these dream states to unlock fresh ideas, solve problems, and explore new creative directions.