Jocelyn Glei writes about What we can learn from babies. She talks about the kind of meditative state in which a particular kind of creative thinking can happen. Edison allegedly trained himself to spend time in the twilight zone between waking and sleeping. As she writes
These a-ha moments spring not from concerted effort but rather from deep relaxation and fully open outlook that is unconscious of “adult” workaday concerns such as: timelines cost constraints, client expectations, or any other kind of conventional or orthodox thinking. When insight does strike, it’s usually because we’ve been able to somehow shut out all of these petty concerns – by running, meditating, napping, etc. Once we are able to forget the anticipated outcome, we are freed up to explore the full range of creative solutions.
Makes sense to me. A lot of efforts at creative thinking seem to involve getting adrenalised, overstimulated and trying too hard.
Hat tip: tweet from eaonp