Celebrities Who Found Their Creativity in the Hypnagogia Zone
Celebrities who found creativity in the hypnagogia zone: Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, James Cameron, Dalí, and Edison, plus what a 2021 sleep study showed.
Jem Jeins
10/18/20268 min read
A chrome skeleton climbing out of a fire in a cheap Roman pensione. A guitar riff hiding among forty minutes of snoring. A chord that sounded like rushing water. They read like clues from a very odd game of Cluedo, but each one is a story of a big idea that arrived at the edge of sleep.
Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, James Cameron, Salvador Dalí and Thomas Edison are all said to have got big ideas at the edge of sleep, a state called hypnagogia. Their stories beat most plots. A 2021 study found that the lightest stage of sleep may really be a creative sweet spot.
Key takeaways
Hypnagogia-Pass is our method for falling asleep: 30 videos, more than 2,400 minutes in total, a word and a matching picture on screen, no talking, soft background sound. We do not claim it boosts creativity.
The stories include a robot nightmare, a riff recorded while its author snored, a chorus of people singing “Stay” in a dream, and a chord made of rushing water. Every one came with the lights off.
In a 2021 study of 103 adults, 83% of those who reached the lightest sleep stage (N1) found a hidden rule in a number task, against 31% of those who stayed awake.
New to the word? Our guide to hypnagogia explains it in plain language.
Hypnagogia in one minute
Hypnagogia is the drifty stretch between waking and sleep, when thoughts loosen and pictures, sounds and half-sentences turn up uninvited. It is normal, and most people pass through it every night without noticing. Our explainer on hypnagogia covers what it feels like.
The old guard: metal balls, a key and a raven
Great ideas have terrible timing. They turn up in the last seconds before sleep, and by morning they are gone. So the geniuses of the past did what geniuses do and turned to physics. One held steel balls over a pan, one balanced a key above a plate, and one wrote about visions that came to him only on the brink of sleep. Here is how each of them set the trap, and what happened next.
Thomas Edison. Edison is said to have napped in a chair holding a steel ball in each hand over a metal pan, so that when sleep won, the balls would crash down and wake him mid-idea. Scientific American tells it with a cautious “is said to”, and no primary source has been shown, which has not stopped anyone from loving it.
Salvador Dalí. Dalí borrowed the idea and swapped the balls for a heavy key held over a plate: doze off, drop the key, clang, paint what you just saw. We tell the full story in our Dalí article. He called the trick a “slumber with a key”, and he was never known for understatement.
Edgar Allan Poe. Poe is widely quoted as describing “fancies” that came to him “only when I am on the brink of sleep”. The line turns up all over the hypnagogia literature, and since this is Poe, you can already picture the candlelight.
A very strange summer
Mary Shelley. This one is in writing. In the 1831 introduction to Frankenstein, she says that after a night of ghost-story talk she could not sleep, and then saw, “with shut eyes”, the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had made. The next morning she announced that she had thought of a story. A sleepless night like hers will sound familiar if you have read our guide to racing thoughts at night.
Rock stars, a chord and a cassette
Richard Wagner. Wagner said that in September 1853, after a feverish sleepless night and a long walk through pine-covered hills, he lay down at an inn in La Spezia and felt himself sinking in fast-moving water, until the rushing became an E-flat major chord. He woke up knowing the opening of Das Rheingold. The Wikipedia summary of the Ring’s composition retells it, and a chord that big is hard to forget.
Paul McCartney. McCartney has said that the whole melody of Yesterday came to him in a dream at the Wimpole Street home of his girlfriend Jane Asher’s family, and he woke and hurried to a piano before it faded. He then spent about a month asking people in the music business whether they had heard the tune before. Nobody claimed it, so it was his. The working title was Scrambled Eggs, and the Yesterday article has the sources.
Keith Richards. By his own account, Richards left a cassette recorder by his bed in 1965 and found the Satisfaction riff on the tape the next morning: about 30 seconds of guitar, then roughly 40 minutes of snoring. He had no memory of playing it. Biography.com notes that the setting moves between a Florida motel and a London flat, which only makes it better.
Today’s stars, same strange shift
Taylor Swift. In a 2015 GQ interview with Ryan Adams, as reported by Refinery29, Swift said she dreamed that an ex turned up at her door. She had a perfect speech ready, but all that came out of her mouth was a high-pitched chorus of people singing “Stay”. She woke up mortified, then realised it was a pretty cool vocal part, and it became the song Stay.
Annie Clark (St. Vincent). Jet-lagged and half asleep in a hotel in Helsinki, Clark reportedly wrote the song Huey Newton after imagining the Black Panther co-founder in her room, as told by American Songwriter. It is the most hypnagogic story on this list, and it has a title that no one would invent while wide awake.
Brandon Flowers. The Killers’ frontman has said he dreamed that Kurt Cobain visited him, singing a melody that sounded to him like Bob Dylan. The melody became Enterlude, and Cobain gets no songwriting credit, which seems unfair.
Sting. Sting reportedly woke up with the chorus line of Every Breath You Take in his head and had the song written at the piano within half an hour, according to American Songwriter’s list of songs written from dreams.
Dolly Parton. Parton told The Howard Stern Show around the release of her 2023 album Rockstar that she sometimes dreams songs and has to write them down the moment she wakes, because “if you don’t wake up and write that down, you will not remember that”. She keeps a notepad and a tape recorder within reach, according to American Songwriter. It is the best advice in this article, and she gave it for free.
Film sets and bestsellers
James Cameron. In 1981, ill with a 102°F fever in a cheap pensione in Rome, Cameron dreamed of a chrome skeleton rising from flames. He sketched it on hotel stationery when he woke, and the first drawing showed a metal torso crawling across a tile floor with a kitchen knife, and the second showed it closing in on a woman. He tells it in a BFI interview, and The Terminator followed.
Stephenie Meyer and Stephen King. Meyer has said the meadow scene that became Twilight came in a dream, and King has said the plot of Misery arrived in a dream on a plane, as listed by Mental Floss. Two of the biggest bestsellers of our time came out of the dark. If the night itself leaves you uneasy, our sleep anxiety survey post shows how common that is.
What studies found about ideas at sleep onset
Stories are fun, but researchers have tried the real thing. In a 2021 study by Célia Lacaux and colleagues in Science Advances, 103 healthy adults did a number task with a hidden shortcut, then took a 20-minute rest with eyes closed. Of those who fell into N1 sleep, 83% (20 of 24) found the hidden rule afterwards, against 31% (15 of 49) of those who stayed awake and 14% (2 of 14) of those who reached N2 sleep.
The authors tested Edison’s idea too, with participants holding a cup that fell as they dozed, but say their design cannot show that the cup itself helps. Groups were formed by what people did during the rest, not at random, and the N2 group was small.
A 2023 Scientific Reports study by Adam Haar Horowitz and colleagues, on targeted dream incubation, played audio cues at sleep onset to steer dream themes. Creative performance was higher after N1 sleep than after wake, and higher still when the theme appeared in the dream report. Both studies are small and used lab tasks, so they point to an interesting state, not a guarantee of genius. For the other side of the coin, a mind that races at night, see why the mind races at night.
Something to try tonight
If you want to catch ideas, do what Dolly Parton does and keep a notepad within reach, no key or cassette required: write down whatever surfaces before you drift off. If you only want to sleep, the trick is the opposite of effort, and that is what Hypnagogia-Pass is for. If you are lying awake right now, this short post has a gentle thing to try.
Each session shows a word and a matching picture on a dark screen, one after another, with no talking and soft background sound, following a slow breathing rhythm of about six breaths a minute. The library holds 30 videos, more than 2,400 minutes in total.
Our reasoning, not a study result: effortful imagery can keep a mind awake, so Hypnagogia-Pass supplies the pictures and asks you only to watch. It is a method, not a treatment, inspired by two studies on imagery before sleep that did not examine our videos. Why we built it tells the story, and our cognitive shuffling article covers the research behind similar methods. Try Hypnagogia-Pass tonight.
Your hypnagogia and creativity questions, answered
Which famous people got ideas from hypnagogia?
Taylor Swift, Sting, Paul McCartney, Keith Richards and James Cameron are the recent names, with Salvador Dalí, Thomas Edison, Mary Shelley and Richard Wagner as the classic ones. Each comes with a twist, from a chrome skeleton to a cassette full of snoring.
What was Thomas Edison’s napping technique?
Edison is said to have napped holding a steel ball in each hand over a metal pan, so the crash would wake him as he fell asleep. No primary source has been shown, and Scientific American tells it with a cautious “is said to”. A 2021 study borrowed the idea with a falling cup. It could not show that the method itself works.
What is the difference between hypnagogia and dreaming?
Hypnagogia is the transition into sleep, when you are partly aware and images or sounds drift in, while dreaming happens once you are asleep. The two blur at the edges, so the famous stories often sit somewhere between them. The same border on the way out of sleep is called hypnopompia.
Are you conscious during hypnagogia?
Partly. You are drifting out of full wakefulness but are not yet asleep, so you can often notice images, sounds or half-thoughts as they appear. That partial awareness may be why ideas from this state can be remembered, and why the famous methods use something that wakes you.
Is hypnagogia good for creativity?
There is early evidence that it may help. In a 2021 study, 83% of people who reached N1 sleep found a hidden rule in a number task, against 31% of those who stayed awake. The studies are small and used lab tasks, so they point to a promising state, not a guarantee.
How common is hypnagogia?
Very common. Most people pass through it every night as they fall asleep, though many never notice because it is short and easy to forget. If your mind races instead of drifting, this article on turning off your brain to sleep may help.
Know someone who's awake right now?
If you have a friend you have recently talked with about ideas that arrive at the edge of sleep, or someone you think needs this information, send them this article. It brings them the stories and the science, in plain words.
Share: Facebook · X · WhatsApp · LinkedIn · Email
Cover photo: Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour by Paolo Villanueva, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
If trouble sleeping lasts for weeks, or if your thoughts come with other symptoms that worry you, please talk with a doctor. This article is general information, not medical advice, and Hypnagogia-Pass has not been tested in a clinical trial.