“Wait, what does N1 mean?”

When sharing my doodles, I constantly get asked where my ideas come from. No, it’s not from muses or hallucinogens or some tortuous creative process- it’s a simple habit that anyone can pick up. If you’re down for a little read, below details my method, the science behind it, and gives meaning to the name ‘n1 imaginations.’

Do you know that feeling when you’re about to fall asleep, but you suddenly remember a forgotten item on your to-do list or the answer to a question that’s been bugging you? Maybe you spend the next sleepless hour ruminating over it, or maybe you just doze off and instantly forget the thought. The worst feeling is waking up the next morning remembering that you had a thought, but not remembering the thought itself.

I eventually got so sick of this feeling that I started texting myself those pre-sleep thoughts as soon as I had them. This ensured that I would not lose the thought and also helped me delegate my late night to-dos to morning-me.

At first my texts were just appointment reminders and packing lists, but soon I started waking up to bizarre messages of funny thoughts that I had just before falling asleep. Most of them were pretty straightforward albeit weird concepts. I still have no clue what I meant by “rainboot filled with jello”, but I do remember that I thought it was brilliant at 11:53pm.

from the yellow book collection

As someone who doodles regularly, the natural next step was to draw out these fever-dream texts to myself, starting with rough sketches in my Yellow Book. Oftentimes these drawings led to new inspirations or themed series, and the ideas kept compounding. The more I practiced translating abstract thoughts into text and then images, the easier it got to tap into creativity.

My mom worries there’s drugs involved in my process, but it really is just science.

It’s important to note that falling into deeper sleep causes this effect to vanish, which is why a prompt wakeup to record the idea is critical. The undisputed creatives Thomas Edison and Salvador Dalí both adopted similar techniques to hold on to their ideas before dozing off. They regularly napped holding small objects in their hands, which would fall to the floor noisily and wake them up before they lost their thoughts. Other great minds allegedly employed the same method, including Alexander the Great, Albert Einstein, and August Kekulé.

I’m not sure I agree with most of Edison’s stances on sleep (he famously opposed sleeping more than 4 hours a night) but I do stand by the N1 wakeup method for capturing creativity. The habit requires nothing more than a little bit of diligence to force open your eyes and write down your thoughts. It doesn’t even have to be limited to nighttime; a ten minute nap could be enough to reap the benefits of N1 creativity.

This technique inspired inventions for Edison, surrealist landscapes for Dalí, and weird, unserious doodles for me.

Who knows what it could inspire for you?

The transition from wakefulness into sleep is called non-rapid eye movement sleep stage 1, or N1 for short. This is when those spontaneous thoughts tend to pop up. This stage makes up about 5% of our total sleep cycle, only lasting about 1 to 5 minutes until we fall into a deeper sleep. (Patel, et al.)

Recent scientific findings suggest that the brain activity level of N1 is a creative sweet spot. Participants in this study were 3 times more likely to have a moment of creative insight to a previously studied math problem when given at least 15 seconds of N1 rest. The authors of the paper call N1 an “ideal cocktail for creativity,” since it uniquely binds spontaneous, dream-like perceptions with loosely associated real-world memories. The brain’s cognitive constraints are reduced, but it’s logical ability to identify creative sparks is maintained. Think of it as an intensified version of the mind-wandering you’d do during class as a kid.

- Elise Burdette