Why Are You More Creative At Night Than You Are During The Day ?
As my head rests on the fluffy pillow, with my eyes gleaming white against the white ceiling, looking at the monotonously rotating fan, my brain is running crazy with imagination. Although my eyes have the image of what I see on the ceiling but in reality, my brain has the images of what my imagination, my creativity paints on it. It is as if I could see it, feel it at least its slightest gist but cannot completely see it unfolding in front of my eyes. Still I am able to live it.
Sometimes it happens to be what I would do in my future or something as complex as what would have happened if something destined to have happened during the day did not occur. Or maybe spending some time thinking about what would be my next subject for my upcoming blog post or new app or just an MUN speech or maybe my resume and my college prospect or something as simple as a vacation. My imagination takes me onto a completely new experience of dreams and creativity at night which is hardly the case during the day. It is as if I am daydreaming at night or maybe thinking of an idea which would make the rest of the world flabbergasted. But why is this happening at night ? Why not during the day when I am much more active, at my peak as opposed to what happens during the night when I am worn out after a day’s long work? Being worn out and tired is the key to the answer behind why our imagination is running in all corners of our day to day happenings. During this off peak time, a physically and a mentally tired state has less focus on the activities that we want to carry out.
There are more diversions or conflicting areas where we would want to focus which keep us distracted from our main area of focus. This distraction can prove to be futile when we would want to indulge in analytical problems and activities like driving. But diversions allow us to view a wide variety of data at one point in time. This helps in building up connections between the unrelated and look out for alternatives by carrying out holistic interpretations. If successfully handled and sorted, this can lead to innovation, stimulating creative processes since distractions help us in viewing all the aspects of a problem and also encourages us to look it from an all new angle.
These distractions would not be accepted or rather what I would stay, they will be blocked during the day in order to be able to focus on a specific activity during the day. This happens because ofFrontal Cortex or frontal lobe which is not running normally like other parts of the brain at night. This part of the brain is responsible for the attention span and processing of the memory from our five senses. Frontal Cortex is considered to be fussy at night and therefore there is a lack of attention creating such distractions and an inability to focus. Thalamus which consists of D2 dopamine receptors is considered to act as a signal filter for the information which will reach this Frontal Cortex. The fact that a wide range of information reaches the Frontal Lobe suggests that there is a lower signal filtering taking place in Thalamus which is due to lower D2 dopamine receptors.
Lower D2 dopamine receptors result due to the release of chemicals like adenosine by the brain which will block D2 dopamine receptors.This scenario is found naturally in patients suffering from mental illnesses, therefore, they have a drive to use their brain in all the aspects rather than focussing on the conventional manner. Also, it is crucial to note that the effect is same if we consume alcohol in right amounts but the effect would be opposite if caffeine is consumed. So next time you want to find a creative idea, tire yourself throughout the day and see what happens at night !! Yes ! You can always stimulate it by consuming small quantities of alcohol !
