A few highly creative people have been talking about creativity and the elusive night hours. I recently wrote about this creative phenomenon in a recent blog post getting a lot of traffic on my website entitled Music Vampires.
In that post I was writing specifically about how music is best created at night. Today I want to go further and discuss the theories as to why we are more creative at night:
REASONS WHY CREATIVITY HAPPENS AT NIGHT:
Why do many people feel that creativity happens at night? Let’s explore a few possibilities:
Geographical: The energy at night is different than the day time. There is something very powerful about creating in a geographic area where the majority of people around you are asleep. Perhaps all their mental chatter is resting, or better yet, tapped into the powerful creative world of dreaming…the only time most of those people are ever connected to their true creativity. When your town is asleep, it means less traffic in the streets, and it seems like less people are around (they’re all asleep waiting to work their 9-5 jobs). It frees us up to do what we need to create at night.
Peace and Quiet: Night time is for some of us the only time when we are not interrupted. So many of us get phone calls, texts, massive amounts of emails, knocks at the door, UPS packages, roommates/parents/children pestering us with their needs. The night time is the only time when we have a moment away to go and do our real work.
Left Brain/Right Brain: I have not yet found the source, but apparently there is growing scientific research showing that the left side of our brain is dominant while the sun is up, and the right brain takes over at night. This would suggest that there is a biological connection to creativity at night. I certainly would agree that I feel my creative self works at a higher level of abilities during night time.
Inhibitions: Some people feel that they are able to create at night because that’s when they drink Absinthe/smoke marijuana/have sex with 3 prostitutes at once(heck, why not do all three of these at once) …or any other activities that reduce your inhibitions and therefore reduce the barriers to their inner creative selves. Many artists have ended up killing themselves from their reckless substance habits, all because they never learned how to create without their substance of choice. Thankfully, living life is a perfectly good “high” for me and I’ve never needed any substances to feel creative…but a little tea once in awhile keeps my brain awake to keep creating. This need to remove inhibitions/the need for substances could possibly be the largest reason why most “regular” people are not creative.
Train Your Brain to Be Creative at Night: When you create your own time to be creative, the habit of creativity takes over and allows you to be creative during the peak hours of when you are habitually creating your best work. I know this has been true for me, as it used to be that the best times for my work would be after 7pm. That was 10 years ago. Now I’m the most creative any time after midnight. As your daily schedule changes, so does the time when you are most creative.
Why is it that people are creative at night? Obviously it is a combination of a lot of things.
Are you creative at night? Let me know via email or Twitter. I’d love to meet more Night Owls and Creative Vampires out there!
~ Heidi
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(Photo courtesy of Medhi)
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