来源：《新科学家》
原文刊登日期：2021年12月8日
本文适合2023考生
Where does creativity come from? According to people such as the US inventor Thomas Edison, our inventiveness surges during an unusual state of mind as we drift into sleep.
创造力从何而来？根据美国发明家托马斯·爱迪生等人的说法，当我们进入睡眠状态时，我们的创造力会在一种不寻常的精神状态下激增。
New support for this idea comes from a study that finds people gain insight into a tricky maths problem if they are allowed to enter the initial stages of sleep, then woken up.
一项新的研究支持了这一观点，该研究发现，如果让人们进入睡眠的初始阶段，然后醒来，他们就能巧妙地解决一个难解的数学问题。
When people fall asleep they may spend a few minutes in a state called hypnagogia or “N1”, often characterised by vivid dreams – although usually people progress into deep sleep and forget the dreams when they wake.
当人们入睡时，他们可能会有几分钟处于一种被称为“半梦半醒”(hypnagogia)或“N1”的状态，通常以生动的梦境为特征——尽管人们通常会随后进入深度睡眠，醒来后就忘记了梦境。
When facing difficult problems, Edison used to harness this state by making himself wake up before he could fall more deeply asleep. He did this by holding a steel ball in each hand as he drifted off. As he lost consciousness and dropped the balls, the noise would jerk him awake.
当面对困难的问题时，爱迪生常常利用这种状态，让自己在还没能更深入地入睡之前就醒过来。他是这样做的，两只手各握着一个钢球。当他迷迷糊糊地睡去失去意识时，抛球落地产生的噪音会把他惊醒。
Delphine Oudiette at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris has long been interested in her own experiences of hypnagogia, so she tested the link with creativity objectively by getting people to tackle a maths problem. They were given eight-digit number sequences and had to manipulate them in a certain way by applying two rules, until they reached a final answer. They weren’t told that a simple shortcut would also give the right answer every time.
巴黎国家卫生和医学研究所的欧迪特长期以来一直对她自己的半梦半醒的经历感兴趣，所以她通过让人们解决一个数学问题，客观地测试了半梦半醒与创造力的联系。受试者被给予八位数的数字序列，让他们用两个规则以特定的方式处理这些序列，直到他们得出最终答案。受试者没有被告知，一个简单的捷径也会每次都给出正确的答案。
Oudiette’s team asked 103 people to carry out the maths task, then they were given a 20-minute break where they were encouraged to nod off by lying back in a reclining chair in a darkened room with their eyes closed. The 16 per cent of participants who cracked the shortcut before the sleep stage of the study were excluded.
欧迪特的团队要求103人完成这个数学作业，然后给受试者20分钟的休息时间，在黑暗的房间里，受试者躺在躺椅上，闭着眼睛打盹。16%的受试者在研究的睡眠阶段之前找到了捷径，他们被排除在外。
Similar to Edison’s technique, people were asked to hold a bottle in a hand, set up so if they fell asleep and dropped it, the noise could wake them. The volunteers also had electrodes placed on their head so the researchers would know if they did indeed fall asleep.
与爱迪生使用的技巧类似，研究人员要求受试者手里拿着一个瓶子，这样如果他们睡着了，瓶子掉在地上，噪音就会把他们吵醒。受试者的头上也有电极，这样研究人员就能知道他们是否真的睡着了。
Using this method, 24 people had at least one 30-second episode of N1 sleep during their rest; another 14 passed through N1 into a deeper stage of sleep, while the rest didn’t fall asleep at all.
使用这种方法，24人在休息期间至少有一次30秒的N1睡眠；另外14人通过N1进入更深的睡眠阶段，而其余的人根本没有入睡。
After the rest, these volunteers carried out the maths task a second time. On this occasion, 83 per cent of those who had only reached the N1 stage worked out the hidden shortcut. The success rates for those who stayed awake or progressed to N2 sleep were 31 per cent and 14 per cent respectively.
休息后，这些受试者第二次去完成数学作业。在这一次，只达到N1阶段睡眠的人有83%想出了隐藏的捷径。保持清醒或进入N2睡眠的受试者的成功率分别为31%和14%。
Oudiette believes the N1 stage of sleep leads to creative insights because it is a halfway stage between being awake and unconscious. “We can go exploring, but at the same time potentially identify patterns that could be useful for us,” she says.
欧迪特认为，睡眠的N1阶段能带来创造性的见解，因为它处于清醒和无意识之间的中间阶段。她说：“我们可以去探索，但同时也可能找到对我们有用的模式。”