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Comment by ronnier | Hacker News Reader

Finding solutions to problems in the middle of the night while sleeping has happened to me. Usually that's how I fall sleep at night, thinking hard about a problem, or trying to build up an idea. Having things on ones mind before sleeping probably does influence what we dream and think about while sleeping.

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I actually find it quite disturbing. When your conscious mind has been very focused on something the whole day it will naturally keep the momentum. That in turn makes it difficult to fall asleep and when you do the sleep is often quite thin. What I figured is that if you find a way to turn your mind off either with meditation or some distraction (for example movie or book), the sleep is much better and the next morning is usually much more productive and often the mind comes up with some suprising new ideas.

I had the trouble of going to bed but my mind was racing with ideas, and I could not fall asleep. I noticed that taking a notepad next to bed and writing down the ideas or seeds of ideas I could get them out of my mind and my mind could be at rest and I would fall asleep.

I think it releases the mind from trying to remember the ideas in the morning. When I write the ideas down I can review in the morning with the benefit of having a good nights sleep.

I do this too. It's also worth buying a light pen to keep by your bed so you don't have to turn on a lamp and blind yourself. It makes getting back to sleep easier too.

You can sometimes get them free at conferences. This one from Amazon works great: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BUNMU4?ie=UTF8&tag=...

The next challenge then, is to remember it when the morning arrives.

(Also fun, if you think of too many altogether... Complicates the above even further.)

Keep a pad and paper on your bedside table. I can't count the number of times I've woken up to find that somebody with my handwriting has solved something that was bothering me.

Just hope they don't try to replace you, and claim your life too.

The pen-light idea mentioned elsewhere is a nice addition to the notepad idea.

Most of my solutions so far usually regard trivialities. When a train of thought was genuinely worth finding in the morning, I would usually leave a relevant web search open on my phone (along with all the other things to not forget, or check later. Quite devastating is the browser choked...). Also, the display would be jarringly bright... Although, if it was a compelling enough idea, it would be enough to win me away from sleep.

Cleese almost directly referenced the book "Hare Brain Tortoise Mind" ( http://www.amazon.com/Hare-Brain-Tortoise-Mind-Intelligence/... ). I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a deeper explanation of this topic.

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