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Comment by b0afc375b5 | Hacker News Reader

Is there a specific term for this subconscious phenomenon?

I believe I have experienced this multiple times, but I remember one event in particular when I couldn't solve a book exercise for several hours, I slept in frustration. When I woke up I knew the answer immediately as if it was obvious.

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“Sleeping on it” probably gives the brain time for “spreading activation“, which is a model that describes how relationships between concepts are explored and formed.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13421-012-0256-7

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/spread...

> I slept in frustration

Human brain runs a defrag process (quite literally) when the body sleeps. Not only this removes the cruft from the day but also rearranges and makes links for the knowledge gathered through the day.

Is glymphatic cleaning related to knowledge retention?

It's more like they go hand in hand. I wouldn't say what it depends on it, but without it it would much harder to retain and structure new information. It is commonly observed in a long hours jobs and tests what after some time the new info just doesn't get processed properly.

Or when I am trying to memorize a speech. I don't have it memorized when I go to bed, and I have it memorized when I wake up.

Perhaps the Eureka effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_effect)?

Rich Hickey has a nice name for it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc

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