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Comment by thewizardofaus | Hacker News Reader

I experience EXACTLY the same thing moments before falling asleep (no thc). It's truly amazing. If I manage to jolt myself awake I will write them down, otherwise they will be surely forgotten. And the ratio is similar to yours, good idea/gibberish(or not feasible).

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You can force the hypnagogic state by holding something heavy that you drop as you fall asleep.

https://institutducerveau-icm.org/en/actualite/sleep-and-cre...

Cellphones are perfect for this. For maximum effect, hold it above your face while falling asleep.

(Only semi-joking, I've done this multiple times.)

Tangentially, it's one of the reasons why I'm still using an older iPhone for my daily life because the haptic Home button (which was removed in newer models) makes it easier to use in an half-asleep state whereas I end up tapping on things accidentally when using my 13 Pro in that state: that button is the escape hatch, like ESC on a keyboard.

Any friction between the time I have an idea and the moment I can capture it increases the risk I will forget it before I have time to write it down.

I think capturing ideas is lame. It delays thinking of more of them. The benefits of thinking to oneself come not from a single idea, but from the compounding effect of all of them. And you're not thinking of your next idea while you're wasting time capturing the last one.

It's better to let your mind wander to maximize the compounding effect between the ideas, rather than to fret about memorializing every vainly appealing thought (and btw, I bet if you did that while sober, it would look just as ridiculous when reading it the next day).

Just let it flow, man. You'll remember the good stuff.

You can totally force the state of wakefullness and falling asleep by just staring at the wall too. Lots of creative ideas. No bed required. It is how I face planted in to a marble table early in 2022. New lesson learned: Check your surroundings before you do this.

Did you lock your knees and restrict blood flow?

Tell ya what, I come up with some damn catchy gibberish tunes in that state.

Here's some recently written-down lyrics from sleep-composition. Meant to be sung in a call and response hip hop kinda style, I think.

Professor: freedom's under your desk (desk)

Audience: huuuh?

Professor: freedom's under your desk (desk)

Audience: ohhhhh...

I experience a similar kind of state before I fall asleep, but not every day. I sense the trigger of going into it, but most of the time I suppress it due to tiredness or lack of interest. However, there are certain days during which, I go into the state of super alertness, where I get amazing clarity of thoughts; one would wish to be in it while solving a new coding problem or trying to write super intricate code.

I've also experienced that a few times while semi-asleep, it is really intriguing. I haven't been able to write the ideas down yet, and had a tendency to discrad them at the thought that being in that state made the ideas sound amazing but wouldn't be in retrospect. I wonder how that phenomenon works, and if taking any psychoactive drug would produce similar results.

Is it just as amusing to you, the sensation of being 100% convinced the idea is absolutely brilliant, only to review it and find its nonsense?

The chess genius David Bronstein famously dreamt a game of chess, woke up and wrote it all down.

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