Nap attacks and writing…
Ever had one of those sessions where your brain just goes into a near catatonic desire for sleep when you’re trying your hardest to think?
Go with it. That’s lizard-brain trying to communicate. The hind-brain talks to us when we have two ideas in the mill that are trying to link up.
It’s not a verbal part of the brain. It never says a word. It does communicate, however—often at the edge of sleep.
Or in the shower.
There are good showers and showers that are really good.
The old Russians believed there was a bath-spirit, the bannik, that lived in the spooky dim bathhouse and would tell you secrets and foretell the future if you fed it vodka.
A bannik doesn’t like to appear in front of you. He sits behind you. If you annoy him or try to look at him, he’ll swipe at you with long claws. But if you respect him, he’ll whisper the future in your ears.
Court a bannik if you’re stuck. He works best in a shower or sauna when lights are low and you’re pouring water over your head.
And I’ll guarantee when we did our bathroom repair—we poured a little vodka in the bath—just to be sure the old fellow stayed friendly. Progress in writing is often linked to good showers!
Give up and go take a nap when the brain goes on null. Listen to the back of your skull. Likely you’ll lie there for ten minutes, an idea will pop into your head, and you’ll be up and running for the keyboard.
If it still eludes you, ask the bannik.
Archimedes was Russian? I didn’t know that! 🙂
I’ve known of something like that since college when answers to puzzles I didn’t know I had would come to me as I and my car-pool-mate were walking up the hill from the college parking lot. I always figured it was the mute right side of my bicameral, male, Aspie, brain finding the pattern that fits.
Archimedes must’ve cultivated a bannik, for sure. Eureka!
There’s a reason I call the bathroom my thinking place. I’ve solved more thorny coding problems in the bathroom than I can count. I just wish they were friendlier towards naps at work, I’m fairly sure the improved quality of work would by far offset any lost time to sleeping.
I call it “thinking sideways,” rather than head-on at a problem. I agree with the shower location and, for me, it even works better when I’m walking the mile or so to the subway station to work!
Issues concerning my clients’ tax returns used to pop into my head when I was in the shower back when I was in public practice full time. I didn’t know about banniks back then!
Vodka, huh? Think wine might do it?