brief facetious grumble

[kaberett]

that's two nights running (I think? or maybe there was another night in between, I'm not sure) that I've had A Sudden Flash Of Scientific Insight as I'm extremely horizontal in bed, actually on my way to warm and asleep, with zero intention of emerging even so far as to make a note on my phone...

... and not only have I remembered it in the morning, but it's actually been any use.

Why -- here comes the grumble -- why, I ask you, doesn't this work for poetry.

Comments

[recessional]

because poetry is about word-shape and rhythm as much as it is about denotative meaning, and it is the former that tends to get lost in falling asleep.

whereas scientific insight is almost entirely about denotative meaning, so it sticks much better.

[lunabee34]

Please share this magic gift!

[vass]

*solidarity fistbump* since I don't have any relevant experience re Sudden Flashes Of Scientific Insight, but I have definitely been there with the poetry.

[hilarita]

I dunno. I find it doesn't work reliably for *anything* - you just have to hope it's engraved somewhere on your mind, or get up and note it down. But yay for when it works!

[halojedha]

Hooray I guess? Something similar happened to me last night. I find I have to write it down to be able to sleep, otherwise I stay awake trying to make sure I remember it.

I've often wished for a mental word processor. Disconnected from the internet - at least until spam filtering gets a LOT better.

[kaberett]

I am Interested in this not least because of the human thing of In General remembering verbal shit better if it has rhythmic/musical structure, unless I've wildly misunderstood that? So it sort of "feels" like I ought to be able to remember, on waking, a specific rhythmic phrase I drilled 10-20 times while drifting off, but... apparently nope, even the vague subject-matter's gone, versus "ooh I wonder if--" having Just Worked Out. It's most irksome. :-p

[kaberett]

Haaaa. <3

[kaberett]

YES INDEED.

I should probably attempt to move back toward having a notebook & Schreibzeug on my bedside table (given I have a friendly dim warm-light hedgehog) the colour-temperature-adjustment on my phone notwithstanding, hmm.

[recessional]

Ye-es but I think there's a difference between receiving and generating.

Someone else having already created, generated, regulated and repeated (aurally or in text) something In Rhythm might make for better remembering, but GENERATING/COMPOSING structures AROUND ideas is significantly harder (ime), and you've not yet made it concrete if it isn't written down/spoken aloud. You're still on the generation/creation end of translating a thought INTO the external form of language, and you're doing it half-asleep in a period where the brain often does not write to long-term memory at all, and you're asking it to do a highlevel thing.

Whereas facts/insights are facts/insights.