“The researchers found that the participants who spent at least 15 seconds in the N1 stage had an 83% chance of discovering the hidden rule, compared with a 30% chance for those who remained awake.”
Dalí and Edison dozed off holding an object and woke when it dropped. Paris researchers tested it. Fifteen seconds of light sleep nearly tripled the odds of spotting a hidden shortcut in a math task. Go deeper and the benefit vanished. The cheapest creativity tool in history is a nap you interrupt on purpose.