Fi Phillips

Have you ever been in the situation where you've poked and prodded at an idea or question for ages, with no solution, gone to bed in a grump, and then upon waking the solution to your query is obvious? Or how about when you're just dropping off to sleep and suddenly an idea jumps into your mind and wakes you up. Some of my best creative ideas have come from dreams that I've had or have cropped up at the point where I'm just about to nod off. That's why I keep a notebook by my bed. In A Case for Dreaming , Tiffany Shlain discusses the connection between sleep, dreaming and creativity. Have a look.

"The meadow in which he sat spread away before him in a carpet of muted greens, blues and pinks, a mix of colours he had never seen in grasses. The clover was white, but touched with crimson spots. The meadow dropped downwards into a sprawling valley which rose again miles distant in a wall of mountains that formed a dark barrier against the sky-line. Behind him, the trees of a forest loomed blackly against a mountain slope. Trailers of mist hung over everything." from Magic Kingdom For Sale/Sold by Terry Brooks "By now the whole of downtown Morpork was alight, and the richer and worthier citizens of Ankh on the far bank were bravely responding to the situation by feverishly demolishing the bridges. But already the ships in the Morpork docks - laden with grain, cotton and timber - were blazing merrily and, their moorings burnt to ashes, were breasting the river Ankh on the ebb tide, igniting riverside palaces and bowers as they drifted like drowning fireflies towards t...