Increased creative thinking in narcolepsy.

People with narcolepsy, who enter REM sleep abnormally quickly and often experience lucid dreaming, show higher creativity than healthy controls. In a study of 185 narcolepsy patients and 126 controls, those with narcolepsy scored higher on the Test of Creative Profile (58.9 vs. 55.1) and the Creativity Achievement Questionnaire (10.4 vs. 6.4). Objective tests of creative performance in 30 patients and 30 controls also favored the narcolepsy group (4.3 vs. 3.7). Most narcolepsy symptoms—sleepiness, hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and REM sleep behavior disorder—were linked to higher creativity scores, suggesting that lifelong heightened REM sleep access may enhance creative potential.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Some studies suggest a link between creativity and rapid eye movement sleep. Narcolepsy is characterized by falling asleep directly into rapid eye movement sleep, states of dissociated wakefulness and rapid eye movement sleep (cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder and lucid dreaming) and a high dream recall frequency. Lucid dreaming (the awareness of dreaming while dreaming) has been correlated with creativity. Given their life-long privileged access to rapid eye movement sleep and dreams, we hypothesized that subjects with narcolepsy may have developed high creative abilities. To test this assumption, 185 subjects with narcolepsy and 126 healthy controls were evaluated for their level of creativity with two questionnaires, the Test of Creative Profile and the Creativity Achievement Questionnaire. Creativity was also objectively tested in 30 controls and 30 subjects with narcolepsy using the Evaluation of Potential Creativity test battery, which measures divergent and convergent modes of creative thinking in the graphic and verbal domains, using concrete and abstract problems. Subjects with narcolepsy obtained higher scores than controls on the Test of Creative Profile (mean ± standard deviation: 58.9 ± 9.6 versus 55.1 ± 10, P = 0.001), in the three creative profiles (Innovative, Imaginative and Researcher) and on the Creative Achievement Questionnaire (10.4 ± 25.7 versus 6.4 ± 7.6, P = 0.047). They also performed better than controls on the objective test of creative performance (4.3 ± 1.5 versus 3.7 ± 1.4; P = 0.009). Most symptoms of narcolepsy (including sleepiness, hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, but not cataplexy) were associated with higher scores on the Test of Creative Profile. These results highlight a higher creative potential in subjects with narcolepsy and further support a role of rapid eye movement sleep in creativity.