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Increased creative thinking in narcolepsy.

Célia Lacaux, Charlotte Izabelle, Giulio Santantonio, Laure De Villèle, Johanna Frain, Todd Lubart, Fabio Pizza, Giuseppe Plazzi, Isabelle Arnulf, Delphine Oudiette

Brain July 1, 2019 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awz137 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Cross-sectional study Peer reviewed
Sample size 311
Population Subjects with narcolepsy and healthy controls
Topics Lucid dreaming
Keywords Creativity Divergent thinking Narcolepsy
Citations 47
Key findings Subjects with narcolepsy obtained higher scores than controls on both self-reported and objective measures of creativity.

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.

Comparable studies

Other cross-sectional and survey studies on lucid dreaming, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
The Phenomenology of Lucid Dreaming: An Online Survey Respondents to an online survey about lucid dreams 2014 Online survey n = 684
Frequency of Lucid Dreaming in a Representative German Sample Representative sample of German adults 2011 Cross-sectional survey n = 919
Lucid dreaming: an age‐dependent brain dissociation Students aged 6-19 years 2012 Survey
Terror and bliss? Commonalities and distinctions between sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and their associations with waking life experiences Adults aged 18–82 years 2016 Cross-sectional survey n = 1,928
Increased Lucid Dreaming Frequency in Narcolepsy Patients diagnosed with narcolepsy and healthy control subjects 2015 Cross-sectional study n = 979

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