Increased creative thinking in narcolepsy.
Brain : a journal of neurology July 1, 2019 Célia Lacaux, Charlotte Izabelle, Giulio Santantonio et al. 47 citations
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.