If you've ever emerged from the shower or returned from walking your dog with a clever idea or a solution to a problem you'd been struggling with, it may not be an unusual thing.
Rather than constantly wearing yourself out at a problem or desperately seeking a flash of inspiration, research from the last 15 years suggests that people may be more likely to have creative breakthroughs or insights when they're doing a habitual task that doesn't require much thought — an activity in which you're basically on autopilot. This lets your mind wander or engage in spontaneous cognition or "stream of consciousness" thinking, which experts believe helps recollect unusual memories and generate new ideas.
"People always get surprised when they realize they get interesting, novel ideas at unexpected times because our cultural narrative tells us we should do it through hard work," says Kalina Christoff, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "It's a pretty universal human experience."
Now we're beginning to understand why these clever thoughts occur during more passive activities and what's happening in the brain, says Christoff. The key, according to the latest research, is a pattern of brain activity — within what's called the default mode network — that occurs while an individual is resting or performing habitual tasks that don't require much attention.
Researchers have shown that the default mode network (DMN) — which connects more than a dozen regions of the brain — becomes more active during mind-wandering or passive tasks than when you're doing something that demands focus. Simply put, the DMN is "the state the brain returns to when you're not actively engaged," explains Roger Beaty, a cognitive neuroscientist and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Lab at Penn State University. By contrast, when you're trapped in a demanding task, the brain's executive control systems keep your thinking focused, analytical, and logical.
A cautionary note：While the default mode network plays a key role in the creative process, "it's not the only important network," Beaty says. "Other networks come into play as far as modifying, rejecting, or implementing ideas." So it's unwise to place blind faith in ideas that are generated in the shower or during any other period of mind wandering.
