Sleep On It | Dream Incubation Space | Experimental Space Design | Brand Identity
#Sleep On It
What are some effective strategies for overcoming a creative block in design, and how can designers cultivate a mindset that encourages creativity and innovation?
Concept / Solution:
"Sleep On It" is created as an interactive dream incubation space where it focuses on providing sleep-related products, services, and experiences. This multi-sensory interactive space is for people who have a creative block. The name comes from the commonly used informal phrase - "sleep on it" meaning to think more about something overnight and make a decision about it later. Individuals can get less lonely by having others relate to similar experiences, and the sleepy individuals can gain more motivation for activities during the day.
Dream incubation is a thought technique which aims for a specific dream topic to occur, either for recreation or to attempt to solve a problem. For example, a person might go to bed repeating to themselves that they will dream about a presentation they have coming up, or a vacation they recently took. While somewhat similar to lucid dreaming, dream incubation is simply focusing attention on a specific issue when going to sleep.
Dream recall frequency, narrative complexity, and certain dream content indicators have all been correlated with various creativity measures in research. People who learn to "incubate" a problem in their dreams are often able to reliably dream up a solution—one that may not always solve the problem immediately, but that they later judge to have been significantly helpful in devising a "real" solution.
This idea stems from personal experiences, I too sometimes cant think or come up with solutions quickly, so I decide to sleep on it. Generally, I start working a day or two before deadlines. Due to the pressure and lack of sleep, I am able to come up with better ideas. It may be necessary to take 1-2 hours of naps at night. I refer to these as Ideating Naps. When I sleep with the pressure of knowing that work is incomplete, I ideate while I sleep. Research suggests that there is a link between dreaming and creativity, if one enters their initial sleep stage, thinks about their problem and goes to sleep, it is likely that they dream and wake up with a satisfactory solution.
This space could be set up in various places in the city. A data driven set could be prepared mapping this problem and accordingly the space could be set up. Please note that this is an Experimental Idea which could have any result - positive or negative.
This zine fold was inspired by a fellow artist's work. The book fold was the best way to represent the four dream incubation rooms, which would help the volunteers understand the program better. Link: https://www.behance.net/gallery/35184417/Crime-Zine/modules/221234395
