[HN Gopher] The science of having ideas in the shower
___________________________________________________________________
The science of having ideas in the shower
Author : ColinWright
Score : 181 points
Date : 2023-01-07 15:51 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nationalgeographic.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nationalgeographic.co.uk)
| gazby wrote:
| This effect used to be the bane of my ADHD-addled existence until
| I found these: https://www.myaquanotes.com/. I buy them in 5
| packs now.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Look up "write board for children", they can be had for under 5
| USD for a small one. I keep one in the shower too!
|
| This is an example, just the first one I found:
|
| https://m.aliexpress.com/item/1005004626987148.html
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| These are great for leaving your SO a note in the AM
| gazby wrote:
| I love that they even have a variant for this purpose!
|
| However, having a separate bathroom from my SO is something I
| credit with our relationship going so well lol
| mentos wrote:
| Its my working theory that artists (The Beatles or John
| Carmack) are always operating in this type of mental 'shower'
| environment. Makes me wonder if maybe there is a
| 'myaquaguitar.com' alternative haha
| diemes1 wrote:
| Never seen John Carmack described as an artist before
| boredemployee wrote:
| could writing code be considered as an art? genuinely
| asking
| woodruffw wrote:
| Whenever I hear someone describe programming as art, I
| think of this essay[1].
|
| That isn't to say it can't be art. Only that those with
| an _interest_ in calling it art usually aren 't the
| appropriate authorities.
|
| [1]:
| https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
| stavros wrote:
| Everything can be considered art depending on who you
| ask, I don't think anyone agrees on what actually is or
| isn't.
| jonsen wrote:
| "Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting
| product, that involves creative or imaginative talent
| expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional
| power, or conceptual ideas.
|
| There is no generally agreed definition of what
| constitutes art,...":
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art
| hbarka wrote:
| If I quoted ChatGPT for this question, how does HN feel?
| corobo wrote:
| Personally if I want ChatGPT's opinion I'll just ask it
| myself. I'm here for the human comments.
| turtleyacht wrote:
| It's a good day to reflect on code recently pushed, or a
| PR submitted, to retrace the lines and marvel at it (in
| one's head, on the commute home, or underneath a watery
| drone).
|
| If programming itself isn't art, the cognition of its
| product surely is. Art in a gallery asks to be observed
| again, studied again, brought to the context of each
| discovered age, again.
| novok wrote:
| Yes and no. Too much 'relax mode' and you don't really get
| anything done either.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| "While my aqua-guitar gently weeps"?
| inplubius wrote:
| I just write on the wall with a window marker. Less elegant,
| but works too.
| gazby wrote:
| I tried a dry-erase patch for the shower wall but it didn't
| go well with water/steam. Will try a window marker, thanks!
| mmaunder wrote:
| Brilliant! I use the iPhone for my purposes because it's
| waterproof. At least the newer models are. Have dropped it in
| deep water with no ill effects.
| gazby wrote:
| My understanding was that both heat and steam are bad for
| waterproof electronics, just be careful mate
|
| Edit: Aww HN strips emoji, should have seen that coming lol
| corobo wrote:
| I was warned of this one (like the parent comment I use my
| phone in the shower for notes).
|
| Not had a problem in 2 years* of daily showers. I realise
| I'm taking a bit of a risk but nothing bad has happened so
| far. Could always just be luck of course. iPhone 11 for
| reference.
|
| * Almost exactly, ha. 24mo contract expired last week.
| Sod's Law says my next shower will destroy the phone having
| written this down.
| gazby wrote:
| Sending good juju your way mate!
| klyrs wrote:
| Neat! I'm particularly fond of bath crayons...
|
| https://shop.crayola.com/toys-and-activities/bathtub-crayons...
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Carl Sagan talked about this effect -- in combination with
| cannabis: https://www.organism.earth/library/document/mr-x
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Hmm, it's a mixed quality of ideas. Sometimes it sounds very
| revolutionary, but then given a full thought around it starts to
| be just alright. Sometimes I think I finally solve a way of doing
| thing in code, turns out it's _good, for now_. Some realization
| are incredible though like .. why you were so dumb in front of
| computer.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| My breakthrough idea come mostly when I'm exercising (read:
| running). It's one of the reasons I don't run with music / audio.
| Instead, it's just me and the road.
|
| Initially, I thought it was a personal quirk. Then I read the
| book "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock. At this point, I'm due
| for a re-read.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Work-Revised-Updated/dp/00...
| somishere wrote:
| I wasn't too surprised to find r/showerthoughts a few years ago,
| still going strong:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/
| higgins wrote:
| during a cold shower my best idea is "I THINK I'M CLEAN ENOUGH!"
| andix wrote:
| I think that's why it's sometimes important to just leave from
| work, if you're doing something hard and get stuck. If you keep
| working hard, you may not find any solution. It happened really
| often to me, that on the next day the solution for the problem
| was ,,just there".
|
| It just doesn't fit our working culture, if our leave two hours
| early and if the boss asks you say: ,,I have to do a lot of
| complicated work, that's why I'm leaving early".
| 99failures wrote:
| For starters there's less [performance] anxiety while taking a
| shower of doing mundane tasks.
|
| In a way it's the "monday night quarterback" meets the "you
| missed a spot over there" syndrome; the farther away we are from
| the point where the rubber meets the road, the more we can
| observe objectively and have higher level of thinking.
|
| The problem at hand is how to juncture the thinking/intention
| with proper action.
| kaveen wrote:
| [flagged]
| AstixAndBelix wrote:
| I personally believe that the concept of shower thoughts is a bit
| detrimental. They are often talked about as being nice little
| quirks of our lives, when in fact they could be so much more. I
| have written a little blog post about it [1]
|
| [1] : https://but-her-flies.bearblog.dev/shower-thoughts-arent-
| rea...
| binkHN wrote:
| I concur. I sometimes get "shower thoughts" while doing the
| dishes.
| dws wrote:
| Visualizing being the shower can also sometimes work. I got stuck
| on a problem a while back, and tried leaning back, closing my
| eyes, and imaging being in a warm shower with a head full of
| shampoo. Voila!
| asdff wrote:
| It makes sense why people get all their ideas in the shower.
| That's about the only time the modern human has where you aren't
| distracting yourself with some other external stimuli. I've even
| seen people use a public urinal with a phone in one hand.
| [deleted]
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Ehh, I have the eureka moments in the bed and ideas during
| walking/listening to something or reading something offtopic.
| After all memory retrieval is avalanche based.
|
| I turn off the PC, get in the bed, 5 minutes later I have the
| answer for that hard problem. I have noticed that sitting before
| the monitor sucks your brain down and hard problem solving or
| planning need some horizontal positioning, without any electronic
| device.
| mmaunder wrote:
| I have a theory that it's also related to heat. Try drinking a
| pot of coffee in a hot tub if you can find one, set to a high
| temp. It's quite the creative experience.
| robotguy wrote:
| I'm convinced that it's the hot water on the back of my neck
| opening up blood vessels and increasing oxygen to my brain.
| dunefox wrote:
| This sounds like it's more related to heart attacks. I don't
| think this is healthy.
| codazoda wrote:
| I'm going to try this
| alexpetralia wrote:
| One thing I noticed is that while I had good ideas in the shower,
| I couldn't remember them! (no pen/paper, phone, etc.)
|
| So, I started using mnemonics to remember my thoughts[0]. Now I
| take showers without feeling the anxiety of forgetting all the
| thing I thought about (e.g. chores, talk to someone, respond to
| email, write down an idea, etc.).
|
| [0] https://alexpetralia.com/2017/12/31/shower-recall/
| Sozar2000 wrote:
| [dead]
| math_dandy wrote:
| Anecdotally, Americans tend to shower more often than Europeans.
| Perhaps this explains why more tech innovation tends to happen in
| America these days?
|
| I suspect a major cause of the shower gap is energy price gap,
| leading one to conclude that cheap energy increases innovation!
| nanomonkey wrote:
| Can you explain the energy price gap portion of your
| hypothesis?
|
| From my personal experience showers take less energy than a
| bath. For my usage, if I block the drain, take a shower, there
| will only be about a foot of water in the tub, maybe a 1/3 of
| what I would need to take a bath. Are you assuming other forms
| of washing or that Americans shower more frequently? Just
| curious!
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Ahh funny my country is very hot, in summer I'd shower 3 times
| (I wish for 4 sometimes). It's too hot to come up with any
| idea. It's only thankful to have water run through.
| bertjk wrote:
| Can I ask, in places where showering that often is the norm,
| does one change into a new set of clean clothes each time?
| And does this basically triple the laundry chore burden?
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| I'm in Thailand. Same should be applied with "tropical
| climate" countries. Basically it's hot and humid. Cloths
| are usually not thick as it's hot, so 2-3 days per laundry
| for 2 people is ok. It's only annoying when there's not
| enough favorite cloths.
|
| Smell of sweat / odor happens very soon than those who live
| in cold+dry area.
| CSDude wrote:
| Source required.
| math_dandy wrote:
| Recent visit to my in-laws in Germany.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Ah so elderly couple in Germany allows you to conclude that
| the whole of Europe showers less than your household, a
| household which is also representative of the whole
| American continent, did I get that right?
| kylecazar wrote:
| I'm sure like everything else, times have changed and
| Western Europe and the US are now more similar (if not
| the same) in their shower habits.
|
| But I'd like to provide another anecdote just for fun,
| from 6 years of living in Spain beginning 20 years ago.
| It was, at that time, certainly considered unique to
| shower every day, in a mid-sized northern Spain city.
| Unless every other friend in my residencia was weird in
| this regard, which is unlikely.
|
| Interestingly, they also had a communal pool. Swimming to
| them rendered a shower that day unnecessary. Note -- I
| didn't notice any notable signs of bad hygiene, though.
|
| Anyway I'm sure there are studies that show we're all
| converging on similar routines!
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Curious. I'm from a mid-sized northern Spanish city,
| always shower once a day, most of my family and friends
| do as well. People I know from the south of Spain even
| shower more than once a day (it's hot down there). And in
| Spain there is the meme that French and British people
| shower much less than the Spanish. No idea if there is
| truth to it (although when I lived in the UK, I was
| shocked at how seldom the British people I was sharing
| house with showered, but that's a sample size of two).
| svnt wrote:
| Ahem... whoossshhh
| tpmx wrote:
| Maybe something to do with electricity suddenly being 5-10x
| more expensive than usual.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Skyrocketing energy prices projected to cause
| unprecedented drop in already dangerously low rate of
| European innovation!
| tpmx wrote:
| European innovation is doing quite well. As usual it's
| the part where we actually make money off the innovations
| where we suck. Good trolling effort though! ;)
| tnzk wrote:
| It fails to explain why Japanese people who shower literally
| everyday don't lead innovations...
| hbarka wrote:
| The Global War on Terror (GWOT) revealed remote places where
| the Toyota Hilux refused to break
| b3morales wrote:
| Don't they? In consumer electronics they certainly did for a
| good chunk of the past 50-60 years.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| In Brazil two showers a day are pretty common.
|
| So access to R&D funding is probably far more relevant for
| innovation indexes than people's hygiene.
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Japanese people are very creative in my perception. I'm in
| Thailand where if you aren't taking shower 2 times a day, you
| are considerably "bad hygiene". In winter, at least 1 time in
| the morning. You will feel "I'm dirty" outside if you don't.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| I feel like that has to be cultural rather than price based.
| The French shower more often than Americans for example and we
| have higher energy prices.
| [deleted]
| meindnoch wrote:
| As they say, once you have eliminated all which is impossible,
| whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!
|
| But _perhaps_ there are still a few more probable hypotheses to
| test before we settle on your shower theory... Would you agree
| with that, my friend?
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| > I suspect a major cause of the shower gap is energy price gap
|
| What a funny assertion. Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Gulf states
| etc have bottomless supply of cheap energy, where are their
| innovations?
| ford wrote:
| Is there more research on how boredom relates to creativity in
| general? I've been wondering recently about how my default in
| most cases is to look at my phone (reddit, social media,
| texting).
|
| That must detract from my net new ideas. I know many a child
| driven to weird ideas, fun games, and general creativity from
| lack of anything else to do.
|
| It's probably a spectrum (reading reddit/HN/etc. is likely to
| introduce new ideas), but I'd venture to guess that most people
| could stand to trade a lot of their daily phone time for some
| intentional boredom.
| Swizec wrote:
| You need time to think but you also need something to think
| about.
|
| A favorite quote on the topic whose source I never remember:
| The news doesn't tell you what to think, it tells you _what to
| think about_.
|
| Hamming talks about this effect as The Open Door Policy in his
| wonderful you and your research talk -
| https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
|
| The key seems to be to tend to your inputs, make sure they're
| decent quality and on topics you care about, then create time
| away from inputs to ruminate and ponder. Reading outrage-of-
| the-day content won't give you better software engineering
| insights in the shower. But reading hyped-tech-trend-of-the-
| month content might.
|
| Conversely, if your mind is constantly engaged in other
| people's thoughts, it won't have time to create its own. For me
| personally that means avoiding external stimuli for the first 2
| to 3 hours of the day (doesn't always work).
| AstixAndBelix wrote:
| That's something you can easily experiment on yourself, unless
| you're hopelessly addicted to your entertainment devices
| b3morales wrote:
| I'm not sure "boredom" is the right way to characterize the
| state. Deliberately cultivating this quiet time for creativity
| is one possible aspect of a meditation practice. David Lynch
| has an interesting book about that, called _Catching the Big
| Fish_.
| ArjenM wrote:
| I'm extremely easily bored so creative state of mind is my
| every day normal I guess.
|
| Only tricky part is that it's a gradual process over a short
| time of basic information gathering that has to be captured in
| the right contexts back and forth for me.
|
| All these comments here also bring new insights, overlapping
| feelings and an idea we are all in this mess together. To
| boredom!
| binkHN wrote:
| > I know many a child driven to weird ideas, fun games, and
| general creativity from lack of anything else to do.
|
| Unfortunately children are negatively affected by their
| electronic devices as well.
| corobo wrote:
| Anecdotally it absolutely seems to go hand in hand for me. To
| the point where I've started considering social networks,
| booze, THC, etc as dopamine sugar.
|
| I'm allowed them now and then as a treat for hitting a goal* or
| something but not constantly, and definitely no cake for
| breakfast.
|
| * for instance I'm enjoying a nice HN binge right now as I've
| already covered my rent this month with freelance work :)
|
| While I've not had any direct results of any ideas yet I have
| filled 8 pages of my scratch diary with ideas and notes on my
| main side project since I've started reintroducing boredom into
| my life. Previously it was bad enough that I'd forget the diary
| existed for days and sometimes weeks at a time.
|
| Rather than go insane if the boredom doesn't turn into
| creativity I'm allowed to read a book at any time rather than
| slip back to the sugary dopamine sources.
|
| Could just be honeymoon period, I'm only a week or so into it,
| I might get bored of being bored soon.
| ngc248 wrote:
| isn't it just diffuse learning? I also get amazing ideas when I
| am bored and my mind is wandering.
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| One of the best parts of remote work is when I have a tough
| problem I can just walk into the bathroom and take a shower to
| solve it - I just need to make sure my hair is dry before the
| next meeting. I never could have done that pre-Covid since
| everyone would have wanted to know where I was if not sitting at
| my desk, and the few places I worked with gyms came with a long
| list of co-workers I'd rather not be showering with!
| sowbug wrote:
| This article is teaching me that I misunderstood what the default
| mode network (DMN) is. I was introduced to the term while reading
| how psychedelics affect the brain. As I understood it, the DMN is
| a mediator among the many thoughts that normally compete for your
| brain's attention. By temporarily suppressing the DMN,
| psychedelics give the weirder thoughts a better chance at center
| stage. Thus the black dot on the wall looks more like a spider,
| and a normally tenuous connection between Concept X and Concept Y
| might lead someone to discover a mechanism for cold fusion while
| tripping.
|
| This article's explanation, on the other hand, fits the DMN
| moniker better: it's what your brain does when it isn't doing
| anything. If psychedelics replace a default value with an
| uninitialized variable, then the resulting behavior is undefined.
|
| This would explain why so-called "set and setting" are so
| important while experiencing psychedelics. A preoccupied mind
| doesn't use the DMN. So it would follow that a preoccupied mind
| wouldn't benefit as much from a suppressed DMN, because it
| wouldn't have any reason to try activating it.
| Iwan-Zotow wrote:
| [dead]
| duncancarroll wrote:
| If you think your shower ideas are good, you should try
| meditation!
| luxuryballs wrote:
| "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 a fluke."
|
| Did we really need someone to tell us this? Do people just assume
| everything is a fluke until some higher authority tells you
| otherwise?
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| That's just the introduction to frame the topic. The article
| explains how we now understand the biological mechanics of why.
| That's what they pay journalism students to do, otherwise they
| would be on welfare.
| svnt wrote:
| They are still on welfare.
| drc500free wrote:
| Of all the banal turns of phrase to be offended by...
| b3morales wrote:
| I think you're taking one bit of science journalism boilerplate
| too broadly. Obviously it's not a "fluke" if it happens a lot,
| to a lot of people, but saying that is just a stock (hackneyed,
| if you prefer) expression to build up to the explanation.
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| ricardo81 wrote:
| fluke as in chance/luck. Which is pretty much everything
| without a scientific basis.
| karencarits wrote:
| Until one has at least some systematic data on the "flukes", I
| think it seems the safest to use "coincidence" as the default
| Finnucane wrote:
| It's clearly not flukes. It's not random. It happens often
| enough to make a clear pattern. No one would even write an
| article like this if it weren't common experience.
| Swizec wrote:
| You may also be surprised to know that scientists aren't nearly
| as "surprised" as journalists suggest. Science journalism often
| seems to use any means necessary to avoid the word
| "probability".
|
| It's a "fluke" in that you don't _always_ get this effect. But
| sometimes you do. And some people never do. How strong is the
| correlation? What's the mechanism of causation? That's where
| the science comes in.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's fascinating. Some random content creator writes a banal
| article and it offends someone and kicks off a thread of
| discussion. Accidental short virality at its best.
|
| When I was in college, I made some bucks writing stuff like the
| OP article. Mostly content-free, just words for the sake of
| words that were not particularly complex (That job is probably
| AI automated by now).
|
| I wonder how many people went to war in comment threads over
| the stuff I wrote with no particular knowledge or interest,
| with my only interest being able to take my girlfriend on a
| date. Amusing.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| koliber wrote:
| Occasionally I read something where I don't really learn
| anything new, but the way the author succinctly describes a
| concept or idea clicks with me. It might be giving something a
| name. It might be describing a vague notion in a way that
| reaffirms something. I've been thinking about. In any case,
| it's helpful and insightful and helps me organize my thoughts
| and build upon that.
|
| Each person is different. We all learn different things at
| different times. Everything in this article may be 100% obvious
| to you right now. But if you read this a number of years ago,
| you may have found it insightful. Others are at different parts
| of their journey. What is obvious to you, is obvious only to
| you.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| if you read the article you would find that most of it is
| focused on why this is the case, instead of whether this is the
| case.
| nathias wrote:
| I wake up with the solutions to whatever I uploaded as a problem
| during the day, it only works if I think the problem is important
| so it isn't really often.
| ilyt wrote:
| Never had shower moments, only "it's late and I should be asleep
| but brain decided to solve some random problem instead" moments.
| QuantumGood wrote:
| Left/right brain isn't an accurate summary of the brain, but a
| useful distinction:
|
| * Left brain is thoughts, analysis, pattern following, etc.
|
| * Right brain is awareness without analysis, flow state,
| performance awareness
|
| To "listen" to your right brain awareness, you need to shut down
| the left brain at least a little bit. You need at least a little
| bit of space (or flow state) to hear the right brain. The left
| brain pushes itself on you. The right brain needs to be listened
| to be heard.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Maybe I'm discovering the obvious, but I began using THC for
| sleep in my 30s and as a side effect, I kinda get a little bit
| high for about 20 mins before bed.
|
| I'll be having a shower that usually turns into a bath for safety
| and I just close my eyes and think. And it's truly miraculous...
| My brain just wanders so freely among the ideas of the day. But
| what interests me most are these "eureka!" moments. They're so
| fast and fleeting and my brain struggles to focus that I rush to
| orate them to my phone before they fade. It's an interesting
| sensation to have where I'm confident that the idea was brilliant
| but I can't for the life of me remember what it was seconds
| later.
|
| Upon review the next day, 75% of the time the ideas are gibberish
| and I have a laugh at my own expense. The other 25% aren't
| brilliant but are colourable and sometimes actually pan out.
| Usually about software design or parenting.
| linsomniac wrote:
| I started reading _The_Electric_Kool-Aid_Acid_Test_ by Tom
| Wolfe a few months ago. He relates how Ken Kesey would write
| while high as a kite, to help the flow of ideas, and then edit
| sober.
|
| I didn't end up finishing the book, because it was all just too
| foreign a subject for me to get into.
| e40 wrote:
| Be careful, THC messes with your REM sleep.
| brailsafe wrote:
| I wonder if that's why I felt unbelievably more tired the
| next morning after I smoked or something before bed,
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Sure does. But it beats literally zero sleep. Day after day.
| Or dangerous stuff like some of the prescription meds. I've
| found a timing that gets me to sleep but I dream plenty.
| thewizardofaus wrote:
| I experience EXACTLY the same thing moments before falling
| asleep (no thc). It's truly amazing. If I manage to jolt myself
| awake I will write them down, otherwise they will be surely
| forgotten. And the ratio is similar to yours, good
| idea/gibberish(or not feasible).
| Hbruz0 wrote:
| I've also experienced that a few times while semi-asleep, it
| is really intriguing. I haven't been able to write the ideas
| down yet, and had a tendency to discrad them at the thought
| that being in that state made the ideas sound amazing but
| wouldn't be in retrospect. I wonder how that phenomenon
| works, and if taking any psychoactive drug would produce
| similar results.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Is it just as amusing to you, the sensation of being 100%
| convinced the idea is absolutely brilliant, only to review it
| and find its nonsense?
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(page generated 2023-01-07 23:00 UTC)