I had a big order: six pints of two bitters, a pint of lager, a Lucozade and a selection of different flavoured crisps. It was really crowded at the bar. People were elbowing their way past each other, waving and shouting for the publican’s attention.

I made my way up some rickety backstairs to a smaller, more secluded bar that I imagined few people would know about. Sadly, when I arrived, it too was rammed.

I was going to take ages to get served. My friends would be wondering where I’d got to. And it wouldn’t be too easy carrying that large order down those rickety stairs on a tray.

I was in a real quandary. What on earth was I to do?

And then I woke up.

'Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.’
Oscar Wilde

I often forget my dreams, but this one stayed with me. I began pondering what it could mean.

It’s true. Bar presence is a critical life skill, and one in which I’m sorely lacking. Perhaps I have been wrestling with this shortcoming in my subconscious.

I’ve also read that dreams could be placeholders for other, deeper anxieties. Could my nightmare of the big order in a crowded bar indicate a more profound concern about my competitive competence, the struggle to achieve, the yearning to make a mark?

Then again, dreams are not just expressions of one’s inner cogitations. They can also be creative catalysts, sparks to original thought.

I read recently in The Times (December 14, 2021, 'Wake up your hidden creative powers’) about a study conducted at the Paris Brain Institute into hypnagogia, the transitional state of consciousness between waking and sleeping.

A team of neuroscientists and sleep doctors was keen to investigate a creative thinking technique used by inventors and artists. Practitioners would take a nap holding an object. (Thomas Edison used a metal ball. Salvador Dali clutched a key above a plate.) As they drifted off to sleep, they would drop the object and so wake themselves up at precisely the point before deep sleep. They believed this exercise, by accessing the ‘twilight zone’ between waking and sleeping, would inspire greater leaps of the imagination and more lateral problem solving.

Salvador Dalí demonstrates his creativity technique
Patrice Habans Getty Images

'Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.'
Langston Hughes

The research recorded the brainwaves of more than a hundred people tackling a difficult maths puzzle over a long period of time. In the middle of the study participants were given a 20-minute break in which they relaxed with their eyes closed while holding a bottle. If they drifted off and dropped the bottle, they would be woken up.

The puzzle had embedded within it a 'hidden rule’ that would enable participants to get to the solution much more quickly. Of those who managed to stay awake the whole time 31 per cent found the shortcut, compared with only 14 per cent of those who fell into a deep sleep during the break.

However, there was another group - those who drifted into the non-rapid eye movement sleep stage 1, or N1. 83 per cent of this sample found the shortcut.

The scientists concluded that the N1 respondents performed so well in the test because this semi-lucid, liminal state enabled them to 'freely watch their minds wander, while maintaining their ability to identify creative sparks.'

'Our findings suggest that there is a creative sweet spot within the sleep onset period… We know that the twilight period is a moment in which memories are replayed and new associations are made. This could in turn explain why some people report having explicit breakthroughs during these short sleep episodes.'

I have tried the ‘twilight zone’ creative thinking technique at home. Sadly, each time I’ve woken up in a grumpy mood, with no dream recollection and a concern that I may have smashed a bottle on the living room carpet.

Nonetheless, I’m sure we should regard dream states as useful provocations to the more linear processes and patterns of everyday thought, as rich seams of ideas and insight.

'Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.'
Edgar Allan Poe

And so I’m prompted to reflect back on my nightmare of the big order in a crowded bar. Could I perhaps derive some creative inspiration from six pints of two bitters, a pint of lager, a Lucozade and a selection of different flavoured crisps?

Erm, I’m not sure. But at least it suggested this article.

'It was a cold day outside today,
I had nothing to do,
So I thought about you.
And then my friend said, "Lets go for a walk,"
Just to clear the air,
Well I thought about you.

The clock keeps ticking,
Cars keeps passing,
And the day goes by, slowly by.
I've nothing to do, but to think about you,
Think about you.’

The Scars, ‘All About You’ (D Child / P Stanley / A Carlsson / A Carlsson)

No. 355

New York Resturant - Edward Hopper, 1922

'If you want to win at life every time, do not step in the ring.’
Anthony Joshua, on regaining the World Heavyweight Boxing Title

One day in the Autumn of 1991 I took my mother to the British Museum. We wandered around the galleries reflecting on Samurai armour and the Sutton Hoo helmet; pausing in front of Ramesses, reliquaries and the Rosetta Stone. Devout and Irish, she was particularly interested in the Celtic crosses and medieval church statues. I was drawn to anything Classical, and the bearded Assyrian man-beasts. I bought her a few postcards from the shop for the collection she kept in scrapbooks back at Heath Park Road.

Afterwards we adjourned to the Spaghetti House in Holborn. I ordered spaghetti bolognaise and told Mum that it wasn’t as good as the one she made at home – with Heinz tomato soup and mince from the local butchers. We chatted affectionately about Dad, her school and my siblings.

I had decided that this was the beginning of a new chapter in our relationship. I would no longer be the sullen, introverted, taciturn youth. I would be solicitous, attentive, considerate. I would take Mum out to lunch, ask her how she felt. I would be an adult.

The day went very well and, as we parted, I told Mum that next time we could visit the National Gallery together. She was surprised and amused. In her own quiet way.

A few months later she was dead.

I had made a mistake. I had left my initiative too late. I would forever be in her debt, unable to pay back all the love and affection of my childhood. And grief and guilt would cast their long shadows.

According to a recent survey of 2,000 people in the UK (Mortar/ KP), we spend 110 hours a year regretting what might have been - the equivalent of 500 waking days over a lifetime. Eight in ten people believe their lives would be better if they had taken more risks. 57% wish they had taken another job. 23% pine for past loves.

We all walk hand-in-hand with failure and loss, with regret and remorse. And with every passing year our errors add up and accrue. They become life-companions, ghosts that are ready at any moment to tap us on the shoulder and darken the mood.

'Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.'
Salvador Dali

I was nonetheless heartened to read about another recent study, this time from the journal, Nature Communications (November 2019). Scientists at Brown University, the University of Arizona, UCLA and Princeton conducted a series of machine-learning experiments in which they taught computers simple tasks.

The computers learned fastest when the difficulty of the problem they were addressing was such that they responded with 85% accuracy. The scientists concluded that we learn best when we are challenged to grasp something just beyond our existing knowledge. When a task is too simple, we don't learn anything new; when a task is too difficult, we fail entirely or just give up.

So learning is optimized when we fail 15% of the time.

This has a ring of truth about it. In the creative arts practitioners have long been familiar with the concept of learning through misstep and misadventure. Failure illuminates the terrain, suggests new opportunities, and points us on the right path. It confirms that we are pioneering something new. It strengthens our resolve.

'An artist's failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time he does not know what that something else is.'
Bridget Riley

'I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.'
Sylvia Plath

Similarly in the world of commerce, entrepreneurs and titans of industry have often celebrated the proving ground of trial and error.

'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.’
Thomas Edison

'The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.'
Henry Ford

Indeed the more ambitious a business is to pioneer new categories and sectors, the more it must be prepared to countenance defeat and disappointment. Alphabet’s innovation lab, X, seeks 'radical solutions to huge problems using breakthrough technology.’ X doesn’t just acknowledge the risk of failure; it exalts it:

'If you’re not failing constantly and even foolishly, you’re not pushing hard enough.'

The truth is that failure and how we deal with it define our character. We all look over our shoulders and see a landscape of rash decisions, missed opportunities and wasted time. But, for better or worse, this is our homeland, our mother country. It makes us who we are.

'Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.'
Truman Capote

I have resolved to be more forgiving of myself and others; to be more comfortable with my past errors of judgement. I plan to make friends with failure.

So from now on I’m aiming to be wrong 15% of the time. That still gives me a lot to work on. I think Mum would have understood. She’d have been surprised and amused. In her own quiet way.

'I can't eat, I can't sleep anymore.
Waiting for love to walk through the door.
I wish I didn't miss you anymore.’
Angie Stone, ‘Wish I Didn’t Miss You’ (A Martin / G Mcfadden / J Whitehead / L Huff / I Matias)

No. 276

A Big Order in a Crowded Bar: Creative Thinking in the Twilight Zone

Lunch at the Spaghetti House, Holborn: Making Friends with Failure