The threshold between waking and sleeping is known as the hypnagogic state. (When waking, as in the comic, it is referred to as the hypnopompic state). In the June/July 2008 issue of Scientific American Mind, Robert Epstein describes its relation to creativity and how it was harnessed by Salvador Dalí and Thomas Edison. Apparently, Dalí would place a dish on the floor next to his sofa and then begin to take a nap while holding a spoon out over the edge, above the dish. As he lost consciousness, his hand would go limp, and the spoon would crash onto the dish, waking him up. He would then immediately start drawing whatever hypnogogia he may have seen.

(This just reminded me of Iain M. Banks’ SF novel Feersum Endjinn, in which a main character, Bascule, uses a similar technique to wake himself when he dives into “the crypt”, a dreamlike constructed world where time speeds by thousands of times faster than in reality. Because of this disparity, he can accomplish quite a lot between when his pen falls out of his mouth and when it hits the floor. I wonder if this comes from Dalí.)

And speaking of dreaming: here’s a tweet of mine from a while back (true story):

Dreaming and waking didn’t separate themselves cleanly when I opened my eyes my hand was firmly around my throat

Also, a few years ago I had the nightmarish experience of being in that liminal space while a Plastic Bertrand song which was trying to wake me up instead stretched on into an infinite terror-chase-scene soundtrack. Ugh.

Tags: ballpoint, eeen, eeen's leg hair, index card, pen, pukkelpop, watercolor

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