Killing ourselves thinking

The power of the brain amazes me.

Somehow I am able to go from whining about a paper, the initial composition of which is like pulling teeth, to knowing exactly what to write and tying it all together in a logical fashion. It's that in-between period that I can't understand. What happens that enables the finished product?

All I know is that while your conscious part feels dead, somehow the unconscious part is plugging away, percolating ideas while you sleep, while you stare aimlessly into space. I first discovered this while studying for exams--we would study late into the night, force ourselves to sleep at least 4 hours, then get up and study a little more before the test.

Somehow, things made more sense after sleeping than before. We no longer had to cram stuff in--it was already neatly organized in our thoughts, like a book had been written and filed away while we slept, and all we needed to do when taking the test was to pull that book out.