”Thomas Edison valued this hypnogogic state so highly that he developed his own technique to maintain it while he worked on his inventions”wrote Brian Weiss, in his book Through Time into Healing.
“While sitting in a certain chair, Edison used relaxation and meditation techniques to reach the state of consciousness that is between sleep and wakefulness. He would hold some ball bearings in his closed hand, palm down, while resting this hand on the arm of his chair.”
“Beneath his hand he kept a metal bowl. If Edison fell asleep, his hand would open. The ball bearings would fall into the metal bowl and the noise would awaken him. Then he would repeat the process over and over again.”
In this semi wake state he would then put his ideas to paper.
Likewise, James Watt, unsure how to make engine parts rotate smoothly, dreamt of molten metal fragments falling down from the sky forming into globes as they fell. The idea of drop calling was born and ball bearings were made.
Elias Howe dreamt of people holding spears with an eye-shaped hole in its flattened point.
The result was the chain stitch sewing machine was born.
August Kekule von Stradonitz, dreamt of snakes swallowing their tails and formulated the molecular ring structure of benzene.
Albert Einstein, used a process called "combinatorial play," where he would float complex formulas around in his mind until they formed a pattern. Late in life, even Edison owned up to taking chair-borne naps whenever he needed to crystallize his thoughts.
Creativity empowers our technological society and yet it is often devalued.
To do this ”creativity must go beyond the bounds of what already is known or deductible by reason” said Dr. Arnold M. Ludwig.

Perhaps we need to stop slaving ourselves in methodical logical fashion and inspire our creativity.

Every day should be a day of Thanksgiving for all the gifts of Life — sunshine, water, the luscious fruits and greens, which we receive as indirect gifts from the Great Giver.

He makes us work so that we may consciously and thankfully deserve to receive His Gifts.

The All-Sufficient One does not need the benefit of our thankful hearts, but when we are grateful to the Fountain of all gifts, our attention is concentrated for our own highest benefit upon the only Great Source of all supply.

He alone can unfailingly, un-deceivingly bestow upon us the lasting gifts of wisdom, abundance, and spiritual treasures without the confinement of any mundane measure.

There are millions of people today who are drunk with egotism, who think that they keep themselves alive because they feed themselves with their self-earned magic gold of delusion.

They never stop to think that man can neither make a grain of wheat, nor a leaf of green, nor the illusory, glittering, yellow gold, nor the paper and ink of which greenbacks are made.

Neither can he create first life independently of God — the life that gives power to the precious green papers.

For these people, Thanksgiving Day, although soiled with the blood of unthankful turkeys, is a great day of awakening. It is a day of thinking of the most important and the most forgotten Molder of our Destiny.

Millions of people who eat turkey forget to thank God at all, and think more of the turkey than of God. But many of you could thank God in meditation more consciously while munching on the meat of peace, than while dipping your lips in the gravy and the flavor-camouflaged flesh of a turkey, where once sensitiveness guarded the throne of Life.

If you eat turkey, be sure to stuff it with the best Bliss-spiced dressing of thankful remembrance of God and His highest gifts of wisdom, peace, and power to accomplish.

And thank God that you are not the turkey, to be used for the festivity of Thanksgiving!

Anyway, don’t mind my sympathy for the turkey, for I am more sympathetic toward you, who are superior to the turkey.

God is waiting to hear your unceasing knock of devotion so that He can open the Gates of Omnipresence to receive you. Whether you eat turkey or not does not matter if you will only knock hard with devotion on the doors of your heart.

Make every day a day of Thanksgiving, and continuous contentment will sparkle in your body, mind, and soul. Be sure to search for the all-freeing God from now on, until you find Him on the brink of unceasing seeking.

—Paramhansa Yogananda
November 1934