One evening in 1951 astronomer William Wilson Morgan was strolling home from Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin when he looked up at the night sky and had a “flash inspiration ... a creative intuitional burst.” It solved one of the great mysteries of astronomy.
The observable universe contains billions, possibly even trillions, of galaxies. With a modest telescope, their varied forms are discernible—spirals, ellipsoids and others with irregular structures. But what about our own galaxy, the Milky Way?
Morgan had been calculating the distances from Earth of groups of big, hot, bright stars, nowadays called OB associations. He knew that in spiral galaxies these clusters reside in the trailing arms. Gazing at the sky while walking home, he located the familiar dots of the OB associations. But this time the flat image of the night sky merged in his mind with the star distances that he had calculated and committed to memory, and it sprang to three-dimensional life. Morgan’s vision: the stars of the OB association are arranged in a long strand—an arm of our spiral galaxy.
An “aha! moment,” such as Morgan’s marvelous insight that the Milky Way is a spiral, is a new idea or perspective that arrives abruptly, often bursting into an ongoing stream of thought. It may pop up while someone is actively trying to solve a problem, but it can also arrive spontaneously.
These revelations feel pleasing, even thrilling, and they can be portals to a scientific breakthrough, an innovative business proposal, a hit song or the plot of a best-selling novel. Or they may provide a life-changing perspective on a personal dilemma. People can overcome many challenges by analyzing them step by arduous step, but leaps of insight are more often associated with out-of-the-box ideas. And though often obvious in hindsight, the revelation can be astounding when it arrives.
Scholars have sought to capture the elusive essence of the aha! moment for more than a century, and it is finally within our grasp. We now know where it happens in the brain and when it’s more likely to happen. And we’re discovering some surprising benefits of insight, including elevated mood, memory and, oddly, the ability to distinguish fake news from real.
[...]
An obvious way to increase insightfulness is therefore to relax and carve out a span of time when you aren’t anxious or rushed. Another way is expansion in space: When you are in a large room or the great outdoors—under a starry sky, as Morgan was—your attention expands to take in the large space. That broadened awareness shifts the mind toward considering the whole rather than the parts, thereby enhancing insightful thinking. Filtering out the world around you can have a similar effect: aha! moments are often preceded by eye blinks and looking away from a problem to reduce distractions. People solve more thinking problems when they close their eyes. In contrast, objects that grab attention will narrow your focus on details and induce you to think analytically.
Steven Smith of Texas A&M University and his collaborators have also shown that if you take a break from a problem to do something else, preferably a relatively undemanding task such as light gardening or housework, any misleading information or misinterpretation will loosen its grip, and you will be more likely to achieve an insight. Kristin Sanders, now at the University of Notre Dame, and Beeman showed that sleep can enhance this process, supporting the many stories of scientists who have experienced great ideas during or right after sleep. Colleen Seifert and David E. Meyer of the University of Michigan and their colleagues reported another benefit of breaks: you may encounter a trigger—a person, a street sign, anything—that can spark an aha! moment because the trigger bears some resemblance to or association with the needed solution.
