MIT and Harvard Medical School researchers discovered that the mind is “particularly fertile” during the first few minutes of sleep, the initial period of sleep when a person floats between being awake and asleep.

According to research, persons who were given this prompting, also known as “targeted dream incubation,” produced more imaginative stories than those who napped unprompted or remained up.

“We found a strong effect of ‘sleep onset’ on creativity,” study author and MIT student Kathleen Esfahany said. “When you are prompted to dream about a topic during sleep onset, you can have dream experiences that you can later use for these creative tasks.”

The latest research indicates that during this dream state, the brain creates more extensive connections between dissimilar ideas, which may promote creativity.