Crossing the invisible line: De-differentiation of wake, sleep and dreaming may engender both creative insight and psychopathology

•Identifies a possible de-differentiated state of consciousness.•Proposes a common evolutionary origin for creative insight and psychopathologies.•Distinguishes creative insight from non-insight creativity.

Writing about dreaming, the poet Raymond Carver said “I feel as if I've crossed some kind of invisible line”. In creative people, the “line” between wake, dreaming and psychopathology may be porous, engendering a de-differentiated, super-critical, hybrid state. Evidence exists for a relationship between creativity and psychopathology but its nature has been elusive. De-differentiation between wake, sleep and dreaming may be the common substrate, as dream-like cognition pervades wake and wake-like neurophysiology suffuses sleep. Chaos theory posits brain states as inherently labile, transient and dynamically unstable. Over and above transient dissociations, an enduring and, sometimes, progressive, de-differentiation may be possible. Evidence indicates that sleep and dreaming facilitate creative insight. In consequence, a mild to moderate form of de-differentiation may enhance creativity but if wake-like neurobiology permeates sleep this may disrupt sleep-dependent memory processing and emotional regulation. If de-differentiation is progressive and enduring, various forms of psychopathology may result.