Do all of your best ideas come to light just as darkness surrounds you? I can stare for hours at my notebook or at my laptop without a single thought to grab onto. Then, just as I drift off and dream of what could be the scene strikes. It’s never fully developed but it is a dare. Do I get out of the warm confines of my bed to jot down this magnificent unicorn of an idea? Or do I trust myself to remember it come the break of dawn?
I have done both several times, meeting with failure and victory.
Is it because I allow my mind to wander so freely that these thoughts take hold? Is it because my imagination is priming itself for whatever dream I am about to have? I wish I could capture whatever it is I do before I fall to sleep.
The perfect writing trance, it is like nirvana for my creativity. It cannot be created only experienced.
Experience is the best teacher.
Literary.Land.of.Alysia 
I find that inspiration and creativity are most likely to strike me in the shower (because washing your hair is apparently great inspiration lol) or just as I’m about to drift off to sleep. I try to have either my phone or a pad of paper and a pen close by but it’s hard when you’re in the shower. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who experiences this rather inconvenient timing of creativity.
The psychological explanation of the phenomenon is a meeting of conscious and subconscious thoughts/ideas in stage 2 NREM sleep. Your producing alpha waves (I think it’s alpha at that point, can’t quite remember) and you’re sort of awake but sort of sleeping as well. However that’s a very cold clinical way to look at it (just thought you might be interested in it, extra knowledge is always good).
This is why I love blogging- I would have never learned that otherwise- Thanks!
I too have stared at the screen with no result. Most of my inspiration comes from stumbling across something. Sometimes a word or phrase or subject and it just kind of stays around until I formulate it into something. I have often started with a title with no idea where it will take me. Sometimes I create a character and then decide what I am going to do with him. I do know however, once a thought grabs hold, I cannot shake it until I at least start something, forcing me to come back, maybe several times to finish it.
I find that I have some of my best thoughts while I’m not connected to anything. Maybe even at times, when I’m not even doing anything at all. I believe it just come through a very relaxed state of mind whereby I’m receptive to all ideas that come forth. I do enjoy seeing how those ideas unfold, kind of like a state of meditation š