To develop Wayne's response further, I would speculate that many great human accomplishments are birthed from steady development followed by sudden insight. Some examples that come to mind are... Beethoven was said to stay up for days when composing, and supposedly generated some of his most famous and successful work in a trance-like exhaustive state. Many professional athletes claim that after an intense amount of training, that when the actual competition takes place, they sometimes enter "the zone", or a point of intense concentration and physical control. Greek philosophers of antiquity were allegedly to have shouted "Eureka!" when experiencing an epiphany or other great insight of thought. As Wayne said, the work and accomplishment of many scientists have followed similar patterns. Speaking from my personal experience as a writer, "moments of inspiration" oft come when you least expect it, and are something best captured when they do occur. In essence, I agree with you, Jane, that all of this phenomenon could very well be rooted to the same basic mental state, where the human brain focuses itself, with its billions of signals firing every minute, long enough to produce a desirable outcome (kill the hunted beast, write a work of art, score the touch down, make a scientific discovery, etc, etc). It will be interesting to see what all is discovered as neurological research continues. Derek
