"Does our brain work like a computer putting tasks into background mode?
How many times do we rack our brain for an answer that eludes us, only to
have it pop out sometime later when we've totally forgotten that we were
ever thinking about it in the first place? Like the chemical messages have
taken the round trip to Jupiter to get to where the answer's stored. Like
the core story of B5 just popped into JMS' head one day. The way I go home
from work with a nagging problem and find the answer pops into my head
when I wake up the next day."


Absolutely. Often I'll hit a snag in a script, and I'll go away and
deliberately *not* think about it, letting the subconscious chew at it
like a dog worrying a bone. Then, usually about the time my head hits the
pillow -- having finally relaxed -- the answer comes back as if of its own
volition. Same thing happens in the shower.

I nowhere "saw" this process at work more clearly than when I fell prey to
Tetris (from which I'm still trying to recover). I'd often play it late
at night, just before going to bed. As I closed my eyes to sleep, I'd
still be seeing those damned green and yellow L-shapes, the blocks and
lines...my brain was still adjusting the pieces, seeing ways of making
them fit that I'd overlooked before. Because my brain had a visual
referent, I could *see* it happening behind my eyelids.

Which is exactly what we all do in problem solving.

Humans is funny critters....


jms