Who am I thinking of? (inventor trying to remember dreams)

[Munch]

This Steve Wozniak interview made me think of a story. It was of an inventor who was trying to either remember his dreams, or wake himself up from nodding off to keep his train of thought - and he’d do so by holding something heavy in one hand that, when he nodded off, would fall and create a loud noise, rousing him from his near-slumber.

ANYone have any idea what I’m talking about?

[beowulff]

Edison.

[Gesturing_Mildly]

I’d always heard this attributed to Dali. He’d hold a spoon over a pan. Kinda sounds like an urban legend now that I think about it, though.

[Mangetout]

I heard it attributed to Dali too - and that he was deliberately trying to maintain the sense of incoherence that accompanies being half asleep.

[beowulff]

Edison:

Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor, shameless self-promoter, and masterful catnapper. Legend has it that he would sleep in his chair, holding ball bearings in the palms of his hands. After an appropriate number of z’s, he’d relax enough to drop the balls, waking himself up.

Thomas Edison worked furiously in his labs while fully conscious. When he needed a break, he would take “cat naps” while holding onto a steel ball. As his arm started to relax and lower, the ball would drop and make a noise that caused Edison to wake up. He would wake up with a new idea for his projects and continue working.

[KarlGauss]

While not the most authoritative looking cite/site, this web page on Dali states:

Dali would sleep while sitting on a chair with a spoon in his hand. As soon as he falls into a deep sleep, he would drop the spoon, naturally, and wake himself up. At that very moment, whatever was in his mind is what he would sketch on a canvas.

And, FWIW, I’ve also come across that assertion.

[yabob]

Another version attributed to Wiley Post:

The Edmonton-New York leg was 2,044 miles, but the air was smooth, the sky was clear, and Post made most of the flight by his Sperry Autopilot. With his “Mechanical Mike” doing the flying, Post allowed himself to doze from time to time. To make sure that he would do no more than doze, he rigged his “Rube Goldberg” by tying a wrench to a finger with a length of string, holding the wrench in his hand; whenever he slipped off into a sleep deep enough to relax the hand, the wrench fell, jerked his finger, and woke him
up.

[SCSimmons]

I like the take Greg Kinnear’s character has on this in Baby Mama. “I keep this notebook by my bed. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with these ideas out of my dreams, and I jot them all down … They never make a lick of sense.”