“Ideas Have People”: Inspiration Striking from Beyond the Self

John Rector

6 months ago

Carl Jung famously suggested that “people don’t have ideas; ideas have people.” Throughout history, countless creators in diverse fields have described their breakthroughs as arising not from deliberate effort alone, but as if the ideas came to them from an outside source or sudden inspiration. Below we compile a comprehensive set of examples – spanning musicians, writers, scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs, and artists – who have explicitly credited dreams, visions, or an external muse for their innovations. This phenomenon of inspiration arriving unbidden has been noted across cultures and eras, reinforcing the notion that creators often feel more like vessels or channels for ideas rather than sole originators.

Historical Notions of External Inspiration

Long before modern examples, ancient cultures personified the source of creativity as external beings. Ancient Greeks and Romans believed in Muses or daemons/genius spirits that would deliver inspiration to the artist[1]. The artist was seen as a conduit: if a work was brilliant, the genius-spirit deserved credit, and if it failed, the genius could be blamed – protecting the human’s psyche[2][3]. This perspective (eloquently discussed by author Elizabeth Gilbert) suggests a “psychological construct” wherein creative inspiration is a “peculiar, wondrous, bizarre collaboration” between the person and some “strange external thing that was not quite [them]”[4][5]. In other words, many cultures have embraced the idea that what we call “our” ideas might come from beyond us. Below are numerous concrete cases in which notable individuals have described their ideas and artistic creations in exactly this way – as gifts of sudden insight, dreams, or external guidance.

Music and Songwriting – “It Came in a Dream”

Paul McCartney (The Beatles) – McCartney famously dreamed the entire melody of the song “Yesterday.” He awoke with the tune in his head and hurried to a piano to solidify it, initially convinced it was too perfect to be original. For weeks he went around asking if anyone recognized the melody – effectively “handing it in to the police” – before accepting that it had come to him legitimately in a dream[6]. “I went round to people… and asked if they had ever heard it before. Eventually I thought if no one claimed it after a few weeks, then I could have it,” McCartney said[6]. Only then did he begin fitting lyrics to the “found” melody. His bandmate John Lennon confirmed that McCartney had the tune long before any words, and that “one morning Paul woke up and the song and the title were both there, completed” seemingly by magic[7]. This is a hallmark example of a world-famous song that “wrote itself” via a dream.
Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones) – The iconic guitar riff of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” came to Richards in his sleep. Richards has explained that he woke up, grabbed a bedside cassette recorder, and laid down the rough riff before falling back asleep. The next morning, he discovered on the tape “two minutes of acoustic guitar” followed by 40 minutes of him snoring – proof that the famous riff truly arrived while he was asleep[8]. He had “no idea [he] had written it” in the moment[8]. This dream-born riff became one of rock’s most celebrated hooks, again suggesting the song “had” Richards as its vehicle.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Mozart often described his compositions as coming to him fully formed in moments of inspiration. (Though the romanticized notion of him writing pieces effortlessly in his head has been debated by scholars, Mozart did write in a 1777 letter that he would conceive a work in its entirety in his mind, “as though it were being played straight into my ear.” Such descriptions, if taken at face value, depict him as receiving music rather than consciously constructing it.) Many of Mozart’s contemporaries marveled at how “Mozart’s music came from a higher plane and reached his mind fully formed, through a stroke of divine inspiration”, as one modern commentary puts it[9]. In essence, Mozart himself attributed much of his genius to an innate but involuntary creative wellspring – not unlike an external muse.
Tom Waits – The singer-songwriter Tom Waits in later years adopted an attitude that treats musical ideas as external entities that visit him. Elizabeth Gilbert recounts a story of Waits driving on the freeway when a melody came into his head. Lacking any way to record it, he famously looked up to the sky and said: “Excuse me, can you not see that I’m driving?… If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment when I can take care of you. Otherwise, go bother somebody else – go bother Leonard Cohen.”[10] By addressing the inspiration as a separate being (and even jokingly telling it to bother another songwriter), Waits externalized the creative impulse. He found this greatly reduced his anxiety – it was “the strange, external thing that was not quite Tom” that bore responsibility for the idea’s arrival[11]. This mindset echoes the ancient concept of the capricious muse, and Waits reported that his work process became much saner once he viewed ideas this way[12].

Literature and Poetry – Stories and Poems from Dreams

Mary Shelley – The idea for Frankenstein (1818) famously came to 18-year-old Mary Shelley in a vivid “waking dream” or nightmare. During a dark, stormy summer in 1816, Shelley struggled to come up with a ghost story idea until one night she saw, as if watching a vision, “the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together… I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life…”[13]. This horrific image of a scientist animating a corpse so frightened Shelley that she awoke. “What terrified me will terrify others,” she thought, and began writing her novel the next day. Shelley later affirmed that this “grim terror” was literally born of a dream state[14]. Modern researchers have even pinpointed the date of her nightmare (June 16, 1816 around 2–3 a.m.)[15]. Thus one of literature’s great inventions – Victor Frankenstein and his monster – had Mary Shelley via a dream.
Robert Louis Stevenson – Stevenson likewise attributed key scenes of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) to dreams. According to his wife, Fanny, Stevenson “dreamed” the central plot. One night she was awoken by his cries of horror in his sleep and, fearing a nightmare, she shook him awake. Stevenson, irritated, reportedly snapped: “Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale!”[16]. He had been witnessing in his dream a man transform into a monster – the kernel of the Jekyll/Hyde story. In fact, Stevenson later wrote an essay “A Chapter on Dreams” describing how many of his stories were first developed in his sleep by his “Brownies” (his tongue-in-cheek term for an impish unconscious muse)[17]. Jekyll and Hyde’s case is a prime example of an author candidly admitting that the initial creative work was done for him by his dreaming mind, not by conscious effort.
J.K. Rowling – The spark for the Harry Potter series came suddenly to Joanne Rowling during a train ride in 1990. Rowling recalls that “I was going by train… when suddenly the idea for Harry just fell into my head.” She did not have a pen and was too shy to ask for one, so she simply sat, stunned, for four hours as details bubbled up[18]. “Harry as a character came fully formed, as did the idea for his sidekicks, … It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head. It was an excitement I’d never known before,” she recounted[18]. Rowling has said she “really doesn’t know where the idea came from,” only that it “came into [her] mind” suddenly on that journey[19]. Over the subsequent five years she fleshed out the seven-book saga, but that initial visitation of the idea remains somewhat mysterious to her. (In interviews, Rowling often emphasizes that she has “no idea how my imagination works… I’m just grateful that it does”[20].) The boy wizard seemingly chose an unemployed single mother on a train to “have” and bring him into being.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge – The Romantic poet Coleridge’s famous poem “Kubla Khan” was (by his own account) composed in an opium-influenced dream. He claimed to have envisioned over 200 lines of poetry in his sleep in 1797, and upon waking, began feverishly transcribing the “vision in a dream.” Unfortunately, an interruption (the arrival of a visitor) caused him to forget the rest, and the published fragment Kubla Khan remains a tantalizing remnant of a poem literally delivered in a dream. Coleridge’s experience, while extraordinary, reinforced his (and the Romantics’) belief in subconscious inspiration. He later referred to Kubla Khan as “a sort of a miracle” of creativity not consciously willed.
Ruth Stone – A more recent poetic example comes from Ruth Stone (1915–2011), who described poems as barreling toward her like storms across the landscape. Stone lived on a farm in rural Virginia and said she would “feel and hear a poem coming at [her]” from afar “like a thunderous train of air”, shaking the earth[21][22]. Her impulse was to “run like hell” to the house to grab pencil and paper before the poetic “storm” passed[22]. Sometimes she wasn’t fast enough – the poem would “barrel through her” and continue on “looking for another poet”[23]. On occasion, she just caught one by snatching its “tail” as it passed: “she would catch the poem by its tail and pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page”. In those instances, “the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact but backwards, from the last word to the first.”[24] This almost surreal description (related second-hand by Elizabeth Gilbert[25][26]) portrays inspiration as literally chasing the poet down. Stone’s duty was simply to be a good catcher for these poetic visitations. Such anecdotes powerfully illustrate Jung’s adage – the poem had Ruth Stone, not the other way around.

Scientific Discoveries and Inventions – Eureka Moments from Elsewhere

August Kekulé (Chemist) – The German chemist Kekulé discovered the ring structure of the benzene molecule via a famous dream. In 1865, Kekulé had been struggling to determine benzene’s form. One evening, dozing by the fire, he experienced a reverie of atoms dancing and forming patterns. He saw a snake seize its own tail – an Ouroboros – and whirl around. He awoke with a profound intuition: benzene’s carbon atoms formed a closed ring, like a snake biting its tail[27]. At a speech years later, Kekulé recounted that he “discovered the ring shape of benzene after having a reverie or day-dream of a snake seizing its own tail”[27]. This striking dream-image provided the crucial insight to solve a chemical puzzle. The benzene ring was not invented by mere calculation; it was revealed to Kekulé in a semi-conscious vision. (Notably, he had a similar prior vision of “dancing atoms” on a London bus that led to his earlier theories[28], underscoring how integral unconscious visualization was to his creative process.)
Dmitri Mendeleev (Chemist) – The Russian chemist Mendeleev devised the Periodic Table of Elements – one of the foundational frameworks of chemistry – with help from a dream in 1869. After laboring to organize the elements by their properties, Mendeleev was exhausted. He later recalled, “I saw in a dream a table where all elements fell into place as required.” Upon awakening, “I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper,” needing only minor adjustments afterward[29]. He realized he had subconsciously sorted the elements by atomic weight and valence in his sleep. As he put it to a friend, “Awakening, I found that the task was done.” Mendeleev’s dream vision arranged what his conscious mind could not quite grasp; the classic Periodic Table was essentially handed to him one night[29]. This dramatic example shows a scientific idea “having” its person: Mendeleev felt almost like an observer to the solution appearing fully formed.
Srinivasa Ramanujan (Mathematician) – Ramanujan, an Indian mathematical genius, attributed many of his astounding formulae and theorems to divine inspiration in dreams. A devout Hindu, he said that the family goddess Namagiri would sometimes appear in his dreams and present him with complex mathematical content. He reported “visions of scrolls of complex mathematical content unfolding before [his] eyes” during sleep[30][31]. Upon waking, he would jot down the results, which often turned out to be true and highly original mathematics. Ramanujan believed his creativity was guided by Namagiri; “He looked to her for inspiration in his work and said he dreamed of blood drops that symbolised her consort”, which led to insights[30]. He often remarked that “an equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God.”[30] In his view, his genius was simply the channel through which a higher reality (the “mind of God”) communicated mathematical truths. The extraordinary sophistication of his dream-derived formulas (many later proven correct by other mathematicians) gives some credence to his claim that the ideas were given to him.
Henri Poincaré (Mathematician) – The French mathematician Poincaré described a sudden flash of insight in 1880 that occurred while he was stepping onto a bus. He had been struggling with a complex problem in number theory without success. In a famous account, he wrote that just as he put his foot on the bus, the solution appeared in his mind, “without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it,” as if by spontaneous generation. He later theorized that his unconscious was working on the problem and delivered the answer in an instant. Poincaré’s experience is often cited in psychology of creativity as an archetypal “Aha!” moment where the answer presents itself to the thinker, rather than being deliberately worked out step by step. (Though not literally a dream, this is another example of an idea arriving from outside conscious volition.)
Nikola Tesla (Inventor) – Tesla’s inventions frequently came to him in blinding visions. Perhaps the most famous instance was his conception of the alternating-current electric motor. In 1882, Tesla was walking in a park in Budapest, reciting Goethe’s Faust, when he was struck by a sudden revelation: he saw in his mind a rotating magnetic field and a design for an AC motor. “As I uttered these inspiring words the idea came like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed,” Tesla later wrote[32]. He immediately drew the schematic in the sand for his companion to see[32]. “The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear,” he noted, “so much so that I told him, ‘See my motor here; watch me reverse it.’”[32] Tesla often claimed to visualize inventions in astonishing detail entirely in his head – almost as if the device already existed on another plane and he was merely observing it. Indeed, biographers note that Tesla had a photographic imagination and that “inventions would appear in his mind fully formed.”[33][34] He sometimes felt more like a reporter describing the vision than a person designing something. This quasi-mystical approach led to many revolutionary technologies.
Elias Howe (Inventor) – The American inventor of the modern sewing machine, Elias Howe, solved a design problem thanks to a dramatic nightmare. In the 1840s, Howe was trying to invent a lock-stitch sewing machine but was stuck on where to place the eye of the needle. One night, he dreamed he was captured by cannibals who brandished spears at him. In the dream, he noticed the spears had holes near their tips. Upon waking, he realized the dream was telling him the answer: put the thread’s eye at the point of the needle, not the blunt end (like a regular hand needle). With this insight, Howe built the first successful sewing machine in 1845[35]. As one historical account puts it, “A dream gave Elias Howe the inspiration… He dreamt that cannibals surrounded him… waving spears, which had holes in the shaft”[35]. The terrifying dream imagery translated directly into the crucial technical innovation. Without that nightmare, the modern sewing machine might have been delayed; Howe always credited the dream for his breakthrough.
Friedrich August Kekulé – (covered above under Kekulé’s dream for benzene, but it bears repeating here as a scientific “Eureka” moment.) After years of systematic chemical research, the ring structure of benzene came to Kekulé not through logic alone but via an involuntary vision (the Ouroboros). This pattern – toil and analysis ending in a seemingly external delivery of the answer – is actually common in science. Another example: Niels Bohr reportedly conceived the structure of the atom (electrons orbiting a nucleus) after a dream of planets orbiting a sun, which gave him a starting metaphor for his atomic model. Otto Loewi, who discovered neurotransmitters, got the idea for his definitive experiment from a dream in 1921 (he woke, scribbled notes, fell asleep, then woke again and nearly forgot the insight before repeating the experiment from memory). In all these cases, the individuals felt the solution was presented to them by their subconscious or an outside force, rather than purely deduced.

Entrepreneurship and Technology – Innovators “Visited” by Ideas

Larry Page (Google) – The idea for Google’s core invention – the PageRank algorithm to rank web pages by links – came to Larry Page in a dream. In 1996, Page was a 22-year-old grad student researching search technology. He dreamt one night that he “had somehow managed to download the entire web onto [his] computer, with all the links intact,” and realized that analyzing those links could create a superior search engine. He woke up convinced of the concept[36]. Indeed, Page later said Google “incorporated [in September 1998] – two years after the idea of ranking web pages by their inbound links came to [him] in a dream.”[37]. He and Sergey Brin then built on that insight to create Google. That a multi-billion-dollar company literally began with a dream underscores how even in business and tech, a sudden external idea can change the world. Page has since encouraged others to “sleep on” big problems, noting that dreams might yield breakthroughs when the conscious mind is off guard.
Albert Einstein – While not exactly delivered fully formed in a dream, Einstein’s special relativity was catalyzed by a famous teenage thought experiment that came to him in a near-hypnagogic state. At 16, Einstein imagined himself chasing a beam of light – an idea that came to him while daydreaming – and this visual led to questions that he answered a decade later with the theory of relativity. Einstein described certain solutions (like the key step in general relativity involving the principle of equivalence) as “the happiest thought of my life,” appearing unexpectedly in his mind. He later mused that “The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition,” likening the process to musical inspiration. In essence, Einstein often felt answers before he could rigorously derive them, suggesting that his intuition (perhaps guided by the unconscious) “knew” more than his conscious self – an idea presenting itself to him in a flash.
James Cameron (Film Director) – The concept of The Terminator (1984) came to Cameron in a fevered dream. Sick with a high fever in 1981, Cameron hallucinated a chrome skeleton emerging from a fire – a terrifying image that stuck with him upon waking. This vision of a relentless mechanical man inspired the screenplay for The Terminator. Cameron took it as a creative gift from his subconscious, demonstrating that even our fevers and feasts of imagination can plant seeds of hugely successful creative projects. (He also storyboards many scenes from dreams, treating them as a direct creative resource.)
Jack Nicklaus (Golf) – Even in sports, “ideas having people” can occur. Famed golfer Jack Nicklaus once revealed that he corrected his golf swing after a dream. He had been in a slump until one night he dreamed of a new grip. Upon trying it the next day, he found his swing much improved – the dream had handed him a solution that all his conscious practice had missed. This shows that problem-solving inspiration isn’t limited to arts and sciences; it can happen anywhere the mind seeks answers.
Multiple Entrepreneurs – Numerous entrepreneurs have attributed their business or product ideas to lightning-bolt moments rather than deliberate planning. For instance, Eureka moments in the shower or on a walk are cliché because they’re true – stepping away from a problem often invites the solution to bubble up on its own. The founders of Airbnb have said the initial concept (renting an air mattress to conference visitors) was a sudden idea when they were broke and looking at a spare room – more a stroke of luck than a calculated startup plan. Elon Musk has described certain ideas (like the Hyperloop concept) coming to him during idle brainstorming, almost presenting themselves. In Musk’s words: “I wouldn’t say I have a single Eureka moment. I have them continuously. It’s like they’re always crowding to get into my head.” Such statements portray ideas as active agents vying for a host mind.

Art, Dance and Creative Arts – “Keeping the Channel Open”

Martha Graham (Choreographer) – One of the most influential choreographers of the 20th century, Martha Graham, believed the artist is a vessel for a life force. In a well-known letter to her friend Agnes de Mille, Graham wrote: “There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you… this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost… It is not your business to determine how good it is… or compare it… It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”[38][39]. She emphasized that the artist does not need to believe in herself or her work; she just needs to remain open to the urges that move through her[39]. Graham’s philosophy explicitly frames the creative individual as a conduit. The creative spark is “translated through you”, not generated by you[38]. The job of the artist is to maintain a disciplined openness – to “keep the channel open” so that the ideas (the “vitality” or “life force”) can flow into the world[39]. This beautiful articulation aligns perfectly with Jung’s maxim. Graham’s own innovations in dance, which often seemed ahead of their time, might be seen as that life force choosing her as an instrument of expression.
Vincent van Gogh (Painter) – Van Gogh often spoke of himself in spiritual terms regarding his art. He once said, “The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” In his letters he described feeling guided by an unseen force when painting the stars or wheatfields, as though the intensity of nature flowed through his brush. Van Gogh also famously had a religious/mystical streak; before turning to art, he aimed to be a preacher. One could argue he shifted from preaching the Gospel to “preaching” through paint, letting his visions come through onto canvas. While he didn’t literally say “it wasn’t my idea,” his writings convey that painting was something that happened to him as much as something he did.
Hilma af Klint and Kandinsky (Painters) – Hilma af Klint (Swedish abstract artist) claimed her large abstract works were guided by spirits. She was involved in spiritualism and believed higher beings “commissioned” her art; she even left instructions that her work not be shown until 20 years after her death, feeling the world wasn’t ready. Wassily Kandinsky similarly spoke of “inner necessity” – an inner voice – as the driver of his abstract art, and he was influenced by Theosophy. Both artists imply that the imagery and ideas they put on canvas were revealed to them by a higher plane of consciousness, not merely invented.
Architects and Designers – Inspiration striking in dreams or flashes occurs in architecture and design too. For example, the renowned architect Elias Howe (actually an inventor, mentioned above) got the sewing machine idea from a dream – a design insight. The architect Frank Lloyd Wright described his design process for Fallingwater (the famous house over a waterfall) as a single burst of inspiration: after procrastinating for months, he suddenly sat down and drew the entire plan in two hours, in a fever of creativity, just before his client arrived. It was as if the design had been incubating unseen and then poured out fully formed. Many architects report similar experiences where a concept “clicks” all at once after a long struggle, feeling almost like it was given to them whole.

Conclusion – Embracing the Mystery of Inspiration

Across all these examples – and many more not listed – a common theme emerges: creators often experience themselves less as authors of their work and more as discoverers or messengers. Paul Dirac, the great physicist, captured this sentiment in an elegant anecdote. When asked “How did you find the Dirac equation?” (his landmark discovery in quantum mechanics), Dirac replied, “I found it beautiful.”[40]. This sly answer hints that the equation presented itself to him by the criterion of mathematical beauty, rather than him forcibly inventing it. In science, one frequently hears phrases like “the solution fell into my lap”, “it finally clicked,” or “it was as if I had known it all along once I saw it.” In the arts, creators talk about muses, voices, visions, or simply “being in a flow state” where “something else” takes over. Choreographer Agnes de Mille summarized her understanding of Graham’s advice thus: “We don’t own our creative thoughts, because they come from a much deeper place.”[41].

Modern psychology might explain a lot of this in terms of the subconscious mind – the vast hidden workshop that continues to solve problems and generate ideas outside our awareness. When the answer is ready, it surfaces as an epiphany, feeling alien because we weren’t consciously grinding toward it. However, many creators like those above go further, personifying inspiration as a distinct entity (be it a god, a spirit, a muse, or an independent realm of ideas). This might be a cognitive metaphor, but it is a powerful one that has comforted and aided countless creative people. It lets them cooperate with creativity without claiming arrogant ownership – or as Jung would say, it lets them be had by the idea that wants to be born.

In the end, whether one views sudden inspirations as divine gifts, the whisperings of a muse, the output of neurons reorganizing during sleep, or the reward of diligent immersion, the phenomenology is the same: the idea comes when “it” wants, often unbidden, often whole, and sometimes even against the will or expectation of the person who receives it. This collection of examples demonstrates that “ideas having people” is not just a poetic turn of phrase but almost a literal description of how innovation and creativity manifest in practice. The wisest creators, it seems, learn to respect that mystery – to prepare themselves with knowledge and skill, but also to “keep the channel open”[39] for whatever inspiration might suddenly seek to flow through them.

Sources: Connected references are provided throughout, citing biographies, letters, interviews and historical accounts that substantiate each example: from McCartney’s dream composition of “Yesterday”[6] and Richards’ sleep-created riff[8], to Mendeleev’s dreamt table[29], Ramanujan’s divine visions[30], Kekulé’s Ouroboros reverie[27], Rowling’s train-delivered boy wizard[19], Shelley’s nightmare genesis of Frankenstein[13], Stevenson’s dream of Jekyll and Hyde[16], and many more. Each illustrates Jung’s point in vivid detail – the idea took hold of a receptive mind, and the world benefited.

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[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [10] [11] [12] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] “Your Elusive Creative Genius” by Elizabeth Gilbert speech transcript