No art without craft, but try saying that in an art college these days.

I never said dreaming was unshackled creativity. It has at least one inescapable limit - the highly-connected blob of meat in charge of the whole mess.

Or in the words of Humph, "The teams can say any word they want, limited only by their own imaginations.
... It's stiff, that rule."

Isn't "meatbrain", as implied by your metaphor, something of an oxymoron?

Brains can be made out of meat! [Archive link to www.terrybisson.com]

Agreed that dreams are mostly mashups of one's past life (at least mine are, and it can be confusing to be in 3 countries at once). "An infinite capacity for taking pains" is a lousy definition of genius - that's just control freakery. Much better is "the ability to make connections where none were seen before". Whether those connections are made awake, asleep, or somewhere between really doesn't matter. That begets creativity.

(Pablo) Your second definition is by far the better. And of course these connections are made in effect instantaneously. There just has to be some loose software flopping about in there. Use it well.

I would suggest "the ability to make fruitful connections where none were seen before"

I don't think that I have any real life experience of anyone inserting an inboard marine engine into a golden retriever's arse and setting it off around the dock in a wide loop, saying "Watch this bugger go!"
My dreams baffle me.

(Phil) Got just about enough energy to ROFLMAO.

[Phil] Yeah, that is unusual. Only about 8% of people have that dream.