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PhilGoetz comments on Brute-force Music Composition - Less Wrong
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I had exactly the same problem - and with the same strange exception: Music sometimes start to flow through my head just before I fall asleep, in multipart harmony.
I'd be interested in any ideas as to what makes this mental state different, and how to cultivate it.
I find it's easier to imagine novel music if I restrict myself to a particular genre+style. Just settling on the instruments helps a lot.
Usually just being tired and stopping myself from falling asleep is enough. But nothing I hear this way can be written down, as if it's another type of music altogether.
I've found the same thing with any kind of composition. And with many kinds of problems, adding constraints (e.g. choosing an instrument or form in music, choosing rhyme or meter in poetry), even arbitrary constraints, actually makes them easier to solve. More on this in the future.
Mark Rosewater says, all the time, that restrictions breed creativity.
I have no musical ability, but I find that my creativity is greatly heightened when I'm trying to fall asleep, and, to a lesser extent, when I wake up in the morning. I'm tempted to say that a small part of the reason is just that my head is getting more blood when I'm horizontal... but there's probably some chemical thing going on too.