In a recent University of Sydney study,42 researchers relied on transcranial magnetic stimulation to induce flow—using a weak magnetic pulse to knock out the prefrontal cortex and create a twenty-to-forty-minute flow state. Subjects were then given a classic test of creative problem solving: the nine-dot problem. Connect nine dots with four lines without lifting pencil from paper in ten minutes. Under normal circumstances, fewer than 5 percent of the population pulls it off. In the control group, no one did. In the flow-induced group, 40 percent connected the dots in record time, or eight
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