“Great artists and original thinkers often seem instinctually drawn to the darker hours,” writes Eric Jaffe in his article “Why Creativity Thrives in the Dark.” A recent study conducted by Anna Steidel and Lioba Werth shows that there’s a reason for this trend: “when the lights switch off, something in the brain switches on.”

The idea is that dark places suggest an uninhibited freedom that loosens our thoughts, and that bright places suggest a compliance that restrains them.