Five Minutes is all it takes – the moments of inspiration we always wait for, but which rarely come. And when they come, they strike with the force of lightning, with a force that cannot be denied.

The history of invention and discovery is full of occasions when five minutes is all it took to make – and unmake – the world. Indeed, there are many (apocryphal) stories dealing with scientists struck by the 5 minute syndrome, or sudden insight if you will…

Five minutes is all it took to work out the answers to some of the questions that have troubled mankind since the dawn of time. Archimedes ran out of the bathtub (reportedly with nothing on) shouting “Eureka”, and Newton understood the laws of gravitation – supposedly all at once – when an apple fell on the ground while he was sitting under a tree in the countryside.

For the poet, the moment of insight lasts for all of five minutes – moments of lucidity when he is literally transported into another realm. The grand idea, the inspiration that demands to be put down on paper, takes five minutes of our time; and the rest, as they say, is only perspiration! Valmiki was wandering along the banks of a river when he observed two birds (in the prime of life) singing. Suddenly, one bird was struck by a hunter’s arrow, and the other bird burst into loud lamentation. Stunned, Valmiki burst into spontaneous verse, born of sorrow, and the Ramayana is the result!

In deep sleep, in the very embrace of death, we find ourselves in a strange land of vision and dreams – again for the proverbial five minutes. And for these five minutes we truly live – as gods, not as mortal men.

The common link between invention, discovery, literature and dreams is that these are driven by moments of intense creativity - when our random thoughts come together into a coherent whole. Call them brainwaves, or call them leaps of the imagination, these are instants when the force of imagination overcomes inertia. These are spontaneous moments, for these five minutes of creativity cannot be predicted or planned for. In that sense, these five minutes are truly magical moments in our lives.