TS Eliot was ahead of his time in recognizing the role of mind wandering in creative incubation, which he referred to as "idea maturation"(?) in his 1933 work The Use of Poetry and the use of Criticism. Eliot argued that creativity required an "incubation period" during which the mind could unconsciously process preexisting ideas--and for this reason, he believed that illnesses forcing the artist to take to bed and avoid the usual distractions of their daily routines could be surprisingly beneficial for creative work.