Another favorite pastime was digging a tunnel under his home; he attributed the secret of his success to “visits by elves” while he worked in the tunnel: “While I’m digging in the tunnel, the elves will often come to me with solutions to my problem.”
Wikipedia cited a rather entertaining Time article as a citation for this.
I’m pretty sure he was kidding about the elves. In the article he says:
It’s a common technique when dealing with a difficult research/creative problem.
I think it gives your subconscious a chance to work on the problem without your conscious mind interfering.
There’s a sort of labyrinth called Troy Town labyrinths that supposedly have the effect of solving problems for anyone who walks it. It’s obviously pseudo numble jumble, but there might be something to it.
It’s not a labyrinth as such, because there’s only one route from the entrance to the center and no choices to be made. It’s laid out so that the turns go both left and right and the length varies between turns.
Walking through it requires very little thinking and is not super exciting, but the changes ln direction at unpredictable times are enough to keep the consciousness occupied so the subconscious mind can get to work.
Historically they were used for worshipping, which aligns with the idea of getting revelations.
I’m not sure if it’s better or worse than a regular walk in the park, but I think there’s a point to it, because it removes all conscious choices and gets you into the zone of just “doing” something, allowing the brain to work without interference.
Try it, if you can find one.
Neat
I found this description interesting.
https://www.labyrinthia.dk/trojaborg-labyrinths/