This may be a bit of a tangent, but one of my favorite recording artists, Grimes, has said after her breakout album Halfaxa that shutting herself away for 10 days or more without any contact was vital to experiencing the "visions" which gave rise to her music... the recount I heard, did not seem happy, but necessary.

Oh, that the secret does lie within us, and that we must cross a frozen field to arrive at it. Who knows