in my experience im more "creative" late at night (in the sense of like drawing things outside of my comfort zone or w/e) because once i get tired enough i just kinda stop caring. most of the time im too much of a perfectionist to really comfortably draw whatever i want but if im sleep deprived im just like, forget it lets draw uhhhh komaeda self ship art who gives a stuff no one can stop me
although thats kind of specific i guess and maybe not to do with being creative in general. still tho i have that same reluctance to draw anything that im not already confident in my ability to draw even if its not at all Out There and i dont have that anxiety to the same degree when im tired. i may be slightly less good at drawing when im really tired but im better at taking the ideas i have and actually getting them onto paper because my perfectionism shuts off somewhat
and i figure that applies to other people too to some degree? im not eloquent enough to explain this but i read a post about it sometime like once u get tired enough youre less over-critical of your art so its easier to actually make it
also as for being more creative when you arent able to create things id think its just because wanting to make something and actually making something are two different things. if you literally dont have the ability to draw something (or create whatever idk im just saying drawing because Thats me) then you dont have to worry about it if that makes sense
when im like on a car ride and i cant do anything i can think about a bunch of things i want to draw and thats fun but actually sitting down and drawing, if its something im particularly bad at/not confident in, is. less fun. and just takes more effort, in general
plus it makes sense, if you really have nothing else to do then youre probably going to end up just thinking, and once you have other things to do youre probably going to end up doing other things. Procrastination