Critical Brain Hypothesis
The thing that happens with salt happens with thoughts. ‘Critical Brain Hypothesis states that the brain is continuously transitioning between two phases, one in which activity will rapidly reduce and die, and another where activity will build up and amplify over time’ (Wikipedia).
An example from my own experience is that making sculptures, I have so often felt this self-organised criticality at work in my brain. You think and draw and read and watch, your mind and mind’s eye dart around in different directions and then quite suddenly, POP! a fully-formed idea stands squarely in your brain.
The ‘Eureka!’ moment is this.