TIME speaks with best-selling author Jonah Lehrer about his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works

TIME.com: Best-selling author Jonah Lehrer (Proust Was A Neuroscientist and How We Decide) found himself increasingly drawn to the mystery of creativity a few years ago. “We live in a world surrounded by our own inventions, and yet we really don’t understand how the imagination works,” he explains. “That’s why we’ve always outsourced it to the muses.” Lehrer, no stranger to creativity himself (a Rhodes scholar, he is a contributing editor at Wired and a frequent contributor to the New Yorker), set off on a mission to learn about the subject from scientists and talents alike, “to find connections between the well-controlled conditions in the lab and the real world.” The result is his fascinating new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, which will be No. 1 on the New York Times nonfiction list on Sunday. TIME spoke with Lehrer about the genius of Bob Dylan, the creative benefits of urban friction and the wondrous invention of the Swiffer.