"Higher" is the first single to be lifted from Creed's 1999 album, Human Clay. Vocalist Scott Stapp actually wrote the song about the power of lucid dreaming.

The song was written after Stapp used the technique to stop a recurring nightmare he had been experiencing in which he was pursued and killed by a gunman. In the dream, he would turn left at the end of a highway and hide under a bridge, only to be found by his assailant and shot. When he had studied lucid dreaming and tried the technique, he was able to turn right and escape the gunman. Stapp stated that after he wrote the lyrics, he never had the dream again. "Higher" was Creed's major breakthrough hit which helped to place them firmly in the US pop music mainstream. It peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the issue dated July 22, 2000 and spent a staggering 57 weeks upon the survey, topping both the Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock tallies in the process, as well as charting in the top five on the Adult Top 40.