One of the most essential tools in my creative arsenal is what I can refer to as "unconscious creativity".
No, I do not ask someone to brain me with a hammer and I don’t have to be actually unconscious. This is when I simply allow my unconscious mind to do all the heavy lifting for me in creative manners. It is the use of this method that has permitted me to write very quickly when working as a newspaper reporter and to create several books while I was working full time and at the same time,schooling.
This method notably falls back on the age-old advice to “sleep on a problem”. Have you ever been worried about a decision or even struggling to remember something important before going to bed only to wake up the next morning with the answer clearly embossed in your mind as if it was a gift from the gods? It is a gift of sort, but no outside agency delivered it to you. The answer was given to you by your greatest creative ally-your subconscious mind.
Unconscious creativity uses the power of the subconscious mind. The simplest technique is incubation, where after thinking about the challenge consciously for some time, it is put to one side and left for a while. Often a solution will come up into your mind unbidden, as your mind continues to work on the problem below your level of consciousness.
The human brain is a beautiful, highly-functional device and yet we under-utilize its power. Our subconscious mind does wonderful things for us. It helps with our daily coordination needed for useful activities such as walking, eating, breathing, driving. It helps us to store memories and it keeps a check on those things that are truly essential to us (our values), it reminds us what we believe. Most of the time it does these things without us even having to consciously think about it – that’s why it is called the unconscious, by the way!
However, it does something even more wonderful: it is able to sift and sort vast quantities of information (things we have seen, heard, said, felt, smelt, tasted) and recognize patterns and generate ways of responding. It sometimes does this in amazingly creative ways. We often overlook the capability of our subconscious mind and instead let it worry about such insignificant thing as our dental hygienist’s name and whether or not we remembered to buy peanut butter. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Using the subconscious mind as a creative tool is very simple.
Spend some time consciously thinking about your writing challenge. What are the parameters of the project you are executing? What are the special requirements? What ideas do you have already? What specific questions do you need to work on further? Sometimes even spending some time jotting down the ideas you have is a very good idea. Don’t work on shaping or organizing them. Just record them on paper or computer file. You may not even need them later, but the process of recording them can be very helpful to prepare your subconscious mind for its task.
Then forget about it! That’s right. Move on with your life and consciously think about something else. Revise another project. Read something either for education or pleasure.
The incubation time varies depending on your creative personality and of course the size of the project at hand. I’ve found a few days usually works best although even giving myself a few hours can be beneficial. Doing something physical is often helpful during the incubation period and sometimes this is the only time I really get my gardening or housework accomplished!
When I am working on a novel I allow my subconscious mind to work scene by scene through the book and often when I sit down at the computer I find the words just flow throw mind as the scene plays itself in my head almost like a movie. I have heard of several writers who are able to program their dreams so they are literally writing in their sleep. Dreams can be as vivid as a painting, as resonant as music, and as symbolic as poetry. Using this method I can often write a scene a day (sometimes in less than an hour) which is fairly decent progress while simultaneously working full-time and maintaining a life.
While it is often frightening to think about trusting something as important as the writing project of your heart to your subconscious mind, it might help to remember that your brain is a muscle of sorts. Your subconscious mind controls many muscle functions for you all the time (try thinking about the way that you walk while you actually walk. I always trip when I think too much about the action of walking and yet I don’t trip when I’m not thinking about it.)
The same is true for great athletes. They talk about being in the zone. The zone is simply the place where they can act and react without consciously thinking about what needs to be done. The body and subconscious mind handle all the details. Thinking too hard can actually interfere with the zone and this is true of writing as well. Interestingly, a recent study of professional and amateur golfers showed that the amateur golfers had significantly more conscious activity when playing a shot than did the professionals. I would bet something similar would result if experienced and novice writers were studied.
So give unconscious creativity a try and see how far it takes you. Simply program your subconscious mind and then leave it alone to incubate for a while. It may take some time to find the method of tapping into your subconscious mind after your incubation period.Some free writings serve to unlock the fruits of your unconscious labor. Usually, I sit myself down and begin the task at hand. It is often very slow at first but I force myself forward and at some point my subconscious mind kicks in and the words start flowing and the keyboard starts clicking away.
Best of luck with your writing!
No, I do not ask someone to brain me with a hammer and I don’t have to be actually unconscious. This is when I simply allow my unconscious mind to do all the heavy lifting for me in creative manners. It is the use of this method that has permitted me to write very quickly when working as a newspaper reporter and to create several books while I was working full time and at the same time,schooling.
This method notably falls back on the age-old advice to “sleep on a problem”. Have you ever been worried about a decision or even struggling to remember something important before going to bed only to wake up the next morning with the answer clearly embossed in your mind as if it was a gift from the gods? It is a gift of sort, but no outside agency delivered it to you. The answer was given to you by your greatest creative ally-your subconscious mind.
Unconscious creativity uses the power of the subconscious mind. The simplest technique is incubation, where after thinking about the challenge consciously for some time, it is put to one side and left for a while. Often a solution will come up into your mind unbidden, as your mind continues to work on the problem below your level of consciousness.
The human brain is a beautiful, highly-functional device and yet we under-utilize its power. Our subconscious mind does wonderful things for us. It helps with our daily coordination needed for useful activities such as walking, eating, breathing, driving. It helps us to store memories and it keeps a check on those things that are truly essential to us (our values), it reminds us what we believe. Most of the time it does these things without us even having to consciously think about it – that’s why it is called the unconscious, by the way!
However, it does something even more wonderful: it is able to sift and sort vast quantities of information (things we have seen, heard, said, felt, smelt, tasted) and recognize patterns and generate ways of responding. It sometimes does this in amazingly creative ways. We often overlook the capability of our subconscious mind and instead let it worry about such insignificant thing as our dental hygienist’s name and whether or not we remembered to buy peanut butter. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Using the subconscious mind as a creative tool is very simple.
Spend some time consciously thinking about your writing challenge. What are the parameters of the project you are executing? What are the special requirements? What ideas do you have already? What specific questions do you need to work on further? Sometimes even spending some time jotting down the ideas you have is a very good idea. Don’t work on shaping or organizing them. Just record them on paper or computer file. You may not even need them later, but the process of recording them can be very helpful to prepare your subconscious mind for its task.
Then forget about it! That’s right. Move on with your life and consciously think about something else. Revise another project. Read something either for education or pleasure.
The incubation time varies depending on your creative personality and of course the size of the project at hand. I’ve found a few days usually works best although even giving myself a few hours can be beneficial. Doing something physical is often helpful during the incubation period and sometimes this is the only time I really get my gardening or housework accomplished!
When I am working on a novel I allow my subconscious mind to work scene by scene through the book and often when I sit down at the computer I find the words just flow throw mind as the scene plays itself in my head almost like a movie. I have heard of several writers who are able to program their dreams so they are literally writing in their sleep. Dreams can be as vivid as a painting, as resonant as music, and as symbolic as poetry. Using this method I can often write a scene a day (sometimes in less than an hour) which is fairly decent progress while simultaneously working full-time and maintaining a life.
While it is often frightening to think about trusting something as important as the writing project of your heart to your subconscious mind, it might help to remember that your brain is a muscle of sorts. Your subconscious mind controls many muscle functions for you all the time (try thinking about the way that you walk while you actually walk. I always trip when I think too much about the action of walking and yet I don’t trip when I’m not thinking about it.)
The same is true for great athletes. They talk about being in the zone. The zone is simply the place where they can act and react without consciously thinking about what needs to be done. The body and subconscious mind handle all the details. Thinking too hard can actually interfere with the zone and this is true of writing as well. Interestingly, a recent study of professional and amateur golfers showed that the amateur golfers had significantly more conscious activity when playing a shot than did the professionals. I would bet something similar would result if experienced and novice writers were studied.
So give unconscious creativity a try and see how far it takes you. Simply program your subconscious mind and then leave it alone to incubate for a while. It may take some time to find the method of tapping into your subconscious mind after your incubation period.Some free writings serve to unlock the fruits of your unconscious labor. Usually, I sit myself down and begin the task at hand. It is often very slow at first but I force myself forward and at some point my subconscious mind kicks in and the words start flowing and the keyboard starts clicking away.
Best of luck with your writing!