Enter the shadowlands
“For my own part” said Edgar Alan Poe, “I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words. There are, however, fantasies of exquisite delicacy, which are not thoughts. They arise in the soul (alas, how rarely!) only at its epochs of most intense tranquillity … and at those mere points of time where the confines of the waking world blend with the world of dreams.”
Our brain has different types of brainwaves: Delta waves that occur during deep dreamless sleep, Beta waves when we’re alert and thinking logically. Alpha waves can occur while you’re awake or asleep and they are the doorway to the hidden world of dreams.
“… fantasies of exquisite delicacy … where the confines of the waking world blend with the world of dreams.”
Creative people can cross quickly into Alpha Brain State and back into logical Beta Brain State to develop the idea. If they fell asleep, their idea would be locked into the dream world and quickly forgotten.
Inspiration or perspiration?
What comes first, the lyrics or the melody? I’ve written hundreds of songs including advertising jingles broadcast all over the world. In my case, the initial idea can be either a short lyric or melodic hook. Whichever comes first, the other half quickly follows. And words and music evolve together, each imposing its rules in turn so they end up sounding as though they were made for each other. Mysteriously, the initial inspiration comes in a flash when that doorway into the world of dreams swings open for a brief moment.
“… to finish the piece with the logical mind, far from the shadowy world where it was first conceived.”
I don’t write those flashes, I just hear them. And once the door closes, craft takes over from art to finish the piece with the logical mind, far from the shadowy world where it was first conceived. Yes, it is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration but that doesn’t mean the 10% is the minor part. To the contrary, without the inspiration, all the ‘perspiration’ in the world won’t produce a great song.
The Mind’s Eye
Was Leonardo da Vinci the most creative mind ever? The artist who painted the Mona Lisa was also the inventor of early flying machines. So how did Leonardo do it? Here are his own words: “Stare at walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones,” he wrote, “until the mind starts to see in the shapes a resemblance to various different landscapes … faces and an infinite number of things which you can reduce into separate and well-conceived forms.” Do our imaginations work like that?
“ … to reawaken the intense visual imagination that at some
point slipped into the back of your mind.”
Well, they used to. Remember as a child making wonderful faces out of clouds? It’s time to reawaken the intense visual imagination that at some point slipped into the back of your mind. What ideas will come to you out of the clouds? You’ll never know till you try.
Science becomes art
At basic level, science and art seem polar opposites. Science follows rules while art knows no boundaries. Science discovers reality, art creates its own. Yet at elite level the crazy scientist and the mad artist are the same mental model. Leonardo da Vinci was both painter and inventor. Albert Einstein was also an accomplished painter and played the violin.
“Einstein … imagined how it would be if he could ride a light beam”.
Once, while dosing in the garden, Einstein observed beams of light filtering through a tree and imagined how it would be if he could ride a light beam. As the fantasy evolved in his mind, he arose, went into his study and commenced work on his General Theory of Relativity. Einstein was inspired not by other physicists but by his daydreams and the writing of Scottish philosopher, historian and economist David Hume. Little wonder it was Einstein who said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”.
Breath of life
Why doesn’t our imagination work when we’re fully alert? Because our rational thinking - Beta Brain state - has to take priority. Our physical sight must override our mind’s eye or we’d steer the car down roads we were only imagining. Only when we’re safe, silent, at peace and totally relaxed can the imagination take over.
“Only when we’re safe, silent, at peace and totally relaxed can the imagination take over.”
But how do we get there? Well, consider what happens to your breathing when you’re drifting off to sleep. It slows down doesn't it? Happily the process also works in reverse. Close your eyes, breathe deeper and slower, picture the air moving in and out of your body like a beautiful blue light. This will quickly take you into Alpha Brain State - the realm of waking dreams. What will you imagine once in the shadowlands? Go there for at least 15 minutes a day and you’ll find out.
Learn from the future
They say nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. It’s a funny observation but also revealing. The past certainly isn’t what it used to be. In slower times the past was the key to the present. Today, rapid change environments create such unprecedented leaps in technology and knowledge that experience of past events is unlikely to be the key to anything important.
“Once more, our imagination comes to the rescue.”
The future isn’t what it used to be either. It's sooner. It arrives so quickly, By the time you’ve got your head around the new thinking, you’re too late. Once more, our imagination comes to the rescue. Take a walk into the future in your mind. Take in every imaginary detail, even hear the sounds if you can. For here is the ultimate paradox: Your imagined view of the future has a better chance of being right than the present does of staying the same. In the words of albert Einstein “Our imagination is a preview of life’s coming attractions”
The language of dreams
Naturally creative people cross effortlessly from the waking world into the world of dreams, bringing inspirations from the shadowlands into the clear light of day. Their secret is Alpha Brain State, the only brain pattern possible while awake or asleep. You can enhance your ability to take cross into Alpha Brain State by practising deep relaxation, visualisation and inner quiet.
“ … bringing inspirations from the shadowlands into the clear light of day.”
Try guided visualisation, where you mentally picture a peaceful scene described to you by a narrator - there are plenty on YouTube or where you get your podcasts. Progressive Relaxation means breathing deeply and relaxing one part of your body at a time – a great stress reliever. Inner Quiet involves saying one peaceful word over and over in your mind until it silences that annoying inner chatter we experience when we can’t sleep. Many people report a boost in their overall health and happiness by one of more of these mental exercises. So they’re worthwhile whether they make you more creative or not.
Seeing beneath the obvious
A theme park holds street parades between 1.00pm and 2:00pm to keep people out of overcrowded restaurants during the peak lunch hour. They repeat the parade at 5:00pm to encourage families to remain at the park later and stay for dinner.
“Once we look for the underlying generality in a particular it’s easy to make connections’”
Are the two parades for the opposite purpose or the same purpose? If you said opposite you'd be right. Keeping people out of restaurants is the opposite to encouraging them in. But if you said the two parades are for the same purpose – peak demand management - you'd be right too. And it’s the smarter choice. Peak demand management is the generality which the two apparently opposite purposes for parades have in common. Once we look for the underlying generality in a particular thing or event it’s easy to make connections with other things and events that most people would dismiss as unconnected. When you do, people will say “How did you think of that?” Well, now you know how.
Guided imagination
In 1865, the famed German chemist August Kekulé discovered what is known as the Benzene Ring, still the basis of an important branch of organic chemistry. More remarkable still is Kekulé’s explanation of how the discovery occurred: "I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were dancing before my eyes, twisting in snakelike motion. But look! One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke."
“The shadowlands have a clear advantage in combining the elements of our knowledge in unusual ways.”
Did Kekulé’s imagination accelerate his factual knowledge? Obviously. But a more important question is whether his factual knowledge also guided his imagination. Our logical minds and imagination clearly work on the same projects but not at the same time. We can inform our imagination by contemplating a logical problem then, as they say, sleeping on it. The mysterious world of dreams organises our logical waking thoughts in ways we don’t understand. But the shadowlands have a clear advantage in combining the elements of our knowledge in unusual – and sometimes inspirational - ways. Sleep on that.
A dream walking in daylight
The world of dreams has its own language and unique realities. Images and events are often metaphors obliquely related to recent life events. The song “These Dreams” by Canadian band Heart reminds us … ‘Funny how in dreams your feet never touch the ground’. In dreams we suspend the normal boundaries of the possible – perhaps we can fly, perhaps our pets can talk to us. And we never question this suspended reality at the time because we seldom know we are dreaming. Yet for all their fantastic rules, dreams have a lustre and brilliance we can, obviously, only imagine. How would a dream look walking around in daylight – it would be glistening, glimmering, rich and intense, indestructible and all-seeing. Bringing the glistening glimmering world of dreams into our waking moments via relaxing into Alpha Brain State enriches our thinking– it’s nature’s gift to your mind. Make sure you appreciate it.
The genius of dreams
Thomas Edison amassed over 1,000 patents in his lifetime and was the inventor, or co-inventor, of electric light, the gramophone, the microphone and much more. Surely such a great scientific mind would never need to resort to idle fantasy or playing mind games? Oh yes he did. Edison would sit in his armchair by the fire with a handful of stones resting above an iron bucket. When he fell asleep the stones would fall from his hand and the clang of them falling into the bucket would wake him up. At this precise moment he would allow his half waking half sleeping mind to flow freely. Arthur Koestler, in “The Act Of Creation” reminds us “The most fertile region in the mind’s inner landscape is the marshy shore between sleep and full awakening – where the matrixes of disciplined thought have not yet hardened to obstruct the dreamlike fluidity of the imagination.” Nourish your waking-sleeping moments. Here, if anywhere, new ideas can be created.
Theatre of the mind
When people finally understand a difficult concept they often say “I see’ or ‘I get the picture’. What picture? The mental picture. Ideas are pictures, words are just how we describe them to others. Concepts, like all memories, are stored in the mind’s eye as images. You remember someone’s face long after you’ve forgotten their name. Our waking moments can borrow some of the richness of the dream world if we cultivate the natural, but often repressed, facility of creating mental pictures.
“Our waking moments can borrow some of the richness of the dream world.”
Picture an old man than ask yourself “Which way is he facing, what is he wearing, what’s in background?” to allow the image to develop more detail. Some illustrators can hold a mental picture in their mind clearly enough to draw it. Others find the rational act of picking up a pencil causes the mental picture to fade. The mysterious nature of mental imaging varies even among practitioners of the visual arts. But we can all visualise to some extent and we should all do it more often. Think playing with mental pictures is just kids stuff? In the words of Stephen Spielberg “I never want to lose the child within.”
Random word provocation
I wrote the song “Maybe by Morning” after hearing Gloria Estefan sing “Maybe by sun up”. I liked the concept of someone unable to sleep hoping the daylight would end their struggle. Not wishing to steal her lyric I changed it to “Maybe by morning, the world's a nicer place. And the light of day will wash away the memory of your face. Maybe you'll be loving me, just like years ago, Maybe you'll be sad to think that you ever let me go.”
Months later I discovered Gloria Estefan’s words were actually “Maybe my son” not “Maybe by sun up”. My song idea arose from a mistake. But did it matter? Try introducing totally unrelated words from the dictionary when you're struggling for ideas. Make quirky connections between your problem and the unrelated word – or the mental pictures it evokes. This pushes your thinking into other parts of your brain stimulated by the random word and can create happy mental accidents and fresh ideas.
Life lived as play
The language of dreams expresses concrete ideas in metaphors – what something is like, rather than what it is. What something is like allows the underlying principle to transfer from one reality to another. Samuel Morse invented the telegraphic relay station watching a team of horses replaced with fresh horses. John Dunlop got the idea for pneumatic tyres looking at how water inflated a fire hose.
"Without this playing with fantasy, no creative work has ever yet come to birth.”
A U.S. food technologist hosed down fallen leaves to make them pliable to fit more into the council bin. From that, Pringles were born – potato crisps made temporarily pliable to form into a uniform shape. Do these connections of underlying ideas seem simplistic and childish? They are, but the ideas they produce are not. "Without this playing with fantasy,” says Carl Jung, the father of modern psychoanalysis, “no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the imagination is incalculable."
Dislexics of the world, untie!
When she was just 16 my wife could perform the dance of the virgins from memory. Jokes like these use a dialogue that embodies two underlying ideas. Initially, we assume she memorised the steps to the dance of the virgins. But our mind quickly catches on to the other implication, that she had to remember what being a virgin was like. Frequently two ideas reside in one thing or event and creative minds are quick to see both. Early antihistamine tablets stopped your nose running but had the disadvantage of making you sleepy. It took a creative thinker in a major pharmaceutical company to simply remarket them as fast-working sleeping tablets. Yes, they also dried out your nose, but since you were asleep, you didn’t care. One thing or event, two underlying ideas – keep your mind alert to both. And that’s no joke.
Ice cream colours in the air
“Bows and flows of Angel hair, and ice cream colours in the air, and feather canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way.” So begins Joni Mitchell's brilliant song Clouds, which then pivots to “But now they only stop the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.” The song describes swapping our buoyant youthful imagination, capable of turning clouds into wonderful pictures in the sky, for a mind that only sees clouds, not clouds’ illusions.
“Every child is an artist, said Pablo Picasso. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
“Every child is an artist, said Pablo Picasso. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Can you restore your childish imagination? Well, try it. Lie on a grassy hill at an angle where you can see the clouds without the sun in your eyes. Spend a wonderful hour turning the shapes of clouds into images more fantastic and wonderful. It's a joyful experience and you'll regret that you ever let it slip away.
Tasting the stars
“Come quickly, I am tasting stars” said Dom Pérignon upon discovering Champagne. But what do stars taste like? Well, like champagne, actually. Dom Perignon was using a metaphor, but we instinctively know what he meant. The blending of taste and sight is similar to the blending of sound and sight. “And the whole work stands like a statue” says composer Mozart, “complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture.” Yes, Mozart could ‘see’ his symphonies in his mind.
“A poet sees the scene before they put it to words just as clearly as a painter sees it before committing it to canvas”
Synesthesia, the phenomenon where someone hears colours audibly or tastes thoughts, is experienced by rare individuals. But we can all blend the senses in our imagination. It happens during artistic creation … a poet sees the scene before they put it to words just as clearly as a painter sees it before committing it to canvas. Beethoven could hear his ninth symphony before writing it, even though he was profoundly deaf. Don’t let your imagination be limited to the possible. It’s bigger than that.
Seeing to the back of your mind
The statue of David by Michelangelo stands in the Galleria dell 'Accademia di Firenze. Yet even more evocative, under the towering frame and watchful eye of David, are some of Michelangelo’s unfinished works. One, a giant cube of rough cut marble shows the half formed arms and legs of Hercules struggling to escape from their stone prison. It’s the same with those ideas that hint and hover in the back of our mind only to have some invisible door keep them from emerging into the clear light of day. “A Song I can hear playing loud in my ear,” wrote Jackson Browne. “I can’t sing along, but I can’t stop listening.” Happily in our unconscious moments, that invisible door opens briefly.
“Ideas that hint and hover in the back of our mind ...”
Ideas that only hint and hover may be clearer when you’re under the shower or walking the dog. Have a notebook handy or quickly dictate them into your mobile phone at those moments, before the idea slips back into the home of all ideas, the mystical world of dreams.
‘Planned’ Serendipity?
Serendipity is the term for making happy discoveries unexpectedly. Some serendipitous events do just happen by chance. More often they are a random event meeting a prepared mind.
“Be open to whatever ideas a thing or event presents, suggests or implies.”
Jim Shlatter was an industrial chemist working for pharmaceutical company G D Searle. While handling a harmless compound he noticed it had an unexpectedly sweet taste. Immediately he informed his boss John de Witt that he had found something sweet that was not sugar. The boss was not impressed. “We’re a drug company not a food company,” he said. Undaunted, Jim Schlatter continued to develop privately this mysterious sweet powder. And the ultimate irony was that the man who first rejected it, John de Witt, became Vice President of Monsanto's NutraSweet division. The moral of this story is to be open to whatever ideas a thing or event presents, suggests or implies. It’s your best way to make sure you never let a good idea pass you by.
Horses or horse-ness?
Plato, channelling Socrates, introduced the idea of platonic forms - what we would call ‘archetypes’. We know an animal is a horse because in the abstract there exists one perfect template for horses of which all actual horses are imperfect examples. Legend goes that one heckler didn't buy the concept. “I can see horses Plato,” he called out, “But I cannot see hoarse-ness.” Plato replied “That is because you have eyes but no brains.” Plato's forms or archetypes teach us to see the general in the particular, meaning the underlying elements in a specific thing or event.
“ … things or events that are different on the surface but similar beneath the obvious.”
These underlying generalities allow us to make connections with otherwise unrelated specific things or events that are different on the surface but similar beneath the obvious. Global brand Kodak ignored the opportunity to go digital because their specific business was film, film cameras and film processing. Had they understood that their general business was photography they might have still been with us today.
Phantasia
Phantasia (spelt with a Ph) is the scientific term for our ability to instantly picture a thing or idea. These images are separate from normal vision because we can, with concentration, hold a mental picture in our head while looking at something else. There are however mental pictures with a life of their own. They occur, if they occur at all, as we are drifting off to sleep at that delicate boundary between our world and the shadowlands. They are slow to form and don’t respond to our direction.
“ … at that delicate boundary between our waking world and the shadowlands.”
They are of course the beginnings of a dream, but more valuable because we are still awake and can remember them. Once we enter the mysterious, secretive world of dreams few of the adventures we have there escape via our memory into the waking world. Cultivate these near-sleep pictures by describing to yourself what you see. Not only will they take you on some fascinating visual journeys. They also help you back to sleep when you wake up in the middle of the night. Pleasant dreams.
Reverse thinking
Sometimes ideas arise just from reversing the direction of a process. Traditional spray painting directs misted paint towards the object being painted. But with slim objects much paint misses the target and is wasted. Enter the electrostatic spray booth. Instead of the paint travelling towards the object, the object is positively charged and attracts the paint droplets to itself.
“ … sometimes thinking in reverse moves the thinking forwards.”
The soft drink machine dispenses a can of drink in return for coins. The automatic can recycling machine gives you coins for cans. The NASA international space station had a problem with whipping motion imparted to the cable when they hauled their camera in. So the camera was equipped with a small motor that pulled itself smoothly back along the cable like a yo-yo. The space station didn’t pull the camera, the camera pulled the space station, which was too big to move and didn’t impart the dangerous whipping motion to the cable. It’s ironic I know, but sometimes thinking in reverse really does move the thinking forwards.
Underlying principles
A popular but (in my view) over-rated test of creativity is how many uses you can think of for a paper clip. It’s not testing creativity, just divergent thinking, which is fine. But look deeper at a paper clip: it’s a highly efficient energy storage device. You apply a force by pushing it over sheets of paper just once - it applies the opposite force to clamp the papers. Your action took only a moment and cost you nothing. But the reverse force performs a very useful role and continues 24 hours a day - far more energy in total than you invested. Once we see the paper clip as an efficient multiplier of energy it gives rise to inventions like pumped hydro. Here, cheap off-peak electricity is used to pump water from a lower reservoir into a higher one which is then allowed to flow back down through a turbine. This creates a surge of valuable electricity at the evening peak time. Pretty good use for a paper clip? Look behind the obvious in everyday things and events and you’ll uncover better bolder new ideas.
Think metaphorically
In dreams the mind is free from our fixed ideas of reality and habits of thought from the waking world. In the shadowlands, realities are expressed as images symbols or metaphors. We can borrow this technique by expressing what something is like rather than just what it is. This allows us to express the underlying principle via an example more easily understood – a key lesson for business communication.
“Metaphors are powerful. They present the underlying generalities of a problem with ultimate simplicity.”
But it’s more than that. When challenging legal injecting rooms for drug addicts politician Fred Nile said “If we provide legal injecting rooms for addicts, why not have legal shoplifting supermarkets for kleptomaniacs”. This metaphor exposed in a flash the absurdity making something easy to do when doing it perpetuates the problem for the vulnerable individual and breaks the law. Metaphors are powerful. They present the underlying generalities of a problem with ultimate simplicity and create efficient communication and clarity of thought.