Understanding the Mind: 5 Keys to a Writer's Creativity

Do you ever wonder how some writers experience that creative "flow" almost at will?  They produce so much material it seems as if they have a ghost writers working for them.  Or, on the other hand, some writers seem to have too many ideas and can't focus long enough to finish a project.  How does a person become filled with ideas?  What goes on in their minds?  What makes a super productive writer tick?

There's a huge amount of information about the brain, memory, and conscious and subconscious behavior.  As I read articles on overcoming writer's block and explored exercises for enhancing creativity, I began to connect what I knew as a researcher and hypnotist to what I experienced as a writer.

This article describes that connection.  This is not another article to help enhance creativity and overcome writer's block.  Instead, it details five interesting characteristics of the mind that, once known, will help you more effectively apply the suggestions given in the many excellent articles on writer's block and creativity, thus allowing you to take those and personalize them to enhance the results.

1. Our Natural Filter - Opening to Ideas

There exists a screening device located at the base of our brain called a Reticular Activating System (RAS). This net-like group of cells helps to decide what we are to be conscious of as it filters out other information. It allows only vital and important sensory input into our conscious awareness.

For example, you are not aware of the shirt on your back until I mention it; or the temperature of the room, or all the sounds in your environment. Thankfully, this filter exists or else we'd go crazy having to acknowledge every color, every sensation, every blink of the eye, and so forth.

What makes understanding the RAS so interesting is that we can shift our focus such that we can become conscious of things normally blocked from our awareness. Just as mothers can hear the slightest "peep" from their babies over many other louder sounds, we can soon become aware of the ideas, the interesting overheard conversations, the article topics that we often block out because we're not focused and open to the possibility of receiving inspiration in a grocery store, for example.

When you first started driving your new car, you thought that not many drove the same model. But soon you began to see these everywhere. People didn't rush out and buy the same car. They were always there. You just made it important to you and thus, your Reticular Activating System allowed that information through.

Once you make writing and being constantly inspired by new ideas important enough to get through, you will be in new world of ideas and inspiration.  Some people think writers are lucky to have been given that crazy experience they were able to turn into a wildly popular book.  But if they weren't open to the idea of it becoming a story, they never would've been "lucky."

2. The Brain's Total Recall

I've hypnotized people and taken them to their youth. Some described episodes totally forgotten in their present memory, while others would not believe what they saw until a relative confirmed the experience. Under hypnosis, some people can accurately recall license plate numbers and other details of an accident they were previously unable to remember.

I could give many more examples, but the point is this: we have stored in our brain every article we've read, every experience we've had, and every image that has passed before our eyes. It is all there. The challenge - one of the keys to constant creative inspiration - is to retrieve this information deliberately.

Knowing about the RAS and that everything is stored in the brain, I created a meditation that exercises the mind in such a way that strengthens the connection between the conscious and subconscious, which opens your mind to ideas and allows better access to the stored information.

3. Exercise and Expand

To begin the meditation, I first guide the writer through a "Corridor" to a favorite restaurant. She is given special abilities of invisibility and mind-reading in order to more easily travel throughout this familiar scene and "recall" conversations, thoughts, quirks, and characteristics - all observations that can benefit someone's writing.

Then she is led through a second corridor to an imaginary place, a forest of giant books, magazines, newspaper headlines, song lyrics - all media that can be fantasized. In this magical place, each item is controlled by thought and is aware of the challenge at hand. In other words, if the writer needs an idea for a magazine article, she may imagine a page of job market listings. Just as they appear closer, the perfect listing could be highlighted or blinking in neon.

In the third corridor, I guide the listener to view and explore the first things that come to mind - no judgment, no questioning, just trusting that this will serve to inspire, if not this instant, then later on when they need it the most.

The meditation stretches the mind one way, as the scene is first remembered (the restaurant) then created (the abilities and observations), then stretches it in the opposite, as the forest is imagined (or created) then all the various media you've already seen is remembered. This is very important. Any one of these exercises will work alone, but when combined, they thoroughly expand the human brain's capability to create and remember.

When the mind is stretched in any one direction, it cannot help but reach in all other directions as well. It's like a room with a single light bulb in the middle. When that bulb gets brighter, it illuminates more and more of the room. As we exercise the mind, we literally shed light upon, tap into, or connect with a greater portion of our brain.

For instance, when Einstein would get stuck on a difficult concept, he would go into another room to play his violin. Upon returning to the problem, a solution would often come to mind. Exercising his mind in a different way boosted his creativity for the work he was doing.

This is why it is important to continue to learn, to hone your craft, to read. This meditation will help, possibly in dramatic ways, but so will reading other related articles. And this is because you now understand and can recognize how and why the exercises will increase your capabilities.

4. The Great Multi-Tasker

Another aspect of the human mind is its ability to multi-task. People talk on a hands-free cellular phone while driving a car 65 mph on a metropolitan beltway, eating a sandwich, handing a cracker to a child in the backseat, listening to music and changing stations, switching lanes, reading and following traffic signs, shifting gears, eating more sandwich, and checking in the mirror for lettuce in the teeth. The eyes blink to maintain proper moisture, the mouth chews the food, the salivary glands add moisture, and various muscles contract in precise order so that the food particles move into the stomach, which has already begun the digestive process.

The body temperature is regulated, the heart is pumping blood, the lungs inhale oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. Hair continues to grow. All the senses provide constant feedback to the brain, indicating that all the tasks associated with driving the car are being accomplished.

This is just a fraction of what's taking place every second of every day of every week. The point? Our mind is a powerful machine. Now, let's put it to use...

5. Auto-Pilot to a Creative Flow

The writer is guided back to the three doors. Upon entering one, she sees three more doors. She is reminded subconsciously that in each of these doors there exists a whole world of creative inspiration. These "worlds" are those remembered from previous articles they've read or from prior experiences.

Then, in this world, there exists three more doors to choose from, each with its own inspirational characteristics, any of which the mind can choose at any time. After stepping through just four doors, a writer ultimately would have had 81 sources (doors) of creativity to choose from. One more door and that's 243. Then 729, and so on. In just a matter of a few seconds, the subconscious mind will have explored nine doors, which is almost 20,000 possible sources of creativity. Pass through three more and the mind has availed itself to more than a half-million possibilities.

Is this confusing? If it is, it's nothing to be worried about. The information still got through. Your subconscious can do much more than your conscious, and with enough practice, this becomes automatic. When things move into the subconscious, there is no longer a need to consciously think and then do. It just happens. Fast typists type without ever looking at the keyboard or thinking about each individual letter and where their fingers are. Pianists can play a song and carry a conversation at the same time. Driving a car is yet another example.

It's natural for things to be done automatically if done enough times. And soon, being more creative and recognizing the ideas all around you will also just happen.

The mind is constantly exploring options and possibilities. Exploring a half-million of these in a manner of a few seconds is typical behavior for the subconscious mind. Incredibly, we don't have to be aware of this for it to happen. The key is to understand and to trust that this is how the mind works. When writers accept this and exercise their mind with such a guided meditation, they will find themselves having a constant flow of ideas.

And so, I leave you with a gentle reminder of what was discussed:

1. We "see" things when they become important to us
2. The mind is constantly recording information
3. The mind and its abilities are expandable through mental exercises
4. The brain is able to process and do innumerable things at once
5. The more we practice and the more we trust, the more ideas we have.

So, relax. Take in a deep breath. Trust that the mind is a powerful thing. And as you listen to the "Corridors to Creativity" or as you read the many excellent articles, enjoy the idea that you are improving in every way and opening yourself to new worlds of creativity and inspiration.

Rob Daugherty is a webmaster, writer, and certified hypnotist. This article is the companion article to the hypnosis/guided imagery CD he created specifically to eliminate writer's block and increase productivity. Visit www.letusponder.com/corridors/ for more information. Visit www.mp3.com/robdaugherty to listen online.