Building the Imagination Muscle
Have you ever considered that the things that are best for you are usually obtained through some form of practice or discipline? Whether learning to play the violin, training for a marathon, or practicing meditation, all positive outcomes are derived through planned and repeated effort. Bad habits, you might say, are the poor cousins of higher discipline.
So, assuming all it takes is practice to achieve your highest goals, how many of you listening to this now feel woefully deficient? Don’t worry, you aren’t alone. Type the word “discipline” into the Amazon search field for books and you get over 100,000 results. All to say that people everywhere hunger for ways to better regulate their lives, but find it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve it.
Now, what if I told you that one of the best things you can do, is to let your mind go free. Relinquishing control as a means of training the imagination is proving one of the best things you can do to relax, restore a sense of calm, instill curiosity, and…wait for it…enhance creativity.
A well-spring of new scientific research suggests that the overworked mind is a dangerous one. Remember the film, The Shining, staring Jack Nicholson. Day-in and day-out he worked tirelessly typing away at his novel, becoming increasingly irritable and despondent. Insanity creeps in. It’s then that his wife discovers his manuscript. Thousands of neatly stacked pages with one simple sentence typed over and over again: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.The film was released in 1980, and in hindsight, it strikes me as prophetic.
We busy ourselves 24/7 with emails, text messages, spreadsheets and reports. Human contact is becoming obsolete, and Covid-19 and its social distancing requirements makes Zoom calls the last step in severing us from our friends and work colleagues. What’s left?
The imagination, apparently. I’m talking about the science of day-dreaming. Momentary opportunities to give your brain a break, and in so doing, restoring the capacity to create in new and unexpected ways. You think I’m dreaming? I’m not. Neuroscience holds the proof and here to assist me in understanding what that entails is Tony Estrella. Inside Asia listeners may recall a conversation we had a year ago, when we discussed the Science of Sleep. [Listen here]
In this latest episode, we take it one step further, drawing the connection between sleep as an essential function and dreaming as the creative output. Embrace dreaming as a practice of sorts, and the results could prove spectacular. Take Paul McCartney for instance. He heard the melody for “Yesterday” in his dreams and wrote it down. So did the 19th century Russian chemist, Dimitri Mendeleev. He dreamed the periodic table. Where would Chemistry be today without it?
Somewhere along the way, we stopped listening to our dreams. For centuries, images conjured in our unconscious state informed our biggest decisions. Indigenous people even to this day describe the dream state as a gateway to the divine. Science put an end to that. For centuries dreams were discounted as nothing more than nighttime nonsense. Breakthroughs in neuroscience say that was a mistake. Time to get it back!
Tony reminds us that Sleep is just as essential to our physical well-being as food, water, and exercise. Yet, most people view sleep as a secondary function. You might even say we take sleep for granted. But should we?
The brain is an organ like any other. It serves a function and like the liver on too much alcohol or the heart on too much cholesterol, the brain on too much stimulation can become overtaxed. It’s the reason why so many people are flocking to meditation. Training the mind to find calm through breathwork and mindfulness has offered millions a much-needed reprieve. But if you, like me, find it hard to “empty the mind,” day-dreaming, or what Carl Jung use to refer to as “active imagination,” can offer another means of a mental holiday without the required control.
I’m simplifying here, but the point is this: For too long the mind has treated as a biological equivalent of a computer processor. We churn through information and do our best to retain and regurgitate what’s deemed important or meaningful. In so doing, we’ve denied the brain access to other corridors where seemingly uncorrelated thoughts or ideas, mysteriously generate new meaning or insight. The author, James Joyce, famously wrote about the power of the “epiphany” — defined as “a moment of sudden and great revelation or realization.” It comes with a touch of euphoria and on occasion, the creative realization can be profound.
As Tony points, out Covid-19 — to the degree that it’s given us pause for thought — is a gift. What we chose to do with the time we’ve been given is up to us. Tapping into our mind’s inherent capability to be imaginative, playful, and creative could be just the thing we need to innovate our way out of this global mess.
Where to begin? Sleep, for starters. After that, let the mind wander. And if you so happen to dream the big dream — maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow — try to write it down. You could be the next Paul McCartney.
Listen to the entire conversation at www.insideasiapodcast.com.