The mind is a powerhouse of creative and innovative resources that most people have barely tapped into. While it is true that most people have had an intuitive sense or thought arise out of seemingly nowhere at some point in time that provided guidance in their life, or a flash of insight that solved a problem or enhanced a good product or idea. But science and business have not, until recently, begun to embrace the study and application of methods to access and leverage the creative resources that flow from the deep inner mind. In contrast to mind activities such as compiling and analyzing data, and using logic—actions of the conscious mind which are readily accepted and readily embraced—intuition and insight emanate from the unconscious mind.
The unconscious part of mind is the source of insights and intuition that spur creativity and innovation; the lifeblood of successful companies and organizations of all types. Yet, until recently, as precision brain-scanning technologies have become available, science has avoided the study of consciousness and all of its outputs. We have been conditioned by a culture of ‘hard science’ to mistrust any inspirations that do not lend themselves to research and the scientific method.
While there are still considerable unknowns regarding the workings of brain and mind, technologies such as fMRI, EEG, have enabled researchers to identify the parts of the brain that are active in the process of receiving intuitive inputs and eureka moments, and the conditions that promote creative inspirations and insights. They have also been able to identify the brain wave cycles that are active just before (Alpha brain waves) and at the point of emergence of creative insights (Gamma brain waves), which provides further understanding about how to optimize the chances for receiving insights and intuitions from the unconscious mind.
According the a research summary (How Insight Happens: Learning from the Brain) provided by Dr. Mark Jung-Beeman, Dr. Azurii Collier and Dr. John Kounios in the handbook of NeuroLeadership the following are conditions that contribute to the emergence of insights and intuitions:
- Access a relaxed state of mind.
- Create conditions that encourage people to attend to their own quiet thoughts.
- Access a positive mood.
- Facilitate a sudden shift of attention from one aspect of a challenge, for example, where one may have been stuck, to another.
- Facilitate right brain activity where “weak associations” can be detected, in contrast to the “close associations” characteristic of the left brain.
Jung-Beeman, Collier and Kounios describe the process of “mind wandering,” which is somewhat similar to daydreaming. They say, “it occurs when an individual begins to attend to internal thoughts rather than externally driven tasks or events. It’s what happens when you are driving on the highway and after a while realize that you are thinking deeply about something else and barely attending to the road.” From my experience as a hypnotist, I believe this mind wandering experience is a state of hypnotic trance, and in the case of daydreaming on the road, I refer to that as highway trance. And you can rest assured that even when your conscious mind has drifted away and your thoughts are internally focused, that you will snap back to a conscious focus on the road when needed. The reason you can mind wander while driving is because you have learned how to drive. And by definition, that means you have transferred the awkward and disjointed, conscious process of learning to drive (e.g., pressing down on gas and brake, merging into traffic, using turn signals and rear view mirror, reading road signs, etc.) into a seamless process maintained by the unconscious mind.
Both labels, mind wandering and trance, are fine, in my opinion. But for me it is important to recognize that this creative, receptive state of mind can be achieved using hypnosis, either self-administered or guided by a professional hypnotist.
Legend has it, according to Jung-Beeman, Collier and Kounios, that “Thomas Edison would routinely sit in a comfortable chair and rest, allowing his mind to wander as he perhaps headed toward sleep. But he would do this while balancing a spoon over a pie plate so that, should he fall asleep, the spoon would drop and the resulting clang would awaken him. He would then write down his thoughts during that period, in the belief that they were often creative.” I would add that some of the most powerful time for accessing creative insights is in the state between sleep and a fully alert waking state (i.e., moving up from the Delta Brain Waves of sleep, up through Theta Brain Waves and Alpha Brain Waves…all the way up to fully alert Beta brain waves). You can access the powerful states of Alpha and Theta on the way down to sleep as well, but I find it easier to use this hypnopompic state in the morning when moving up toward a fully alert state instead of down towards sleep.in terms of brain wave cycles per minute.