Category: The Unconscious Mind

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:

1. Access a relaxed state of mind.
2. Create conditions that encourage people to attend to their own quiet thoughts.
3. Access a positive mood.
4. Facilitate a sudden shift of attention from one aspect of a challenge, for example, where one may have been stuck, to another.
5. 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.

Have you ever stopped to wonder about the fact that everything that was ever created in the world was first an idea in the mind?  The blueprint created by an architect that ultimately became a sky scraper was first an idea in mind.  The innovation at a cosmetic company for a new and improved way to dispense the product was first an idea in mind. And the innovation at a consumer packaging company that upgraded the bag seal process to produce both lower manufacturing costs and improved customer satisfaction was initially an idea in the mind.

Knowledge has greatly advanced over the past few decades regarding creativity and innovation.  And much of this advance is the result of improved understanding about how the mind works. The mind is a powerful asset that most businesses can leverage to far greater competitive advantage that they are presently doing.

A fundamental premise is that the mind works by association. It builds knowledge through analogy and metaphor…’this is like that’ and ‘that is like this.’  Each and every one of us has built up a knowledge base throughout life, through formal education, observation, experiences and a plethora of inputs from family, friends, authority figures, and mentors.  We possess deep neural networks of associations in the mind. And so we can structure diverse groups, with diverse bodies of knowledge and expertise to use their powers of association to generate original and creative solutions in any area of business.

At least 90% of what we know and what drives our thoughts, beliefs, ideas and reside in an unconscious level of mind.  That’s right, only about 10% of mind is operating at a conscious level.  Imagine the possibilities of tapping into the whole mind. The fact of the matter is that the unconscious level of mind is always working, though it may not be working in the direction of your choosing.  But you can change that now. People have far more control over inputs and outputs of mind than they may every have imagined.

A second fundamental premise is that conscious and unconscious psychological states are present in every creative act.  Many artists and business people are naturally talented in accessing unconscious material, thereby leveraging inner creative resources and intuition.  Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Sir Richard Branson, Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla come to mind. But we can sense when someone has that special something, when they are deeply connected with their inner resources because we have them too, and highly creative people exist at all levels of organization. But for people for whom accessing creativity has not come so naturally, rest assured that it can be taught. It used to be thought that creativity could not be taught; it either came with ‘the package’ or was unattainable. But decades of research and structuring of training to leverage deep inner resources have proven that creative innovation can be taught…and learned.

A third fundamental premise is that the unconscious mind works on a different logic from that of the conscious mind.  It is literal rather than abstract and it follows the intent and direction of the conscious mind.  The conscious mind is like the captain of the ship, delivering goals, intentions and instructions through a megaphone on an upper deck, and the deep inner mind is the crew beneath the deck, receiving the orders.  And when the crew beneath the deck receives orders to identify a creative solution, it follows them via access to a powerhouse of resources.  It is, indeed, the powerhouse of mind. The unconscious mind simply follows directions (it does not make decisions), and delivers creative solutions. So you can give your inner mind a problem to solve and allow it to deliver a solution. And you might like to call that using your intuition.

A fourth fundamental premise is that the inner mind understands and uses imagery, far more than words.  So you can give the inner mind images of a solutions state and then let it shape the path regarding how to reach the desired solution.

While businesses are using more and more knowledge about the mind to leverage creativity and innovation, they’ve had to break away from a tacit culture of belief that only the conscious mind matters, or only the conscious mind exists at all.  Conscious mind is that part of you that is logical, compiles and analyzes data, speaks and uses language, and faces externally, out into the world of data absorbed by the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell).  Through advances in technology, companies have become very good at compiling and analyzing big data, and employing insights gleaned in all aspects of business, and especially marketing.

But what are they missing?  In many cases, they are indeed missing the vast creative—and one might say—infinite creative resource that lies within the deep inner mind. Whether or not you believe that human beings are connected to a unified, creative source, I’m sure you can imagine the potential of teaching employees to look inward to tap their inner creativity.  Their associative learning process can be used to draw seemingly desperate, metaphorical or analogous ideas together to create original ideas from which product and service innovations spring.  Everything that was ever created in the world was first created in mind.  And you have the opportunity to tap that wellspring of innovative energy.