"Your most brilliant ideas come in a flash, but the flash comes only after a lot of hard work. Nobody gets a big idea when he is not relaxed, and nobody gets a big idea when he is relaxed all the time." -- Edward Blakeslee
Last week my local newspaper reprinted an article by Rex Hupple that originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune. In the article, Hupple discusses new research into "the default mode network" of the brain. That means when you are not concentrating on a particular task certain portions of the brain become more active. According to Hupple, "These portions are responsible for introspective thoughts and our ability to imagine the past and the future or even alternate realities." According to Hupple, this method of thinking is critical for creativity.
If you are concentrating on something specific, you activate different portions of your brain which control your thoughts, and the "default mode network" is less active. You need to give the "default mode network" the chance to do the work of randomly combining information and ideas which produces new ideas and insights.
One way to do this is to become unplugged. If you are constantly answering your cell phone, reading texts, or checking email you are switching to the "control" portions of your brain. It pulls you into the current reality instead of letting you explore possible realities.
To allow incubation of ideas to take place you need to do things that don't require a great deal of conscious thought to control what is happening. Examples include raking leaves, skipping stones at a lake, hunting for sea shells on a beach, flying a kite, practicing juggling, and walking through the woods.
I am fortunate to live in a place where I can frequently walk a beach or through the woods. The ideas for many of my magazine articles are developed during these walks. Sometimes it is an idea for a topic, but frequently the format and structure of an article will fall into place.
The result is dependant upon the type of preparation that I have done. For example, I may decide on a topic of a historical article, but if I don't know many details I can't decide how to fit them together. Sometimes that requires me to do a lot of research. While going on a walk I got the idea to write an article about the history of broadcasting in Chicago in order to help promote the 2014 World Clown Association Convention in Chicago. I knew the city had been an important center for radio and television, but hadn't realized how important. I ended up doing over 100 hours of research into the topic. At the end I had a lot of facts, but wasn't sure how to present them. While going on walks I realized that the information could be divided into thirds. Then I realized how to organize each section of information, and conclusions I could draw from the historical facts that modern performers could use in their entertainment. The result is a three-part series of articles that is appearing in Clowning Around, published by the World Clown Association.
I discuss this process in more detail, using different terms, in the Incubation chapter of my book, Creativity for Entertainers Volume One: The Creative Process. One way I express it in that book is that it doesn't do any good to turn on the incubator if it is empty. Creativity requires that you work hard to stock your incubator, stop work so the incubator has a chance to operate, and then finally work to restock it.
What do you do to stock your mental idea incubator? What can you do to relax? How can you unplug from electronic devices? How can you let your incubator operate? How do you know when it is time to stop relaxing and get back to work?
