Cultivating Creativity: Where Do Ideas Come From?

Eureka! In this salon debut Interintellect host Neville A Mehra leads a discussion on creativity and the origin of ideas.

We’ll share and explore our beliefs on the nature and origins of ideas and our experiences as creators, artists, knowledge workers, and thinkers of all sorts.

Questions for Discussion:

• Where do ideas come from? Do good ideas and bad ideas come from the same place?
• Do ideas exist in some physical form? Are they inside our bodies?
• Do we share a collective consciousness? If so, how does one tap into it?
• When and where do you have your best ideas?
• What can we do to have more good ideas?

Reading:

Bring your own theories and questions. There’s absolutely no prerequisite knowledge or reading required, but if you want to whet your appetite, here are some suggestions:

“Jung, the mystical Sundance Kid to Sigmund Freud’s staunch Butch Cassidy, observed that common motifs cropped up in people’s dreams and that there was a corollary to symbols and even structure that could be found in various folk tales and myths. So Jung offered up the idea that consciousness could exist outside the mind and that we all have access to it.”

— Russell Brand, Revolution (Book)

“Follow the 3 Bs of Creativity: 1. Bed (nap and dream). 2. Bath (relax and let the subconscious mind work its magic). 3. Bus (travel, move, and escape routine). Here’s why this works: The unconscious mind transcends rationality.”

— David Perell, The Creative Process

“This is how I began to discover that, if I put the work in before going to bed, I often had a little creative idea overnight, which fixed whatever problem it was that I was trying to deal with. It was like a gift, a reward for all my wrestling with the puzzle. I began to think to myself, “It can only be that while I’m asleep, my mind goes on working at the problem so that it can give me the answer in the morning.

Put simply, you can’t ask your unconscious a question, and expect a direct answer—a neat, tidy little verbal message. This is because your unconscious communicates its knowledge to you solely through the language of the unconscious.

And the language of the unconscious is not verbal. It’s like the language of dreams. It shows you images, it gives you feelings, it nudges you around without you immediately knowing what it’s getting at.”

— John Cleese, Creativity (Book)

“Creative insights often come along with alpha waves, especially in the right hemisphere of the brain. Alpha waves are related to nonarousal. They are often associated with relaxing activities such as strolling, taking a warm shower, and yes, meditation.”

— Chade-Meng Tan, Joy on Demand (Book)

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