Opening Your Creative Mind

Creativity is one of the most rewarding and essential parts of our everyday life. It’s when we feel the most alive. Whether it’s planting flowers, painting a room, solving a problem, inventing something new, writing a book, or just daydreaming the future to come. When we’re creating we are the happiest, healthiest and most satisfied with the world around us.

Most people if asked would tell you they’re not creative. But that isn’t true. Everyone has a creative nature. Just the process of choosing the right blouse or shirt to go with the right pants or skirt is in itself a creative process. You mix, match and then try them on to see not only how they look together, but how they look on you. Sometimes you love the creation, sometimes you go back to the drawing book and/or closet and try again.

Stress and the hustle and bustle of today’s world are definite killers to the creative process. Some of us, myself included, find ourselves just pulling the first thing we find out of the closet. We’re too tired or perhaps to rushed to take the time to be creative. This in itself increases our frustration with our everyday life, and increases our stress load. We need that few moments of creativity to give us a boost, make us feel attractive.

So how do we get it back? Where do we start to reopen creativity in our world? We have not a writer’s block, but a life block. Lack of time or simply lack of initiative. Below are a few techniques you can use to reopen that world. The more you use them, the more you’ll find you want to use them, for those few moments of each day become more enjoyable, happier. A time for you.

First – recognize that you have creative thoughts thousands of times a day. They’re fleeting, and you have to grab on quick and hold on. Learn to pay attention to your thoughts. Learn to capture the important ones. Keep a notepad close, or a small recorder. It may only be a few words, a brief vision. Write it down, or record it for later study.

Second—challenge yourself daily. Take something that you find difficult. Set up a model of ways to make it easier. Or a better way of doing the same thing that’s more economical and produces a greater output in less time.

Third—Broaden the world around you. Take a walk at lunch. Go to a new store where you’ve never been before. Even if you’re not looking for anything specific. There you’ll see new people, new things and broaden your creative outlook. Drive down a different street before heading home. See what other people are doing. What type of flowers adorns their walks. Strike up a conversation with a stranger. They probably want to talk too, but may be too insecure to approach you.

Four—stimulate your creative mind with oddities. You’re going to be at your desk for eight hours or more. Put something on your desk that every time you look at it you think something different. Perhaps an apple and a pair of rubber gloves. I know that’s sort of weird. But every time your gaze falls on that apple and rubber gloves your mind is going to try to decipher why you have gloves and an apple together. A child’s toy and trowel. Stimulate your mind with objects that are different than what’s normally on your desk. Change this daily. With diverse and changing stimuli you’ll find your mind beginning to change, seek new direction and creative ideas flowing more freely.

Have a great day, and create something new.

Artist's Tool -- Dreaming Your Way to Success

Looking for new inspiration? Suffering from writer’s block? Have a problem that you just can’t solve? We’ve all experienced times when the harder we tried the more frustrated we became. We knew the answer was there. Just outside the recesses of our conscious thought. We just couldn’t quite pull it out.

Dreams are images, thoughts and emotions experienced during sleep. Some are extremely vivid, while others are extremely vague. Philosophers have studied the dream process for thousands of years, and although there are many theories as to why we dream, no one really knows.

Freud believed dreams were a representation of our unconscious desires. Hobson and McClarley believed that circuits in the brain are activated during REM sleep, and dreams are our attempt to interpret those signals. Other theories include that dreams have no purpose, while others believe that dreaming is essential to mental, emotional and physical health.

For artists, dreams have always been and still are a source of inspiration. Dreams are the creations of our mind, tapping into our imagination.

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, wrote that he got many of his best stories from his dreams.

Edgar Allen Poe also shared that he relied on his dreams to inspire the moods and themes of many of his tales.

Stephen King in an interview with UK report Stan Nicholls stated when asked about the inspiration for Misery: “Like the ideas for some of my other novels, that came to me in a dream.”

Search the web and you’ll find hundreds of other stories of artists who have used their dreams to create works of poetry, novels, paintings and songs.

We dream every single night, but often we forget our dreams. The key to remembering dreams is to set the intention before you sleep. An agreement, if you will, between your conscious and subconscious mind that you will dream creatively and will recall your dreams.

Prior to sleep focus on the solution or inspiration you seek from your dreams. Write it down, being specific about exactly what you’re looking for. Keep a notepad and pen or pencil next to your bed. As soon as you awaken write down everything you remember about your dream. If you don’t remember, write down what you believe you remember. Write down the first thing that pops into your mind. Focus on your feelings in the dream, list any places, symbols, colors and the people involved.

Now, play with your dream. Turn it into a poem, a melody, short story or fable. Draw or paint pictures related to your dream. Set up a dialogue with the characters in your dream. See if there’s a correlation between your dream and your current creative project? If not, perhaps this is the inspiration for a new creative project.

Dreams can be an artist’s best tool for continued or renewed inspiration. I have dreamed many of the scenes of my current books, as well as plots for new novels.

Another simple process is prior to going to sleep, clear your mind. Think about exactly what you want to dream about, and hold that thought. Daydream about it until you drift off to sleep. Combine the power of your conscious and subconscious mind to open the doors to your creativity.

Linda S. Prather, Author
The Gifts, A Jacody Ives Mystery
Sacred Secrets, A Jacody Ives Mystery
www.prather-author.com