This entry is inspired from reading an excerpt from Salvador Dali’s “Fifty Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship”. This is an attempt to explore and explain the alluring creative space that exists at the intersection of the conscious and the unconscious, and how, as creative entities we can capitalize on this state of mind.
Dali, in his book, offers advice on attaining an optimal state of productivity before advancing on creative endeavors. He focuses on the sleep onset stage, the period of transition between wakefulness and sleep, and the dream state.
To summarize the Spanish artist’s process – first and foremost, Dali recommends a period of deep sleep through the night, before waking early in the morning to capitalize on daylight hours of productivity. He then suggests breaking the day with an afternoon “siesta” of an infinitely small duration; “slumber with a key”, describes this process. On first reading, Dali’s article appeared whimsical, at best. However, after pondering over the key ideas of his article, I found myself convinced that “slumber with a key” already manifests itself in many ways in our lives.
Ever fall asleep in the library, on a big fat textbook, head over hands, resolving to wake up soon? How long does that nap last? 15 – 20 minutes at best? It lasts right up until the blood circulation to you forearms starts to get cut off, creating that tingling sensation in your hands. Dali refers to this feeling in his musings as the, “benumbing of your hands at the moment when slumber approaches” (Dali 36).
Or what about, when the guy next to you in lecture sneaks in a nap, until the pen he holds in his hand drops to the ground, waking him from his slumber? Of course, whether that is the best time for a nap, is questionable.
Most of us, at some point, and some of us, habitually, take power naps in the afternoon. Less commonly, people may also take a caffeine nap. This may sound counterintuitive, but caffeine, in spite of being a stimulant, doesn’t kick in immediately. If you consume caffeine right before the planned nap and set an alarm for twenty minutes, when the alarm goes off, your body is just beginning to feel the effects of caffeine. This prevents you from falling back into lazy slumber. Dali, in my mind, seemed to be talking about a similar phenomenon, albeit a little extreme.
While these initial musings posed odd similarities to Dali’s idea, I debated if these sneaky naps put you in the same creative space that Dali talks about. With this in mind, I felt I needed to research the science of what it meant for consciousness to be at the intersection of awakening and slumber, and to experience the said state of mind.
Having experienced, power naps, and caffeine naps, I knew that they provide the needed repose only if followed through correctly, with a decent amount of deep sleep the night before. A caffeine nap attempted in a sleep-deprived state is often counterproductive, as it leaves you feeling edgy and unnerved upon waking. Dali similarly stresses on the absolute requirement of deep sleep for the afternoon siesta to be of any effect.
Here forth, I describe my attempts at trying Dali’s recommended method with a few improvisations.
In my first attempt, I planned on taking a nap on my bed, with my arm to the side, holding a key between my thumb and forefinger, and a baking pan by the bed to drop the key into. My first observation was that as I tried to fall asleep, so much of my attention was focused on the key in my hand; I felt that it kept me from drifting to sleep as I normally would. I also made the naïve mistake of attempting this nap, at time that I was heavily sleep-deprived. Also, being a restless sleeper, I ended up just abandoning, the key by my side, and the task at hand, essentially just falling asleep to recover from my sleep debt. I woke up many hours later in a wondrous state of amusement.
In planning my second attempt, at Dali’s slumber method, I ensured that had a full night’s sleep before hand. Also, since I didn’t want be distracted by the conscious effort to hold the key in my hand, I instead used one of the TSA locks I owned, as I could conveniently hang it from my forefinger. Ironically, my improvised method of Dali’s “slumber with a key”, turned out to be “slumber with a lock”. This time, it took me longer to actually to drift to sleep, perhaps because I wasn’t as tired, or perhaps, I should have worked harder through the day (as Dali recommended). Either way, I eventually did catch the zzz’s, and woke up to the sound of the lock hitting the floor (it missed the baking pan). I think in part, I awoke to the sensation of the weight leaving my finger. While this was just a beginner’s attempt at the process, I felt that I understood Dali’s idea.
Having had an initial encounter with “slumber with a key” I decided to research the sleep cycle – what Dali refers to as, “the dialectics of the dream…the taut and invisible wire that separates sleeping from waking” (Dali 36); what really happens in the sleep onset stage and the dream state, and why it is said to fuel creativity and ideas.
The human sleep cycle can be broadly divided into two stages, REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep and NREM (Non REM) sleep. Most dreaming happens in REM sleep. Electroencephalography, a technique to record electrical signals in the brain, has been used to map brain activity of the sleep cycle. This has revealed 4 kinds of waves –
1. Alpha waves – These are prominent when the mind is relaxed or meditative. These are the predominant waves in the onset sleep stage or soon after waking up.
2. Theta waves – These are prominent in drowsy sleep. In the first stage of sleeping, brain activity transitions from Alpha waves to Theta waves.
3. Delta waves – These are prominent, when experiencing deep sleep. Many a times, if you are woken up without sufficient hours of sleep, you often feel like a truck has hit you in the head. This is due to disruption in the deep sleeping pattern. Deep sleep occurs earlier in the night after transitioning from Alpha and Theta waves.
4. Beta waves – These are associated with high levels of activity, stress and active concentration on routine tasks.
With that background, it is known that creative inspiration and peak performance happens when there is an increase of alpha wave activity levels in the left side of the brain. The Biocybernaut Institute website says, “The brains of creative people can generate these big Alpha brain wave bursts, and do so when they are faced with problems to solve” (Biocybernaut Institute, Alpha Waves)
On a side note, the consumption of caffeine in stressful situations does not produce the same effects, because the waves transition directly between delta and beta, skipping the alpha and theta phases of activity.
Therefore, unknowingly, what Dali was proposing in his third secret of master craftsmanship, was a way to attain a calm, meditative state of alpha level activity in the brain, which is conducive to artists, and others involved in creative endeavors.
Historically, artists have often pursued extending the alpha stage of the brain for as long as possible. This led to an especially prominent phenomenon in the sixties – recreational use of psychoactive drugs, like marijuana for their psychedelic and hallucinogenic effects, similar to the hypnagogic effects characteristic of the sleep onset stage. (I do not advocate the use of drugs) What Dali and other advocates suggest is a less addictive, natural way to induce the exploration of this state of mind.
In the course of my research, I found another point of interest, related to inducing alpha level activity in the brain. Artist Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville, in the sixties, invented a device they called the “Dreamachine”. Here is a description from their project website –
“The Dreamachine simply consists in a cylinder with holes cut into his sides and placed on a turntable. A lightbulb is suspended on the center of the spinning cylinder, and the rotation lets the light to pass through the holes at a constant frequency, situated between 8 and 13 pulses per second. This frequency range corresponds to the ‘alpha waves’, electrical oscillations naturally present in human brain when the eyes are closed and no stimuli are processed, e.g., when there’s a relaxed and effortless alertness, and while meditating” (Gysin, Sommerville Dreamachine)
The Dreamachine was meant to be viewed with closed eyes. It created visual stimulations and imagery similar to what is experienced during alpha sleep.
Curious about the phenomenon, I found an HTML dreamachine, that simulated the effects of the original machine. Here is the link – http://www.netliberty.net/dreamachine.html
A word of caution – This can cause seizures in some people depending on the frequency of viewing. I tested my interior vision through this web dreamachine. I started at a frequency of 10Hz which maps to alpha wave frequency, and gradually increased the frequency till it was uncomfortable. My experience was definitely intense; I felt the need to open my eyes to interrupt the “viewing” experience. I imagine this is what rapid eye movement would feel like if you were to be physically aware of it as it happens.
In subsequent pages of his book, Dali offers way to push the boundaries of the conscious by exploring the dreamscape for creative inspiration, and manipulating unconscious thoughts and ideas, what is now known as, “lucid dreaming”. He says, “what you prevent yourself from doing and force yourself not to do, the dream will do with all the lucidity of desire.”
As creative entities, whether you are a game designer, an artist, a musician, or an engineer you can further capitalize on the edge of consciousness through lucid dreaming. In his “three rules for controlling your dreams” (Dali 35), Dali talks about inducing such dreams through cues from external stimuli, sensory, olfactory or tactical.
It turns out, all of us, in one way or another, already make links between our conscious and unconscious minds. It isn’t uncommon to hear people mention, “I listen to the Lord of The Rings soundtrack when I’m studying Chemistry”, or “I have a techno study play list on my ipod” or “That’s my workout music”. While your conscious mind is trying to absorb the information directly in front of you, the unconscious mind is building cues and links that are related to memory and motivations.
In their book, Lucid Dreaming: The paradox of consciousness during sleep, Celia Green and Charles McCreery discuss building awareness of lucid dreaming, and training yourself to make your dream experience more realistic, allowing you to manipulate the edges of your consciousness.
I have had a few lucid dream experiences wherein I have been aware of the sense of dreaming. This awareness is generally triggered by an anomaly in an otherwise realistic dream experience. Green and McCreery make some practical suggestions to induce lucid state. One suggestion is to “make a resolution to carry out some particular action to test the dream state, and carrying out this check could be incorporated as part of his waking routine whenever he asks himself the question, ‘Am I dreaming now?” (Green, McCreery119). They recommend tasks such as trying to push through a wall, lifting objects to gauge their weight, or trying to read. These ordinary tasks produce different responses in dreams, and can act as a way to trigger lucidity. I am yet to control my dreams in a significant way, but if I am preoccupied with a thought, it manifests itself in my dreams very often.
One of the ways of capitalizing on the sleep onset stage or dream memories to always have a notepad and pencil by your bedside, and with you at all times. The process of free associations is important, and scribbling down ideas let’s the subconscious occupy itself with new thoughts and ideas.
I kept a dream journal for a few weeks last year, as part of a mind mapping experience for my concept studio class with Lowry Burgess in the School of Art. This task requires a certain amount of discipline because you might be tempted to just fall into deep sleep without recording your ideas in the alpha-theta transition. Similarly, you must be diligent in recording your dream memories, as soon as wake from a dream. I often felt like memories would slip from me at the speed of light and I’d be chasing them in my mind desperately to hold on to every strand. Lucid dreaming also requires a suspension of disbelief in reality. It requires opening yourself to the prospect of inspiration in the realm of dreams. I think it could be surprising what thought and ideas you may find.
Let me close with an example that you may or may not consider as evidence of creative inspiration in the dream state, but it is wondrous nonetheless –
“According to biographers of McCartney and The Beatles, McCartney composed an entire melody in a dream one night in his room at the Wimpole Street home of his then girlfriend Jane Asher and her family. Upon waking, he hurried to a piano and played the tune to avoid forgetting it…
Upon being convinced that he had not robbed anyone of his melody, McCartney began writing lyrics to suit it. As Lennon and McCartney were known to do at the time, a substitute working lyric, entitled “Scrambled Eggs” was used for the song until something more suitable was written.” (Wikipedia)
You might have heard of it. It’s called, “Yesterday”. It remains one of the most popular songs of all time.
Work Cited:
1. Dali, Salvador. Fifty Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship. Dover Publications, 1992. Print.
2. Biocybernaut Institute. “Alpha Brain Waves”. Web.
3. Green, Celia and McCreery, Charles. Lucid Dreaming: A paradox of consciousness during sleep. Routledge, 1994. Print.
4. Gysin, Brion and Sommerville Ian. “Dreamachine”. http://www.10111.org/0.php?wakka=Dreamachine. 10111.org.Web.
5. HTML Dreamachine. http://www.netliberty.net/dreamachine.html. Net Liberty. Web.
6. Wikipedia. “Yesterday (song)”. Web.
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