Unleashing Your Creativity

This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta. Across centuries, artists and writers have tried to make sense of the mysterious force that brings ideas to life. The ancient Greeks imagined the muse as a literal spirit, a whispering goddess who breathed inspiration into the poet's ear. Renaissance painters courted her through ritual and prayer, while romantic poets looked for her in storms, mountain peaks, and moonlit walks.

Now, psychological research is discovering that what the ancients call divine inspiration is really the brain at play. When we are relaxed, taking a shower, folding laundry, staring out a window, our minds slip into a pattern of spontaneous association. Neurons fire across disparate brain regions, linking old memories with half formed ideas. Then, suddenly, an insight bubbles up. It feels like a gift from the heavens, but it's really the product of our own unconscious minds.

When we think about how creative work unfolds, we usually imagine it happening in moments of intense focus. A painter standing before his canvas, a scientist peering into her microscope. But research shows that many of our most original ideas do not appear when we are concentrating hard. They arrive when our minds wander, when we are driving, showering, or staring into space.

Thank you.

Up you're familiar with the story of Friedrich August Kecule, a German chemist born in eighteen twenty nine. What was the great research project of his life?

Kulet was working on on the structure of molecules that was in the in the eighteen sixties uh what what the the most famous chemists did. And some of the structures were known by then. We we we knew uh what water looked like or oxygen. But Kekule was working on more complex molecules.

So these complex molecules often were related to carbon and how carbon molecules took the form of long chains, right?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And he was he was I think at the time working on what what they called benzene, which is part of crude oil. And he he was working on this for quite a while. He couldn't figure out De structure of that molecule. And at some point he thought about it, he thought about it and he thought about it more even more. And then he dozed off in front of his fireplace and he fell asleep. And in his dream.

So in other words, these carbon molecules had these long chains, but the insight that he got while he was sleeping was that this long chain in some way circled back on itself and formed a ring.

Yeah, that was the exactly in a dream, and that was at the time completely new. Nobody had thought about it.

He must have been very startled to have woken up from this dream with this dream of a snake and realized that in some ways it had solved his problem.

He was shocked. Yeah. He was shocked himself. And and of course also uh elated because he he immediately realized that it was not just a dream, that it was the solution. He must have been euphoric as well.

So some years after that discovery, a French scientist and mathematician, Henri Poincaré, was working on a problem related to what are known as Fusion functions.

Puencar Re did all kinds of different things. He was he was really uh almost a universal scientist. But one of the things he did was indeed um uh Fuchian equations. That there he worked on I think for seven or eight years already. Uh, and he made some progress, but there was a big puzzle that he couldn't he couldn't solve. Then, at a day where he wasn't going to work, he was in the countryside doing something completely different and he stepped on a bus.

One of the striking things was in both the Cecule story as well as in the Poincare story, the answer seemed to come almost effortlessly.

Yeah. If you have one of those sudden flashes of insight or inspiration, it feels like it comes out of nowhere and for a long time people believe these insights came from God or f in the old Greek days, in the time of the old Greek philosophers, they thought it came from Muses, the the nine goddesses.

Henri Poincaré wrote about his epiphany and it's I think instructive to listen to his words directly. He describes getting on this bus and he writes We entered an omnibus to go someplace or other. At the moment when I put my foot on the step, the idea came to me without anything in my former thoughts.

Yeah, these sudden burst of inspirations are wonderful in in different ways. One of them is indeed if s if scientists have these ideas, they yes, they feel absolutely right. Some people describe these moments of insight basically as love. They give you a lot of energy at the same time. Uh and the third thing is that it feels almost magical and and that's why you feel forced to do something with it. You can't have a

I understand that after this experience Henri Poincaré changed the way he worked. Um how so up? What did he do?

Well Poincare I said, okay, if if my unconscious works on uh mathematical problems uh I I should give it time. So what he started to do is he worked only four hours a day, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Um, at least in a conscious way. He worked in a conscious way four hours a day and the rest of the day he assumed that his unconscious would work on on the problems he was working on.

You tell a wonderful story involving the scientist Lawrence Bragg. Who was he up and how did he spend his time?

Lawrence Brack was the youngest uh Nobel Prize winner ever, and I think he still is. He won he was 25 or 26 when he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. And what he did, he had one day a week where he he chose to to go gardening rather than rather than working in his lab.

For centuries, we've been told stories about inspiration as something that visits us: a spark from the gods, a sudden gust of grace. Science is now finding that the spark is already burning inside us, and there are things we can do to give the spark oxygen. When we come back, how the brain comes up with original ideas. You're listening to Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta.

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. I remember reading a poem by Percy Bysshelley many years ago. In Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, which is partly about the nature of inspiration, he writes, Sudden, thy shadow fell on me, I shrieked and clasped my hands in ecstasy.

This idea that inspiration comes out of nowhere, that it is unpredictable, untamable, this is a very old idea.

Ob Dijksterhaus is a psychologist who studies the science of inspiration and creativity. Pop, one of the most intriguing ideas in your work is that you have found that the brain has the capacity to continue to work on problems even when our attention has turned to other things. How does this happen? Most of us think that we focus on problems and then we solve those problems because we're focused on them.

I I once wrote a a children's book about psychology and uh I I compared thinking to a whale. You know, a whale sometimes surfaces but but most of the time a whale is actually underwater and it still continues to swim. And uh thinking is is like that. If we a set ourselves important goals or if we work on something that we find very important.

In some ways I think this dovetails really nicely with uh central idea of the Hidden Brain Project, which is that even as we feel like everything that happens in our minds happens at a conscious level.

I think the first episode of Hidden Brain I ever listened to was simply because of the f because of the title, because of the name Hidden Brain. I thought this is what I'm working on. Yeah. It's very much comparable.

Researchers using brain scanning equipment have monitored the brain while it shifts from task to task. Uh what have such studies discovered about how the brain works?

Well, when we started to study uh the idea that people think unconsciously, that's that's the way we call it, what we did is we gave uh information about four different apartments in the city of Amsterdam. That was this was at the time where I was working at the University of Amsterdam. We gave students information about four different apartments.

So this is fascinating. What you're finding is that when you tell people to focus on a problem and to focus exclusively on the problem and come up with an answer. In some ways they do worse than people who are asked first to focus on the problem and then do something else that's a little distracting and then return to the problem.

Yeah, exactly. And the only thing you need is motivation or you set yourself a goal. So let's say you you talk to your partner and you think about it's now Thursday, uh, you tell yourself, okay, we're gonna we're gonna make a city trip. But you s you have to decide which city you wanna visit. And then you say, Okay, we're not gonna talk about it for too much any longer but let's say we we on Sunday evening when we have dinner together

Now there are some goals that in fact are best left to the conscious mind. So if you're evaluating potential mortgages, for example, or you're consulting a manual to fix an appliance, There are domains where in fact thinking about the problem is better than not thinking about the problem.

Yeah. Um you can actually distinguish between three categories. There are things that our unconscious will always think about, and these have to do with basic routines or with also with survival or things that are very much based on emotions. You can think about love. You know, these are things that, you know, your minds or the minds of most people anyway will work on naturally.

Let's take a look at some of the qualities of unconscious thinking that can make it so generative. Uh you say that unconscious thought processes are capacious and can hold more information than conscious thoughts. can hold. Um, why would this be the case?

It's simply a consequence of the of the enormous capacity of our brain and the rather limited capacity of consciousness. Consciousness is one wonderful quality, it's very precise. You know, I could ask you what's fourteen times seventeen? and you can uh use a calculator, but if you don't use a calculator your consciousness can solve this within a few seconds. The unconscious will never solve you can you can

In some ways I think what you're saying is that the conscious mind functions almost like a spotlight. It basically focuses on something and is able to illuminate that thing very well, and the unconscious mind has a perhaps a a wider uh uh aperture. It basically it's it's uh it's a floodlight that is covering a much larger terrain.

That's exactly what it is. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And that also makes the unconscious more uh wild and associative in a way. And in a sense also more creative, you know, if you if you think about something unconsciously you come up with things sometimes at least that are quite unexpected and and yeah, wild. Uh and consciousness on the other hand, yeah, exactly. It's a spotlight. It's very It's very precise. It's not the most adventurous thinking usually, but it's it's it's precise. Hm.

You also say that unconscious thought processes can draw on the deep recesses of our memory. Um talk about how such memories might enrich our creativity or

Well I think what happens is if you if you think unconsciously, yes, it's almost unlimited in when it comes to the the information your unconscious uses and it it can involve basically everything, you know, including childhood memories. And and I think that's one of the reasons that if scientists or artists, if they engage their unconscious,

You once ran an experiment where you asked people to write down the names of as many Dutch cities as they could think of that began with the letter A. Um tell me about this experiment and what you found.

That's an experiment where um yeah, I I had two groups. So one group I simply asked, uh name as much cities and villages starting with the letter A in the Netherlands and the other group I said, you know, later I want you to uh list as many cities or villages with the letter A but we're we're first gonna uh do something else. And again they engaged in in a few minutes in in in solving word puzzles.

You also say that unconscious thought processes don't engage in concrete details as much as the essence or the gist of the information at hand. And in some ways this is related to the spotlight versus floodlight metaphor, uh which is again your you're trying the unconscious mind is involved in in sort of capturing the general feel of something, not necessarily the precise contours of of many things.

Yeah. The the gist. That's probably the the single best word to describe it. So if you if you think about something consciously, you focus on also on a precise wording of of information. If you think about something unconsciously, you Yeah, you look at the gist about what what are the underlying traits. We have we have done um uh experiments for instance where people have to form an impression of an of a hypothetical person.

In the example we talked about earlier with Henri Poincaré, you know, he talks about how the insight that he eventually had as he stepped onto this bus. was an insight that allowed him to combine two ideas that in fact came from very different places. Um talk about the idea that unconscious thought processes allow diverse ideas and experiences to mingle and combine in novel ways.

Yeah, I think that that is also one of the things unconscious thought is capable of doing. You know, for instance, even childhood memories can can be part of such an unconscious thought process and i it's almost like a definition of creativity that that you combine things that aren't usually combined and this is something our our unconscious is known to be better at than if we think about something very consciously, very attentively.

And in some ways this then connects with the idea that unconscious thought processes are going to be associative. In other words one thing leads to the next and something from your childhood might intersect with something that happens in your workplace, which might intersect with something that you see in a sports game.

Yeah, first it leads you deeper into the mire, as sometimes scientists say. But but in the end, yeah, it but it often leads you to uh to the real solutions by using the most unusual associations and combinations, yeah.

One remarkable capacity of unconscious thought processes is that they seem to generate seemingly Complete and perfect answers. Um when uh Poincare basically made his discovery, he said uh you know, I felt a perfect certainty.

Well... We don't really know and and the unconscious doesn't do it all the time unfortunately. It only does so occasionally. But when your unconscious comes up with a solution to something, occasionally it's just perfect. There's no interference of of consciousness. It's just sort of truth arriving in its in its purest form. And you see it in many, many different areas, not just in science. And if you look at

You described the story of the singer and songwriter Suzanne Vega who wrote a very famous song that also came to her in a flash. What song was this? Describe what happened to her.

This this is Luka. Yeah. I remember um watching a documentary about her on Dutch television and she showed uh her interviewer um the the lyrics she wrote for Luca and it was just a a piece of paper that that she showed and she said this is when I you know the first time I wrote it and there were nothing was crossed out. It was just there. She's she

Now the song Luca is about uh child abuse. It describes a story of a young boy who basically is is being harmed, uh presumably by his uh by his caretakers. Uh and Suzanne Vega later said that in some ways the song was autobiographical, that she was writing about herself. And here again is an example of Someone's musical abilities and talents intersecting with their own childhood experiences and coming up with something that almost feels complete from the get-go.

Yeah, it's a wonderful example of of yeah, an idea that is suddenly there and it's beautiful and it and it's it yeah, it's finished. You know, she didn't have to do much about it. I think it was both the lyrics and the music were there within minutes. Yeah, it's a wonderful a wonderful example of what your what a what a creative unconscious can come up with.

I understand that um volunteers were presented once with riddles or problems that could be solved either Through analysis or by sudden insight. Uh what kind of problems were these and and what did uh what was the outcome of the experiment?

It this is a tradition in cognitive psychology in the nineteen eighties where people wanted to see they wanted to study inside problems. And uh one example is um I think it goes like this. So here's a riddle. Every day what are Lily's double the surface area uh they occupy. And at the start of the summer there's only one lily leaf in the lake. After sixty days, the entire water surface is covered. On which day was the lake half covered with water lily?

One of the things I like about that puzzle up is that in some ways it requires us to actually turn the problem on its head. So in other words, instead of starting from day one and saying, Okay, day one there's one lily, day two there's two and so forth.

Yeah. And then understanding the problem uh by turning it on its head is already the solution. Cause then you once you know it, you know it's it's actually incredibly simple. Yeah.

Unconscious thought processes are operating even when we are asleep, of course. Uh you write about a study in which volunteers who had experienced uh REM sleep were able to better solve problems requiring divergent thinking. Uh tell me about this work.

I think it started about thirty years ago where scientists discovered that During sleep we engage in memory cos consolidation. So this means actually if we learn something, then during REM sleep we consolidate this information so that the next day we have better memory. And then people started to do more and more experiments and also more complex experiments, where in the evening p participants in experiments would read quite complex information about the relationship of certain stimuli like

Now, REM sleep has long been associated with dreaming, and I'm wondering in some ways if the process of dreaming is in fact a process of creativity, because uh you know, unusual things get linked when we are dreaming.

Um yes indeed. DREM Sleep is our is basically our dream sleep and it's long been known that it is it is indeed associated with uh creativity. Kulet of course is a good example. We know that yesterday probably the most famous song by the Beatles Uh the melody of yesterday was dreamt b by Paul McCartney. Uh he woke up in the morning.

And in some ways up this speaks to what parents and educators have been telling children and students for a long time. If you're studying something, you're studying a subject or a you know, learning a difficult concept, the sleep that you get is actually an essential portion of your learning process.

Absolutely. Yeah. And and I think the more research we do, the more we figure out how r how important it really is. I remember my grandmother telling me, and I think this is something universal, that if you have to make an important decision, you have to sleep on it, literally. You know, don't make a decision tonight.

Right.

putting too much pressure on yourself. But now we realize more and more that no, during our sleep a lot of very useful things happen. There are higher cognitive processes going on while we sleep and especially while we dream.

If the first step in understanding creativity is recognizing that the muse lives inside us, the next step is learning how to invite her to make an appearance. We cannot order inspiration to appear, but we can create the conditions where it is most likely to materialize. When we come back, habits and practices to coax creative ideas from the quiet corners of our minds. You're listening to Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanta.

This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantham. Have you had an experience of struggling with a problem, only to have a good night's sleep and then find the answer came easily to you? Have you struggled to untangle a naughty conflict in a relationship and then found during a calm walk in nature that the problem seemed to unnot itself?

Psychologist Op Dijksterhaus is the author of Inspiration, Where the Best Ideas Come From.

Up in terms of creating the conditions that generate insight. There are other situations of course besides sleep where we also have this kind of generative thinking. The author J.K. Rowling says the idea for Harry Potter came to her while she was riding a train?

Yeah, it's one of the more famous and and wonderful stories. She uh she was a writer already, but she hadn't written anything that that um well, she hadn't written anything of of note, let's put it that way. And then she took the train from Manchester to London and

And in some ways I think this speaks to an idea that we referred to earlier where, you know, you gave students uh a task and you some students had to solve the task uh right away and some students were distracted and then they came back and in the third group

Yeah, those moments are indeed the best. I I studied the the working habits of artists and scientists and w what occurred to me uh is that Most of them w especially work in the morning. Some of them work more often than just in the morning. But the morning is usually the most productive time. We know that people are The the cognitive abilities are are usually at their best between about one and a half and five hours after you wake up.

So you say that a goal that engages the unconscious and generates insight should also be intrinsically oriented up? What do you mean by this?

Well, intrinsic motivation basically means that you're doing something that comes out of you, comes from the deeper regions of your brain, or or maybe in metaphorically from your heart. It it's something you really like to do. as opposed to extrinsic motivation. These are goals that you you want to achieve because of money or fame or some kind of external awards that you can win, for instance.

You tell the story of Marco Pierre White, who became the youngest chef to receive three Michelin stars. Um, paint a picture for me of how he came to accomplish this and what the result was of these accomplishments are.

So Marco quit school when he was sixteen and his father, who also was a Cook said, Well, you know, okay, if you want to quit school, you can quit school, but you have to go to work. And then he said, you know, why don't you go work in the kitchen? It was a, you know, b working class family, no, no frills, just work in the kitchen. And Marco

So in some ways this dovetails with work by the psychologist Ed DC and others that show that Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation are really these separate forces that that live inside our minds and that extrinsic motivations are fine. There's nothing in there's nothing wrong with them, but they do have this tendency to

Yeah, exactly. And and there's other examples. Even even studies with children, you know, you have to you ask them to make drawings and then uh and and this is what most children naturally love to do and then you start to pay them or give them some i other kind of reward and they actually start to to like it less. Yeah, the big problem with extrinsic motivation is not the extrinsic motivation itself, but it's the eroding, as you said, of the intrinsic motivation.

I understand that you yourself had an experience in Ecuador some years ago that generated a moment of inspiration for you. Uh tell me what happened up.

I wanted to write a book about creativity and uh after about a year I gave up because I liked the topic but I didn't I I didn't have a a a good idea of what the book would be. It was all still very vague. And then about three, four years later I tried again and again I failed. And then I was in in Ecuador, in Quito, the capital, and there are four or five very old churches and convents in the old town. And the and

You're clearly a a fan of the Beatles because the the Beatles have come up several times i in our in our conversation and and you say that John Lennon and Paul McCartney had an unusual way of selecting the songs that they felt were worth keeping. Um they generated, of course, many melodies and lyrics, but didn't always um you know finish all of them or publish all of them. Uh what was their process of?

they would jam in their studio and and just come up with new songs all the time. But they didn't have any recording equipment at the time. Uh so they basically had to memorize what they did. And then at some point they just realize that okay, if we play something in the afternoon, maybe we remember it the next morning and then it's probably good. And if we don't remember it the next morning, well fine, because it's probably not good enough anyway.

You know, it's striking to me up as we are talking today, I'm realizing that in so many different ways we are not in our daily lives, in our modern lives, really allowing the unconscious to to flourish. Uh you know, we write down every single thought we have. We are so focused on our emails and our work. Uh

I think that basically all this modern technology, what it it's it's highly useful in some ways, but it it also clutters our mind, you know? these days you need to r remember a password when you wanna order something from your local butcher. You know, it's it's pretty crazy these days and it's um You have to almost literally clean your mind and and you do this by uh by yeah, by things such as walking, by by doing other things.

Inspiration often feels like a bolt of lightning. As we've seen, there are a number of things we can do to make our minds hospitable places for creativity. In our companion story to this episode, available exclusively to subscribers to Hidden Brain Plus, we explore the role of effort in producing inspiration that feels effortless. If you're a subscriber, that episode is available right now. It's titled Inspiration Meets Perspiration.

Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy-Paul, Kristen Wong, Laura Quirell, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor.