Connect with your Subconscious
Jeff Mumm - Friday, November 21, 2008 3:26
Almost every artist has once been asked by someone: “Where do you get your ideas from?” And invariably, the cartoonist can’t figure out where to begin to answer that question. But the answer is extremely simple: The subconscious mind.
Think about the last time you had a brilliant idea. What happened? Did you decide you wanted to have a brilliant idea and then actively figure out what it should be? Or did it come to you, seemingly out of nowhere, followed by a stream of ideas that kept coming with an equally mysterious origin?
I’m guessing the latter. It’s your subconscious; your intuition; your underlying mental processes. Call it what you will; it’s the part of your brain that you don’t actively control. It’s everything your brain is doing without your guidance. It’s all the bits and pieces, all the memories, all the connections, all the sparks that inform your conscious self. That’s the part of your brain you need to learn to tap into, because that’s the part that knows what it’s doing (even when you don’t).
I started working in a data entry position recently, and a curious thing happened to me. The job was so mind numbing (typing the same form fields over and over again for eight hours, day in, day out), that after memorizing the pattern of the forms, I no longer needed to pay attention to what I was doing to type accurately and quickly. In fact, when I did pay attention to what I was typing, I slowed down and generally had to fix more mistakes.
I started to work on auto-pilot. And after about a week of trying to figure out what in the blazes I could occupy my mind with for eight hours, I stopped trying to occupy my mind, and it started to occupy itself. Basically, I started entering a meditative state. For eight hours a day. In this state, I started to have countless ideas go through my head. Some of them were good and some of them were bad. The good ones kept repeating. The bad ones would either pass by or develop into something good.
The first day this happened, within two hours, my subconscious created an animation I’m planning on creating – from inception of the concept to completion of the script. I didn’t write anything down until my break. But I didn’t need to. My subconscious was doing all the work. Days passed and thoughts turned from story ideas and plot twists to promotion ideas to goals to just about anything. And my breaks have now become fifteen minutes of writing down everything I received during the work period.
Some of these ideas are storylines that I had never thought of and some of them are very simple promotion ideas that I know I would have rejected if I had tried to come up with them consciously. The beauty of the subconscious is that it’s a completely negative-free zone. You don’t reject anything or deem anything unrealistic or bad. Ideas either stick or they don’t. And the ideas that stick are often times much better than anything you could come up with consciously.
So how do you tap into this? It’s about entering a meditative state. Enter a state where you don’t have any say in what ideas run through your head. Some people use brainstorming for this. Just jotting down any ideas that pop into their head and not rejecting anything until they feel like they have no more ideas to jot down. You could also literally meditate. The idea is simply to choose to trust your subconscious. It’s making connections that are much more complicated, vast, and far-reaching than anything you could reason out consciously. Let your subconscious inspire you, and milk it for all its worth. You’ll thank yourself for it.
This post was submitted by Jeff Mumm.
Chris says:
November 21st, 2008 at 5:38 am
I definitely agree with letting your subconscious do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to new ideas or making decisions. I also think that the “gut feeling” you get from time to time is your subconscious and whenever I get that feeling I try to go with it and more chances than not it’s the right decision.
Lukas says:
November 21st, 2008 at 5:57 am
Great article, I think the subconscious or unconscious mind is a brilliant and mysterious thing. Often if Im stuck or I have a block or whatever, i just leave what Im working on and go do something completely different. Later when I come back to that problem I find I often have new insight and I can see the problem from new perspectives. Im pretty certain that has to do with the subconscious working the problem through and making connections and associations while my conscious mind was focused elsewhere…
I read a great description of the creative process which went something like this:
Imagine an artist
Lukas says:
November 21st, 2008 at 5:59 am
oops somebody moderate that… I meant to delete that last sentence. Damn fandangled webatron!
Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » Nov. 22, 2008: Primitive stage says:
November 21st, 2008 at 1:25 pm
[...] [Commentary] Connecting with your subconscious Link: Jeff Mumm [...]
Scott Story says:
November 21st, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Wonderfully written, Jeff, and I agree that everything you wrote there is true. I’ve found that many of my better ideas have come while driving a route I’ve driven a zillion times before, or listening to old favorite music. I believe it’s also telling that the good ideas keep bubbling back to the surface, and the not-so good ones sink away pretty quickly.
Antoine says:
November 21st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I agree,
for me, I get the majority of my ideas when driving for a few hours, alone in my car. I have my blackberry with me and use the Voice Recorder feature on to keep the ideas. The best ride I had so far was 15 strip ideas in a 2 hours car ride
Erik H. says:
November 21st, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I disagree.
I don’t think you can (or should) set out to “tap” into this. I think a lot of people look for shortcuts to great ideas, but I think the key is just to get yourself so immersed in your creative work that it becomes second nature…almost routine…and that’s when your subconscious mind will help you wander down paths you might not otherwise explore.
I think if you’re a creative individual you’re obviously going to have your work on your mind at all times, so when given other monotonous work there’s a chance your mind will wander which is great and can be productive, but I think it’s foolish to chase that path as the best way to create.
Jeff Mumm says:
November 21st, 2008 at 11:33 pm
The point isn’t about finding shortcuts, but more effectively utilizing untapped inspiration. There are countless ideas and connections bubbling below the surface, waiting to be heard; but if you never stop to listen, you may never become aware of them. It’s just about stopping and opening yourself up to the inspiration inside of you. If you’re inspired and get great ideas without making a conscious decision to listen to your subconscious, that’s great, more power to you. Obviously this is a very personal experience and everyone will have different ways to access their own hidden gems.
Jeff Mumm says:
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:17 am
…but of course I agree with myself so maybe that was kind of redundant to post?
Kevin Vassey says:
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:51 am
Hey Jeff, great post. One thing that I do regularly to stimulate those subconcious ideas is draw with my non-dominant hand. When I get stuck on a particular panel, or I am just sketching to get things figured out, it really helps shake things up. My right brain becomes so confused with what just happened, that my left brain gets a chance to drive. Now, the drawing that’s happening during all this may be dreadful, but occasionally, there is a great spark, and some good ideas and drawings are the result. Thanks!
JoshM says:
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:41 am
I’ve found this to be the case almost without fail: I’ll be working my brain all morning trying to get at a usable idea, then finally I give up and head out for groceries or some dull errands. Before I’ve gone a block, the ideas are falling into place. It’s a good thing I don’t live on a busy street because I’m usually stopped longer than I should be at the intersection while I write it all down.
Tephlon says:
November 24th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Interestingly for me it works more like Lukas said. If I’m stuck i start working on something different and when i get back I have some fresh ideas. But i’m willing to try and get in the zone.
Off topic: The image you used for the article is great. In more ways than one. (You’ve resized it in HTML/Code, not in a graphics program. It’s in fact 1800×1800 pixels and 796kB. I noticed it took a while to load in my css reader… you might want to fix that.)