15

The fourth wall: consciousness

Just as humans are used to thinking in certain ways in the form of riverbeds and thought tunnels, we are also used to thinking of thinking itself in a certain way. This became clear in the Chapter 13, the wall of common sense: thinking seems to be about making logical and conscious decisions. But in the previous chapter, we discussed how the brain works – and thinks! – without our being conscious of it. If we want to use the full thinking power of our brains, we must expand the box by pushing out the wall of consciousness.

Figure 15.1

In order to increase consciousness, we must pull in two directions, as shown in Figure 15.1. The figures vary among different studies and different random tests of people, but on average it appears that we can process a problem consciously for approximately 15 minutes. This is not a particularly long time, which leaves room for appreciable improvement if we extend our consciousness forward in time. After 15 minutes of conscious work, people are usually ready to present a solution. As we discussed in the chapter on common sense, we often go on clinging to this solution even after further thought and even after other alternatives turn up later. But the solution does not take 15 minutes to come up with: it often pops into our heads before we are even conscious of it. If we can become conscious of the solution at an earlier stage, we can work on it and alternative solutions for a longer time with better results.

Solutions and ideas that we have not had time to process consciously are commonly known as ‘gut feelings’. Gut feeling does not of course come from the gut, but from the brain, but because we are not conscious of the thought processes, we feel that they must be coming from somewhere other than the head. Thus the gut. A number of interesting experiments have been conducted which show how the brain reacts so quickly that we do not have time to be conscious of it. In one such experiment, people were shown words on a computer screen so rapidly that they did not have time to read them consciously. The subjects could not say what the words were, but they could correctly say whether they were positive or negative. Without being conscious of the words ‘food’ and ‘family’ they answered positively, just as they answered negatively to words such as ‘evil’ and ‘danger’ without being conscious of them.

In another experiment, people had to choose cards from one of two piles. Using a complicated system, they were rewarded with money or punished by losing money depending on the order in which they took a card from one of the piles. On average, it was about the 70th turn before subjects could consciously understand the system and choose cards from the correct pile. But after 30–60 cards everyone could choose correctly on the basis of ‘a feeling they had’. No one could consciously explain how the system worked, but they managed to chose correctly each time. In fact, after 7–13 turns, long before the subjects had even developed a feeling for the right or wrong choice, they began to choose correctly. The explanation of this experiment and the experiment with the quickly displayed words is that the brain thinks long before we are conscious of it. Therefore, by listening and using our ‘gut feelings’, we can increase our consciousness and employ more of our thinking.

Increasing our consciousness in the opposite direction, beyond the 15 minutes of active processing, has been an object of interest for researchers into creativity throughout the ages. One can speak, as in medical research, of incubation time. Just as a virus needs time to establish itself in the body before disease breaks out, problems and solutions need time to establish themselves in the brain and become connected to the right neurons and associations. When we actively work on a problem for 15 minutes, it is chiefly those pieces of the puzzle that are close to each other in our heads that latch on to each other. But if the pieces can be left in our heads for a longer period (in the back of your head), they can await the possibility of latching onto other pieces which happen to turn up in some completely unrelated thought process. The incubation period of a virus, which cannot attach itself to all the molecules of the body but must wait until the ‘right’ molecules arrive, works in exactly the same way.

Consciousness can also be expanded in a downward direction, as in Figure 15.2. We have already discussed gestalt psychology – our need to see the whole picture – in connection with our first encounter with the dot-joining exercise in Chapter 6. This need explains why people often fail in the test where they are shown pictures for very short periods: their consciousness has become stuck at the ‘whole’ level, the gestalt level, and they therefore fail to notice the altered clues at the detailed level.

Figure 15.2

Experiments have been conducted in which the subjects were first asked to read stories then tested on how well they remembered the content. One group was instructed to remember the story, another was only told to read it. The test that followed showed that the first group remembered less of the content than the second. The explanation is that the consciousness of the first group was fixed on the whole in order to make it easier to remember, and therefore they missed all the details and developments in the stories, which the second group found easier to assimilate. In order to have the maximum number of pieces of the puzzle to combine, you must get past the gestalt and become conscious of the details. You can then make many more combinations (as in the example on page 110 of shaking the puzzle box and producing all sorts of funny hand–foot animals instead of ‘merely’ arriving at the intended Donald Duck subject). By focusing on details, you can find solutions that you would never otherwise have thought of. (The example of milk from the conventions and rules in Chapter 12 also fits in here. Attention to the detail container gave a completely new product, which might never otherwise have seen the light of day if the drink itself and its characteristics had been the only focus of attention.) To this we can add that small changes often lie behind successful innovations.

The following exercises train you to expand your consciousness both backwards and forwards in time and to see new details and possible combinations.

RAT

RAT is short for Remote Associates Test. In the section on shaking the box (see page 269), we discussed how creative people are both unusually skilful at solving associative tests and enjoy doing them more than others. RAT was developed in the 1960s and has frequently been used since then in tests of creativity and understanding how creativity works. The test involves finding common denominators for apparently completely unrelated words by making remote associations. The test comes in two forms. In its simpler form, the test subject is given a number of words (for example, 50) to choose from, whereas in the more difficult (and more usual) form, they must search for words in their own minds.

Below are three degrees of difficulty of the second form of RAT, where you must make remote associations yourself. In addition to testing your conceptual creativity, it is also an excellent indication of how limiting your consciousness is. The difficult part is to obtain of a sufficiently large number of widely differing pieces of the puzzle to combine with the words in the series. Each series consists of three words. In the column at the far right, you must fill in the word (a remote association) that can fit in with the other three words in the series.

The words are taken from an actual American test. We start in Table 15.1 with the lowest degree of difficulty. To help get you started, the first answer, foot, has been entered. Foot is the remote association that can combine with athletes (athlete's foot), web combines through webbed feet, and a rabbit's foot is lucky. As you can see the connection is fairly far-fetched, which is the whole point, to measure your ability to make far-fetched connections. What are the solutions to the other word series?

Table 15.1

The correct answers are on page 210 (Table 15.4). How many did you get right? The average is 6 right with a range between 4 and 8. If you had more than 6 right, you are therefore above average and if you got more than 8 your conceptual creativity is very good. On the reverse side, your creativity is reasonable down to a score of 4, but if you had lower than that you need to train up your consciousness. Just as it has been shown that you can train your IQ by doing IQ tests (that is, if IQ tests measure IQ, because you can improve your score continuously by doing IQ tests repeatedly), you can of course train your creativity and expand your consciousness by doing RAT tests. But when you have reached a certain limit you need stronger resistance to enable you to continue developing. You can then go on to Table 15.2, which is of medium difficulty.

Again, the correct answers are on page 210. As you can see, the associations are more far-fetched this time and the test requires you to broaden your consciousness. When we see how the results of the test are usually distributed, it is clear that most people need to push out the wall of consciousness in order to expand the box. The average result on the medium-hard association test is a modest 3 right. The normal range goes all the way down to only 1 right, and if you got more than 6 right, you are above it.

Table 15.2

As a real challenge to broaden your consciousness, you can tackle the test on Table 15.3, which is of maximum difficulty. Do not be in a hurry to check the correct answers; leave the words alone in your mind and let the ‘back of your head’ work on them. Eventually you will find the remote associations.

Table 15.3

The average result in the difficult test is in fact 0.5 right. In other words, there is no reason to feel down if you did not manage to combine a single word series with the help of a remote association. But if you were to get 3 right, then according to the statistics you are very creative and have an extensive consciousness.

One thing to note about these tests is that RAT mainly tests conceptual creativity in the form of words and their associations. This comes quite naturally to those who want to test their potential as a creative business innovator and, above all, have a use for conceptual creativity in that role. But in the previous chapter we examined how the work of the other half of the brain, which could be tested with pictures for example, is equally important.

With these reservations in mind we can state that the RAT tests fill several important functions. Partly, they are a common variant of direct measurements of creativity that can be compared with IQ tests. In this way, you can test your own creative capacities and those of others. They also act as an eye-opener for how narrow your consciousness is, and how difficult it is for you to grasp remote associations. And most important of all, they are perfect training for expanding consciousness and making you more skilful at handling many widely divergent associations simultaneously. You can do the tests again and again (as long as you do not memorize the answers) and you can develop yourself by constructing tests with your own word series.

Table 15.4 correct answers to tests

Changing details

Try changing small details in your daily life. Your first challenge will be to identify different details in your routines and behaviour. We seldom think about them, but they have a strong indicative value. Little acts like holding the door open or staring dreamily out of the window on the bus gives other people a strong impression of you as a person. Observe what happens when you change these details.

Start by changing one detail per day in your breakfast routine (if you live with someone) or in your morning routine when you come to work or to school. It might mean not drinking juice for breakfast or not hanging up your jacket when you come through the door.

You may not get a reaction the first day, but within a few days you will see that the people around you ask either why you are doing it in a new way or why you are not doing things in the usual way, or else they will become curious and wonder what is wrong or new about you without really being able to put their finger on what it is. You will probably be surprised by how well the people close to you know the details of your routines – details which perhaps neither you nor they were aware of before you changed them. You will also notice that you are seen as a more exciting person when you change these small details, because our lives and the impressions we make on others comprise many small details that we do not think about but which make a (predictable) whole.

The exercise can also be used in a group context by giving one person the task of changing a few details in his or her behaviour and the others are then asked to identify it and describe their impressions. This has partly the effect of training everyone's consciousness, and partly it gives everyone food for thought about their real views of people, what that view is based on and how it can be changed. (‘You became colder. You seemed to be such a warm person. Because you lean forward when you sit!’).

This exercise is excellent training for increasing your consciousness and capturing more impressions. Merely by being conscious of details, you have increased your creative capacity considerably, partly because you have increased your capacity to match several different associations and phenomena simultaneously (exactly as in RAT) and partly because you have increased the number of pieces of the puzzle and possibilities for combinations in your environment. In addition, this exercise opens your eyes to the indicative value of details. Just as we stated in the section on the creative result on page 69, it is not the big changes and novelties that make a product or concept creative and groundbreaking, it is rather its meaningfulness. In this exercise, you have gained evidence that small details are very meaningful. This clears the way for a completely fresh focus and possibilities in your creative work.

Quick and slow solution

You can do this exercise in two ways, either in a group or by yourself. In the group version, you adopt the same approach as in the common sense exercise in Chapter 13, which involved explaining what the picture (of a man with a bow-tie stuck in an elevator) represents. In stage 1, a group of people are given the task, to be solved individually, of solving a problem in 5 minutes (for example, thinking up a new slogan or a suggestion for improving the marketing of chewing gum). A second group is given the same individual task to be solved in 30 seconds. Then in stage 2 the members of the second group are a little nonchalantly (so that they will not take it too seriously and think too hard about it) given the challenge of thinking about whether there is a smarter solution. The next day (or the next time they meet) the second group is again given 30 seconds to solve the problem.

When you compare the results between the groups in stage 1, you will notice first of all that the different solutions in the second group are often as good as and sometimes better than the solutions the members of the first group suggested. The reason that they are as good is that ‘gut feeling’ (our instant connections in the brain) often controls our ongoing thinking although we are not aware of it, and the quick solutions are therefore unpolished but similar versions of the 5-minute solutions. The quick solutions are sometimes better because the extra minutes of work tend to ‘smooth the rough edges’ of the original idea and make it stick out less and therefore lose some of its penetrative power.

When we look at the results from stage 2, when the second group found new solutions on the following occasion, we will certainly observe that the solutions are considerably sharper than the 5-minute solutions from the day before. This is because the members of the second group used ‘the back of their heads’ and employed more of their consciousness than the first group in spite of only being focused for 2 × 30 seconds compared to 1 × 5 minutes. By kick-starting your mental activity as quickly as possible (‘spit out a solution in 30 seconds’) the brain can keep the problem in consciousness (‘in the back of the head’) for a longer period of time, where it can then be matched with apparently unrelated pieces of the puzzle which jump in and out and get caught in completely new combinations.

You can do the exercise yourself by tackling a problem as in the group exercise, or by solving one of your current problems in the same way. Throw out a first spontaneous solution as quickly as you can, then wait a day and do the same thing. This can be repeated for several days and there is really no limit to how long it can go on. Normally there are external restrictions or you run out of patience. But if you try to solve a few problems in this way, your patience will increase when you see the powerful results, and you will probably be able to overcome potential external restrictions.

Apart from the obvious advantage of lengthening consciousness, the quick and slow solution exercise has the additional advantage of counteracting common sense. Quickly throwing out a solution means that you do not feel as limited by it (‘ha! I just reeled it off’) and you can easily understand that there must be further and better solutions. If the quick solution is also a bit odd, then it will change your frame of reference as to what constitutes a possible solution, so that you accept many different solutions at a later stage than you would otherwise have done.

Anti-jeopardy

How many words do you need to describe an object or phenomenon (for example, a stereo or an evening at the cinema) without others guessing what it is? The more clues you can leave without others knowing what it is, the more creative you are.

This exercise can be done in pairs or in a group, where one person gives new words and the others guess. You can also do it yourself by looking for qualities that are not obvious when you think of an object or a phenomenon. This provides training in expanding your consciousness so that you see the maximum number of details in what you observe and find things that you normally would miss or do not think about. When you have done the exercise a few times, you will notice that you have become considerably more sharp-sighted and that you see most of what is around you from new angles and in completely different ways. This opens up new possibilities for your thinking and new pieces of the puzzle to be combined into creative results.

This exercise is often used among artists, where it has long been known that one of the main reasons why many people are not very good at painting and drawing is that they are too unconscious. We do not see and cannot conjure up for ourselves sufficiently detailed pictures of things to be able to depict them. An important part of the artist's training is therefore not to paint but to see and increase his or her consciousness. Similarly, it is a prerequisite of developing new concepts and achieving creative results that you can see and be conscious of all the pieces of the puzzle and the possibilities that are available.

Anti-jeopardy is an effective metaphor for reminding yourself and others to see what we do not see and finding new solutions in the material we do have by looking at it from other points of view.