Chapter
4
Get in Your Right Mind
A man should learn to detect and foster that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within far more than the lustre of the whole firmament without. Yet he dismisses without notice his peculiar thought because it is peculiar.
In this chapter, we’ll look at a whole bunch of techniques to help bring more mental processing power online for you. Some may be familiar to you, and others will definitely be more exotic; don’t shy away from the “odd” ones. If you are repelled and don’t want to try something, that’s probably exactly what you should try first.
Emerson points out in the opening epigraph that we tend to dismiss unusual or uncomfortable thoughts—and that’s a bad thing. You might miss out on that million-dollar idea of a lifetime. Instead, you need to pay attention to all that your mind has to offer. Sure, some of what you find will be the intellectual equivalent of a Gilligan’s Island rerun, but you may also find that one idea that makes all the difference in the world. So, we’re going to look at it all, be it good, bad, or ugly.
You probably know what L-mode processing feels like; it’s that little voice in your head that makes L-mode very noticeable. But what does R-mode feel like? You’ll do an exercise that will let you experience a cognitive shift to R-mode, and we’ll see different ways to help engage more R-mode processing.
We’ll also look at ways of integrating L-mode and R-mode more effectively, and I’ll show you a variety of techniques to help harvest the fruits of your R-mode’s hidden labor.