5

Opening the Mind: Accessing the Absorb Brainset

Genius in truth means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

—WILLIAM JAMES, 1890¹

So Easy a Caveman Could Do It

TWO CAVEMAN MEN have escaped a landslide and are watching from atop a safe outcropping of basalt as trees, earth, and rocks of all sizes careen down the hill beside them.

“Ugh—whew!” says Caveman #1 (translation: “Thank our lucky bright spots in the sky! We've cheated death again—let's get out of here!”).

“Ugh—wow!” Caveman #2 responds (translation: “No, wait. Do you notice that the rounder rocks are moving down the hill more quickly and smoothly than the jagged rocks? That's really interesting!”).

Which caveman is accessing the absorb brainset?

• Caveman #1
• Caveman #2

The first and arguably most important strategy for thinking and acting creatively is to develop your ability to absorb information nonjudgmentally. This ability is facilitated by what I will describe in this chapter as the absorb brainset. One result of accessing the absorb brainset is that you notice new things. You become quite curious about the world around you, and you take in all kinds of new information without judgment. Because creativity and innovation require a broad knowledge base from which to synthesize new ideas, spending time in the absorb mode allows you to gather assorted knowledge that may be useful in solving later problems. Caveman #2 was able to use the knowledge he gathered on the day of the landslide for future innovation.

A second result of accessing the absorb brainset is that you are more receptive to seeing associations between things in the environment and problems you're trying to solve. Creativity researchers call this “opportunistic association.” Joe Lawson, the originator of the wildly successful caveman ad campaign for GEICO Insurance, says that the idea for the caveman campaign “just sort of popped out one day” (a common spontaneous-pathway occurrence). He and other members of the ad team were thinking about a new campaign that would highlight how easy it is to use the GEICO Web site. “We were just sort of fed up with how politically correct the culture had become and how difficult that made it to do our jobs well. So we insulted cavemen, just to get it out of our system.”² When you think about combining the “insulted cavemen” theme with the “easy Web site” theme, the campaign's now-famous premise seems obvious. In fact, it seems so easy a caveman could do it. But, of course, it's only obvious if you're in an absorb brainset that allows you to “see” this concept without prematurely judging it as silly.

The third result of the absorb brainset is that you remain receptive to ideas originating in your unconscious. Just as Joe Lawson's caveman idea “…popped out one day,” other innovators, as we saw in the last chapter, report that their ideas occur to them when they're not even thinking about solutions to a problem. During these times, they are relaxing, resting their minds, or even dozing. Mozart, as you'll recall, describes the arrival of insight while he was riding in a carriage after a good meal. A popular songwriter, whom I was interviewing for one of my research studies on creativity, described the following when asked about her creative process.

Like Mozart and my songwriter, the memoirs of creative individuals are filled with descriptions of ideas “popping into their heads” unbidden. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Stick up your antenna, and presto, innovative ideas appear!

So easy a caveman could do it? Maybe not.

If you tend to be a deliberate thinker (see Chapter Four), your ability to be creative is probably being held captive in the metaphorical back rooms of your brain. Like overinvolved parents, the executive and judgment centers of your authoritarian prefrontal lobes may be keeping your best ideas and insights away from you. They do this for two reasons (also like authoritarian parents): first, if you open the doors to those back rooms of the brain—the antechambers of consciousness—to let creative ideas in, then other unfiltered thoughts, perceptions, memories, and visions will come rushing in as well. That could lead to confusion at best and mental chaos at worst. Second, your executive and judgment centers don't want to relinquish control. For many people, the executive center in the prefrontal lobes (especially in the dominant left hemisphere) is a control freak (after all, the decisions it makes are ultimately responsible for your behavior). So your creative potential is stuck back there like a rebellious teenager who's been grounded.

To let the creative potential out, you have to wait till the authoritarian prefrontal lobes are distracted with other tasks. Or—better yet—teach them to take short power naps so you can enter the absorb brainset. You need to spend time in this brainset in order to unleash the inventive powers of your brain.

Defining the Absorb Brainset

The absorb brainset is basically a receptive state of the brain, in which you are open to information generated in the external environment (the world) as well as from the internal environment (the mind). The state is well known to hypnotists, Buddhist monks, yoga enthusiasts, and creative luminaries. It's associated with such words as autohypnosis, trance, alpha state, absorption, mindfulness, primary process thinking, openness to experience, dissociation, and transliminality. To some of you this may sound reminiscent of New Age crystals and pyramids. But here's the deal. The benefits of a receptive state of brain are backed by a great deal of scientific research, and unless you're willing to access this state you'll find it difficult to be innovative and creative. You'll be stuck trying to solve problems using deliberate processes that, while often effective, are more tiring and time-consuming. Simply put, you'll be opting for Edison's 99% perspiration instead of the 1% inspiration pathway to creativity and innovation.

Three principal factors define the absorb brainset: attraction to novelty, delayed judgment, and mental or cognitive disinhibition.⁴ Let's look at each component separately.

Attraction to Novelty

How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way, Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?

—WILLIAM BLAKE⁵

Artists, scientists, and innovators of all professions tend to spend a great deal of time in an open and receptive brainset, allowing them to perceive the “immense worlds” that may be “clos'd,” as Blake intimates, to others. Perceiving what others do not see in the world around you—and associating these perceptions with already-attained knowledge or skill—allows you to make innovative leaps, whether in art, science, business, or your personal life. You can see what is not seen by others because your attention system is attracted to novelty. There are several well-known examples of this phenomenon:

Isaac Newton conceived the notion of gravitation as he sat in a contemplative mood and witnessed an apple fall from a tree.⁶

Vincent van Gogh revolutionized art by seeing the sublime in everyday objects. He wrote to his brother Theo: “The figure of a labourer—some furrows in a ploughed field—a bit of sand, sea, and sky—are serious subjects, so difficult but at the same time so beautiful, that it is indeed worthwhile to devote one's life to the task of expressing the poetry hidden in them.”⁷

Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin after noticing that bacteria failed to grow in an area of a laboratory dish that had been accidentally contaminated with a peculiar mold.⁸

Some years back my friend, the painter and writer Angel Fernandez, offered to drive me from the Notre Dame campus to O'Hare Airport to catch a flight. We were driving at breakneck speed on the Dan Ryan Expressway when he jammed on the brakes and demanded that I look at an overpass. I looked, but all I saw was dirty snow piled up on the side of the road. Nothing would do but that we get off at the next exit, retrace our route heading south, then get back on the northbound road, to see … an overpass in the snow. This time he drove slowly so that I could appreciate the angle that the snow bank made against the arch of the overpass, so that I (who by the way was definitely “clos'd by my senses five” and utterly furious about probably missing my flight) could share in this “immense world of delight.” Now I'm certainly not recommending that you become so taken with everyday items that you cause havoc on the expressways, but you can see that the brain that is captured by the novelty of everyday objects is more likely to “see” the environment in innovative and creative ways. (For practice in noticing new aspects of everyday surroundings, see Absorb Exercise #1.)

Delayed Judgment

When you're in the absorb brainset, you're not judging ideas, objects, situations, other people, or (perhaps most important) yourself. You don't need to categorize things or situations as right-wrong, good-bad, or should-shouldn't. Your inner authoritarian parent is taking a vacation, and you're free to explore. Perceptions of the outer world, memories, and ideas float across the wide screen of your mind, and you find them intensely interesting without the need to censor them. Yes, you might get into some mental mischief, but it will be worth it.

One aspect of this state of suspended judgment is what nineteenth-century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge called the “willing suspension of disbelief.”⁹ In exchange for entry into new and fantastic worlds of fiction, you agree to accept the premises on which those worlds are built. For instance, when we read or watch the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, we agree to believe that the world is populated by hobbits, sorcerers, elves, and orcs rather than Asians, Africans, Americans, and accountants. (I have a neighbor who can't watch Law and Order because he's unwilling to suspend disbelief. “They could never get a case to trial that quickly so how can I believe anything else that happens on that show?” He's an accountant. This is not to say that all accountants are unable to suspend disbelief. My tax accountant not only suspends disbelief, he actually thinks he's Jimmy Buffet. Walking into his office is like submerging onto a coral reef off Key West, replete with brightly colored fish, talking parrots, and 1970s Margaritaville music … now if only he would serve me a Margarita to soften the blow of what I owe Uncle Sam this year!)

Another aspect of delayed judgment is the willingness to take an idea to its logical or illogical conclusions without prematurely nixing it. For instance, German officials must have been accessing an absorb brainset when the representatives of the company Solar Lifestyle presented their idea for solar-powered talking trashcans on the streets of Berlin. Instead of categorizing the idea as “rubbish” (pardon the trash pun), city officials funded a number of the trash cans that say “vielen danke,” “merci,” or “thank you” (Berlin being an international city) when citizens toss in their refuse. (Note also the willing suspension of disbelief of the many passersby who respond to the talking cans with “bitte schön” [“you're welcome”].)¹⁰

My colleague Ellen Langer, the innovative social psychologist and artist from Harvard, formulated the cognitive theory of “mindfulness” more than twenty years ago. Mindfulness is a flexible frame of mind that results from drawing novel distinctions about the situation and the environment. Her theory of mindfulness has much in common with the personality trait of openness; however, unlike personality theorists, Langer views mindfulness as a state of mind rather than a stable trait. Her research has indicated over and over again that this state can be cultivated and learned. In contrast to mindfulness, the state of mindlessness is characterized by pigeonholing experiences, ideas, and people into rigid categories. Langer calls this tendency to judge or categorize without reflection “premature cognitive commitment.”¹¹ For instance, identify the object below:

If you identified it as a chair, you've made a premature cognitive commitment to see it as a piece of furniture on which one sits. By doing so, you've reduced the probability that you'll be able to see its myriad other realities. It could also be a table, a weapon, firewood, a stepping stool, or a work of art. Turned on its side it could be a barricade or a fence. By absorbing this object in an open manner—by suspending judgment or categorization—you can see a world of possibilities that disappear when you label it a “chair.”

Of course, it would be impossible to navigate through even a single day without categorizing and judging our environment to some extent. Indeed, our brains are wired to concoct schemas (judgments of “how the world is”) to describe the situations, objects, and people around us. If, for example, your brain did not judge the flat surface below your bed to be a “floor” (a platform that can be walked upon), and instead thought of it as planks from a tree that could be used as weapons, firewood, or building materials, you might not set foot outside the safety of that plush, resilient square thing in which you sleep! When I say that your judgment is suspended or delayed in the absorb brainset, I don't mean that it renders you incapable of judging or categorizing altogether, but rather that judgments and categories become somewhat more loosely defined, so that you're capable of seeing objects, situations, and people from multiple perspectives; in other words, you are in the biological equivalent of Langer's mindful state. (For practice in delaying judgment, see Absorb Exercise #2.)

Cognitive Disinhibition

Hand-in-hand with the suspension of judgment is a phenomenon called cognitive disinhibition.¹² This is somewhat different from behavioral disinhibition (which can cause you to dance on a table with a lamp shade on your head at the office holiday party). Cognitive disinhibition is the failure to gate out information from your conscious awareness that is irrelevant to your current goals or to your survival. This is good news, of course, if you are failing to gate out creative ideas that arise in your unconscious thought processes. It means that more information originating in the metaphorical back rooms of your brain is making it into your conscious mind. The authoritarian pre-frontal parents we talked about earlier are power napping and letting your creative self into the front parlor. Let's look at disinhibition more closely.

As you accomplish the many tasks that comprise your daily life, you are not consciously aware of most of what your “senses five” perceive or the multitude of decisions your brain is making on your behalf. If you were aware of all of these perceptions and decisions, you'd be overwhelmed with information and you'd find it difficult to complete even the simplest task. Imagine, for example, trying to brush your teeth in the morning with conscious awareness of the following:

Sound of clock ticking in bedroom

Level of light inside bathroom

Distinguish toothbrush from other objects on counter by size, shape, color, angles

Estimate distance of toothbrush from shoulder

Level of light reaching eyes—adjust pupil dilation

These are only a few of the sensory-motor inputs going on at any given instant. The complete list would include several hundred items.

Luckily, our brains have built-in filtering systems that limit the contents of our conscious awareness to information from the environment that's relevant to either our current goals (for example, brushing teeth, getting a shower, or getting dressed) or our survival (bright flashes of light, loud noises, strong odors, and pain will always be allowed into conscious awareness because they have been associated throughout evolution with potential danger). These automatic filters occur at a number of points during information processing and are collectively referred to as cognitive inhibitory systems or cognitive inhibition. They act by evaluating each bit of information that enters through our five senses and determining whether it's important or unimportant to our current plans. Information that's categorized as unimportant is blocked from attention and we never become consciously aware of it. Likewise, stimuli from our senses about the external world are constantly evoking memories, mental images, and thoughts (such as “what are the chances that car will change lanes right in front of me?”). Most of these internally generated stimuli are also blocked out by our cognitive inhibitory systems and we are not consciously aware of them either. (For instance, imagine the mental confusion that would ensue if you were trying to locate your car in a busy parking lot, and the memory of every place you had ever parked a car flowed into your conscious awareness!)¹³

After we've performed a task (such as brushing our teeth, driving to work, writing a report, or preparing a meal) a few times, we are able to cognitively inhibit even more stimuli associated with the task, and the bulk of the information processing needed to perform the task becomes automatic. Most of us have become very good cognitive inhibitors. We are so efficient at traversing our daily lives that we automatically precategorize the information around us as irrelevant and we never notice it. Cognitive inhibition increases our task efficiency. The downside of efficiency is that this wealth of rich information (from both external and internal sources) is automatically and quite simply closed off to us. The more “automatic” your thoughts and actions become, the more information is removed from possible attention. You can easily see how this might affect your ability to be creative. You can't make novel and original combinations out of information of which you're not even aware.

The goal of the absorb brainset is to turn down the efficiency of your cognitive filters and let more information into your conscious awareness. This will increase the probability that you can make novel and original connections between unrelated stimuli—the essence of innovation. (Cognitive filters are relaxed, for example, during dreaming sleep. For practice in cognitive disinhibition, see Absorb Exercises #5 and #6.)

Neuroscience of the Absorb Brainset

Exactly what does your brain look like when you access the absorb brainset? Remember that we said the absorb mode is characterized by delayed judgment, disinhibition, and novelty seeking. Well, the brain activation patterns of people when they're experiencing these characteristics are reflected in the absorb brainset. Specific neurotransmitters in the areas of the prefrontal lobes that control judgment and inhibition (including the executive and judgment centers described in Chapter Three) are less active than they would be if you were consciously thinking about something using deliberate processing (like how you're going to get to the dry cleaners, the pharmacy, and the post office during your lunch hour).¹⁴ Meanwhile areas further back in the brain—the temporal, occipital, and parietal lobes (which neuroscientist Arne Dietrich jointly refers to as TOP)¹⁵—are more active. Finally, neuroimaging studies reveal that there is relatively more activation in the right hemisphere of the brain when people are in the reflective absorb state than when they are deliberately thinking or solving problems.¹⁶

The Absorb Brainset and Alpha Activity

The brain is an electrochemical organ. Neurons communicate with each other by generating a mild electrical impulse. Although the electrical activity in the brain is relatively weak, some researchers believe that a fully functioning brain may generate enough electricity to power a flashlight bulb. Ordinarily, when you're alert and thinking, the prefrontal lobes are dominated by electrical activity of high frequency (13–30 Hz) and low amplitude called beta waves. Beta activity is associated with a high level of cognitive activation. When you enter the absorb brainset, beta activity is reduced and brain waves exhibit slower frequency (5–12 Hz) and higher amplitude, called alpha and theta waves. Alpha and theta activity are associated with a more relaxed and receptive mental state. The late Colin Martindale and his colleagues at the University of Maine have done extensive research on the brain wave patterns of highly creative versus less creative groups. Martindale's work indicates that highly creative people slip into low-frequency brain states more readily than less creative people.¹⁷

This state of quieting the activity of the thinking/planning/judging prefrontal lobes allows more information from the perceptual processing centers and the associational centers further back in the brain to feed forward into conscious awareness. Martindale also found that creative people intuitively switch to this state of alpha activity in the frontal regions of the brain when they're solving problems creatively, whereas less creative individuals rev up their beta activity when trying to be creative.¹⁸ (For practice at enhancing alpha activity in the brain, see Absorb Exercises #3 and #4.)

Cognitive Disinhibition and the Open Brainset

My colleague Jordan Peterson and I found that openness, the personality trait associated with easy access to the absorb brainset, is related to a deficit in one aspect of the cognitive filtering system called latent inhibition.¹⁹ Reductions in this filter are associated with a mild increase of the neurotransmitter dopamine in a certain region of the brain called the mesolimbic pathway.²⁰ It is interesting to note that alcohol has an effect on this dopamine pathway, which might explain why many artists and musicians have used alcohol to “summon their muse.” (For practice in cognitive disinhibition, see Absorb Exercises # 5 and #6.)

Attraction to Novelty and the Absorb Brainset

Dopamine in the mesolimbic pathway is also linked to novelty seeking, another aspect of the absorb brainset.²⁶ Dopamine is the primary brain chemical linked to our internal reward circuit.²⁷ In the absorb brainset, you are actually being internally rewarded for attending to novel aspects of both your external and internal environment. When you engage in certain prosurvival behaviors (eating when you're hungry, drinking when you're thirsty, and mating with an appropriate sex object), you get a shot of dopamine to a specific area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens.²⁸ This, in turn, produces a feeling of mild euphoria, which makes it more likely that you'll repeat those behaviors—Mother Nature's way of encouraging us to survive as individuals and as a species. When in the absorb brainset, you're also rewarded with dopamine for paying attention to novel aspects of your external and internal environment. This enhances your chances of coming up with novel ideas—perhaps Mother Nature's way of making sure we survive by creatively adapting to our ever-changing environment. (You can practice noticing novelty in your environment by practicing Absorb Exercise #1 at the end of this chapter. When you reward yourself with a token for completing the exercise, you are training yourself to associate reward with attention to novelty.)

When to Access the Absorb Brainset

It's ideal to get into the absorb brainset at the following times during your creative process.

The Preparation Stage

First, use the absorb set when you're gathering information of a general type. The more knowledge of all sorts that you acquire, the more likely you are to have materials to combine in novel and original ways to solve problems and come up with innovative ideas. Creative people tend to have a multitude of varied interests across a broad spectrum of topics. When you access the absorb brainset, you become attracted to the novel aspects of things around you. You “amp up” your intellectual curiosity. You become motivated to explore new worlds of knowledge; you let your curious state of brain lead you from one area of inquiry to another in somewhat the same way that surfing the net leads you from one Web page to another. Research suggests that when you're exposed to information in an absorbing, nonjudgmental way, you encode it more broadly in your long-term memory. You make more connections to the information, creating multiple pathways for retrieval.²⁹

Second, use the absorb brainset when you're problem finding. Creative, innovative people are always coming up with ideas of how to improve their worlds. They see how things could be as well as how things are. Here's an example in the realm of what is called “everyday creativity.” Anita, another of my highly creative subjects, had only a high school education. Because she had a young son, she could only work part-time “mother's hours.” Her first job was as a waitress at a small family-owned breakfast joint near the ocean. After several weeks on the job, Anita started thinking of changes she would make if she owned the restaurant. In the evenings after her son was in bed, she played around with designing a new, more attractive menu that included drawings of seashells to promote the ocean theme. She spent her evening hours learning how to draw different types of shells that she copied from pictures on the Internet. She then took her ideas to the owners of the restaurant. For a small amount of money they had the new menus printed and also allowed Anita to paint seashells on the plain walls of the restaurant. Anita next found some inexpensive vinyl fabric with a shell motif and—again with only a little money—made new tablecloths for the restaurant. She suggested that the owners serve a Sunday brunch buffet, and she decorated the buffet table with shells that she and her son had gathered from the beach. In just a few short months, Anita, even with no education or training in creative arts, had made a very big difference in her work environment.

By accessing the absorb brainset and noticing new things in your environment, whether in your business, your home, your civic organization, or the sports team you coach, you can—like Anita—“see” opportunities to make changes that can improve and enrich your surroundings.

The Incubation/Insight Stage

The concept of the brain state represented in the absorb brainset is anything but new. Philosophers, scientists, and poets have long described a state in which they are more aware and receptive not only to the environment but to new ideas that arise through spontaneous processing in the “antechambers of consciousness.”³⁰ Sometimes this absorbing and receptive state is accessed when the person is dozing or extremely relaxed, as we saw earlier in this chapter. Sometimes it is accessed because the individual is genetically predisposed to accessing disinhibited brain states. At other times, it may be purposefully entered through meditation or training protocols such as you find at the end of this chapter.³¹ The state of openness and disinhibition that characterizes the absorb brainset sets the stage for novel associations and combinations of memories, sensory experiences, and mental images that are generated in the rear parts of the brain to make their way into conscious awareness, often in a sudden and meaningful burst of neural excitement.³² This “lightbulb” or “aha!” experience is the central feature in the spontaneous pathway to creative ideas. Though you don't have to spend the entire incubation period of the creative process in the absorb mode, you need to access it before insight or illumination can occur. Neuroimaging studies clearly indicate that people are in this open and receptive state immediately before the moment of insight.³³

Cavemen, Take Heart

Accessing the absorb brainset is an integral part of the creative process. In the absorb brainset, your intellectual curiosity and ability to notice new things in the environment are enhanced. This will aid you in problem finding (“seeing” problems or situations that can then be creatively addressed). In the absorb brainset, your need to evaluate or judge objects, persons, events, or situations is suspended. And more information from the senses and the unconscious mind are allowed into your conscious awareness.

Although there are genetic differences in the tendency to access the absorb brainset,³⁴ it's also a skill that can be learned. But like any skill, it can only be acquired with regular practice. If you don't see results immediately, keep practicing. All of the exercises in this chapter will enhance your ability to access the open and receptive state of the absorb brainset.

Accessing the absorb brainset is only one step toward training your creative brain. In the next chapter you'll enhance your power of imagination using the envision brainset. The absorb and envision brainsets have some neural underpinnings in common. In fact, you can use the absorb brainset as a gateway to enter the envision brainset. However, just as the absorb brainset allows you to passively access information in a nonjudgmental manner, the envision brainset allows you to deliberately and actively manipulate that information to generate creative ideas. Read on to rev up your imaginative powers … and continue to practice the absorb exercises. As you practice, it will become progressively easier for you to access the absorb brainset at will.

You may find that it's so easy that a caveman could do it.

Exercises: The Absorb Brainset

Absorb Exercise #1: Attraction to Novelty: Noticing New Aspects

Aim of exercise: To open your conscious awareness to sensory stimuli and enhance your ability to “see” the world around you. You will need a stopwatch or a kitchen timer. This exercise will take you five minutes. Try to do it twice a day for several weeks until it becomes second nature.

Procedure: Set the stopwatch or timer for five minutes, and don't look at the time during this exercise. Now take in the environment around you right this minute, and try to view it with curiosity but without judgment. You may be reading this book in a comfortable chair by the fire, in a crowded airport, or in a sparse San Quentin prison cell. No matter where you are, your environment is infinitely interesting. In order to notice new aspects of your environment, begin with what you see.

• Look for colors and notice how subtly or drastically the colors change where there are shadows or where sunlight or artificial light strikes the walls, floors, and ceiling. Look closely and see how the color of fabrics or paint may vary where it has faded.
• Look for angles and notice the variety of angles in your environment. Look at the angle of the door frame to the ceiling. Notice the angles made by furnishings in your environment. Also notice the angles of incidental items in the environment, say a newspaper tossed on a table, a jacket draped over a chair, or a piece of trash left in the corner of a subway car. If you can see out a window, notice the angles made by objects outside, the angle of a tree or a bush to the window sill, of the angle of rain falling.
• Notice movement in your environment. Is there a fire flickering in a fireplace? Are curtains moving gently in the breeze? Is a fly flitting around the room? Are people in motion around you? If so, notice the patterns of their movement. If you are in a vehicle, notice the movement of the landscape streaming by the window (of course, do not perform this exercise while you are actually driving).

Now pay attention to what you can hear.

• First, listen to the foreground noises in your environment. Is there a television or radio turned on? Are other people talking? Rather than listening to words that are spoken, listen to the tonal qualities and the modulation of the voices. Do the voices remind you of angry thunder, or of a babbling brook?
• Can you hear music? If so, listen to its qualities. Is the rhythm fast or slow? Constant or varied? Is the music a major or minor scale? Can you hear more than one instrument? Are the different instruments playing different melodies and harmonies?
• Can you hear a dog barking, water running, a toilet flushing, someone coughing? Listen to the variations in all of these sounds. Listen for other outside noises, the buzz of traffic, a lawn mower, a distant siren.
• Listen for background noises. Notice the hum of an air conditioner, a furnace, or a refrigerator. If you hear rain, listen carefully for variations in its sound. Rain makes a different noise when it hits the lawn, the road, trees, or a metal roof.

Next, pay attention to what you can feel.

• Become aware of the air around you. Is it moist or dry? Warm or cool? Can you feel movement in the air, like a gentle breeze? Be perfectly still for a moment and see if you can detect variations in the temperature of the air.

Next, pay attention to the odors and fragrances in your environment.

• Can you detect any food smells? Any floral smells? Resist the temptation to judge what you smell … just notice the different odors and fragrances of this place.

Continue to notice new aspects of your environment without judging them until your stopwatch or timer signals that the five minutes are up. Immediately give yourself a reward from the Small Pleasures list you made during Exercise #9 in Chapter Two. The purpose of this is to condition yourself (yes, just like Pavlov's dogs!) to be attracted to novel things in your environment. If you are using the token economy incentive, award yourself one absorb token each time you complete the exercise. Soon your brain will associate noticing new things with reward, and you'll develop the habit of experiencing the “immense worlds” that, as Blake wrote, are “clos'd” to others.

Absorb Exercise #2: Delayed Judgment: The Absorb Brainset and Food

Aim of exercise: To suspend judgment and increase appreciation for the novelty of perceptual experiences through the sense of taste. You'll need a recipe book and ingredients. The perceptual part of this exercise should take you about 10 minutes. Try to do it once a week until it becomes second nature.

Procedure: Try one new food dish each week. This should be a dish that you haven't tried before, or haven't tried in the past year.

• Find a new recipe in a cookbook, magazine, or online. It should contain at least one ingredient with which you're not familiar. This could be a spice or seasoning, a fruit, vegetable, or meat.
• Prepare the dish at a time when you're not rushed.
• Spend 10 minutes exploring the taste of the new dish. Make sure not to judge the food ahead of time or during the tasting.
• Notice the aroma of the food. Spend an entire minute just experiencing the uniqueness of the aroma. Do you notice a blend of aromas?
• Taste the food with an effort to notice the basic aspects of taste. Is it spicy? Sweet? Pungent? Bitter? Dry? Salty?
• Now notice the blending of flavors. Can you discern several different tastes?
• Do the new ingredients you're trying remind you of other ingredients with which you're familiar? If so, consider the similarities, and consider the contrasts. Remember not to make judgmental contrasts (such as “This tastes like teriyaki but not as good”). Instead, make objective contrasts (“This tastes something like teriyaki, but I detect a ginger aftertaste”).
• Notice how your new dish interacts with other food in the meal. Are there harmonies among these foods, or point-counterpoint complexities?

When you're finished with your meal, praise yourself for trying the new dish. Even if you really didn't like the food, think about how interesting it was to try it. Continue to try at least one new recipe a week, and use positive self-statements to anticipate this food ritual (“I really look forward to trying a new food each week” or “I'm excited about the recipe I'm going to try this week”). Some of my creative subjects turn this exercise into a social event. They meet with friends and do the exercise together in a congenial atmosphere. (Note that it is possible to do the exercise in a restaurant by ordering a dish that you have not tasted before.) Whether you do the exercise with others or alone, make the meal a positive experience.

If you're using the token economy incentive, award yourself one absorb token each time you complete the exercise. Soon your brain will associate new perceptual experiences with reward, and you'll decrease your need to pass judgment and increase your positive response to novelty, both of which are principle components of the absorb brainset.

Absorb Exercise #3: Enhance Alpha and Theta Activity: Aerobic Activity Recovery

Aim of exercise: To increase alpha wave activity in your prefrontal lobes and increase creative potential. Research indicates that during the two-hour period following aerobic exercise, alpha and theta wave activity are increased in the prefrontal cortex.³⁵ During this period, you'll find it easier to access the receptive absorb brainset.

Procedure: Check with your doctor to make sure you are fit enough to engage in aerobic exercise.

• Think about an open-ended problem that you'd like to solve or a creative dilemma that you'd like to address. This could include anything from finding a topic for an upcoming talk or paper, to developing a new product, to planning a children's birthday party.
• Complete a 30-minute session of moderate aerobic activity. Exercise can include running, jogging, fast walking, cycling, spinning, swimming, or stair climbing. To complete moderate aerobic exercise, work out a pace that allows your pulse rate to remain somewhere between 60 and 80% of your maximum heart rate. You can determine this rate by subtracting your age from 220. Then multiply the result by .6 and .8 to find your target pulse rate range.
• Use the two-hour period after your exercise session to reflect on your creative dilemma. During this period, you will be more creative and open to new ideas and solutions.

If you're using the token economy system, award yourself one absorb token each time you complete the exercise.

Absorb Exercise #4: Enhance Alpha and Theta Activity: Openness Meditation

Aim of exercise: To increase alpha and theta wave activity in your prefrontal lobes. Research indicates that as you gain more skill with meditation, you will find it easier to access a receptive brainset as indicated by alpha and theta activity.³⁶ You'll also find that you pay more attention to novel stimuli in your environment. Note that there are many different categories of meditation, and studies indicate that each type has different effects on brain activation patterns. This very simple exercise is intended for the novice meditator. It should take you about 10 minutes. Try to do it at least once a day. You should experience additional benefits from this exercise, such as decreased heart rate and blood pressure and a reduction in stress.

Procedure: When first beginning to do openness meditation, choose a quiet, comfortable location where you will not be disturbed.

• Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Breathe in with your abdomen rather than your chest. To practice this, place one hand on your abdomen. As you inhale, your hand should move forward (away from your spine). As you exhale your hand should move inward. This takes some practice, so don't get frustrated if you don't get it right off the bat.
• Gradually slow your breathing, holding the inhalation for a few seconds before you release it. Breathe in and out, slowly and rhythmically. With each breath, feel yourself relaxing.
• As thoughts flit across your mind, notice them and then gently push them aside. If important issues come to mind, again, notice them but do not dwell on them; gently push them aside, knowing you can focus on them at a later time.
• Continue breathing, focusing on your breath, giving yourself permission to just be.
• Remain in this openness meditation, focusing on your breathing and the present moment, for about 10 minutes.
• At the end of this time, open your eyes, smile, stretch for a moment if you feel like it, and continue with your day.

Note that smiling at the end of the meditation period acts as an internal reward. Smiling not only reflects a positive mood but actually acts to promote positive feelings. The purpose of this is to condition yourself to associate alpha and theta activity in your prefrontal lobes with pleasant feelings. This will make it more likely that you'll slip into an alpha-rich receptive brainset when you're not busily engaged in other activities.

If you're using the token economy system, award yourself one absorb token each time you complete the exercise.

Absorb Exercise #5: Disinhibition: The Absorb Brainset and REM Sleep

Aim of exercise: To access a state of disinhibition that allows information to feed forward from the unconscious into conscious awareness. Alan Hobson and Robert Stickgold, from the Harvard Medical School, have extensively researched the relationship between creativity and the sleep-wake cycle. They've found that associative information formed in the unconscious mind is more likely to be accessed by conscious awareness during the period immediately following awakening from REM sleep, the sleep state associated with dreams.³⁷ In this exercise, you will attempt to access this fertile post-REM period. You will need an alarm clock and a tape recorder or pad and pen for writing. This exercise will take you 15 minutes.

Procedure: The drowsy periods that precede and follow sleep are well known as doors through which the unconscious mind can be accessed. Because there are individual differences in sleep patterns you may have to experiment with your wake-time before catching yourself in REM sleep.

• Think about an open-ended problem that you'd like to solve or a creative dilemma that you'd like to address.
• Set your alarm clock for 30 minutes earlier than you normally wake up. Because early morning sleep cycles contain longer periods of REM sleep than the nighttime sleep hours, your chances of waking yourself during a dream (REM cycle) are more likely in the early morning. (Note that you can also try this alternate strategy: Allow yourself to “sleep in” by waking at your normal time and then setting your alarm for an additional 30 minutes.)
• When the alarm clock wakes you, immediately begin to record your thoughts on the recorder or the paper. During this period, you will be more creative and open to new ideas and solutions.

If you're using the token economy system, award yourself one absorb token each time you complete the exercise.

Absorb Exercise #6: Induce Mild Disinhibition: Dialogue with Your TOP

Aim of exercise: To increase your access to the absorb brainset and loosen the cognitive filter that prevents novel ideas from making it into conscious awareness. This exercise should take you under five minutes. Try to do it twice a day until it becomes second nature.

Procedure: TOP stands for Temporal, Occipital, and Parietal lobes (in other words, the back of the brain). The TOP functions below the level of conscious awareness so you are not aware of what goes on back there. However, the TOP is the seat of many of the association centers and much of the associational work that goes on in the brain. When an idea pops into your head, it is actually feeding forward from the TOP regions of the brain to the prefrontal lobes. In this exercise, you will “talk” to your TOP to encourage conscious awareness of new ideas.

• First, you may want to give your TOP a name. It is your muse after all, the small voice that whispers insights to you. You may want to name it after a mentor or a person who has been an inspiration to you. You may want to name it after a fictitious character. Or you may want to give it a fanciful name that has a pleasant ring for you. One of my writer subjects simply named his “Muse.” If you want to think of the TOP as being a conduit to a source outside of yourself (such as the songwriter who felt she had an antenna to the angels), that's fine. But whether you picture your source of inspiration as residing outside or inside your head, remember that you need the cooperation of your TOP to access your novel ideas (so it probably isn't a good idea to name it something like Dunce or Numbskull).
• Open the conversation with small talk. “So how's it going back there?” “Are you getting enough glucose?” “Is the temperature okay?”
• Discuss any creative problems you may be having. “I'd like to figure out how to stage the battle scene in Act II,” “I'd like to find a substance to use a filament in my bulb,” “I'd like to find a way to prove this mathematical equation,” “I know there's a way to present this ad campaign; I'd like to figure out what to do with it.”
• Listen carefully for an answer. Note that you will likely not detect any answers at this time.
• Vow to keep the communications lines open. “Notify me if you get an idea.” “Any time day or night, just send me a message and I'll get it.”
• Thank your TOP for listening and envision either an open gate or an open door between your prefrontal cortex and your TOP.

Now if this exercise sounds silly to you (and it may well sound silly if you're a steadfast deliberate thinker), guess what: you're being judgmental. See the Absorb Exercise #2 for practice in suspending premature judgment.

If you're using the token economy system, award yourself one absorb token each time you complete the exercise. If you're not using the token economy incentive, reward yourself with an item from the Small Pleasures list you created in Exercise #9 in Chapter Two. The purpose of this is to condition yourself to be open to novel combinations and solutions arising from the associational cortices in TOP. Reward yourself each time you do the exercise for the first two weeks. After that, continue to do the exercise daily but only reward yourself occasionally. Soon your brain will associate opening up to unusual ideas with reward, and you'll develop the habit of allowing more unconscious material to feed forward.