Rethinking Thinking

Creative Imaging and Enhanced Insight

By David Jiles, Ph.D.

Two of the central questions that cognitive research fails to address are: Is creativity a learnable skill? And can anyone learn to perform those extraordinary feats we traditionally think of as limited to a few talented individuals? Questions such as these have triggered a research revolution to discover the link between states of consciousness and the source of creativity. Of course, the present culturally dominate view is that creativity is a talent, not a skill; however, until biofeedback came along, it was believed that nobody could learn to control their heart rate, brain waves, or blood pressure. But what ordinary skills do we possess that might, without the aid of biofeedback, be turned to the invocation of extraordinary insights.

The relationship between the ability to concentrate on visual images and the ability to invoke creative states is one of the latest frontiers in cognitive psychology. The case of the inventor Nikola Tesla seems to substantiate the existence of such a relationship.

“Nikola Tesla” is hardly a household name. Yet if it weren’t for Tesla’s discoveries and inventions, the typical industrial-era household would scarcely be what it is today. If you were to remove all trace of Tesla’s major contributions from your home, you would have to eliminate many appliances, starting with your television, radio and telephone, as well as fluorescent and neon lighting.

Other items essential to scientific research would also disappear: the molecular bombardment lamp that led to the electron microscope and atomic particle accelerators, research on cosmic rays and artificial radioactivity, and high-frequency electrical currents used in medicine and industry, radio-controlled vehicles, and weaponry, laser technology.

Although Tesla died many years ago (January 7, 1943), many of his discoveries — long thought too “fantastic” to be practical — are only now beginning to generate serious laboratory research: wireless power transmission, solar and oceanic power generators, the use of the Earth itself as a transmission medium and source of energy, robotics, and the use of trained visualization capacities in stimulating the inventive process.

While the story of this bizarre genius is fascinating in its own right, Tesla’s value to this subject is specifically due to the extraordinary detailed and self-documented flashes of insight and deliberately cultivated the visualization techniques that he used.

Tesla’s unusual powers of visualization first showed up in his early years in the form of an affliction. The young Tesla was tormented by terrifying memories of such clarity that it was if he was witnessing two realities — the world around him, and, simultaneously, the detailed re-creation of a world from his past. For example, he might be sitting in a classroom or walking down a street when a scene of a funeral he had attended years earlier would jump up, unbidden, in his field of vision. This new vision, which he knew to be a memory, was perceptually no less authentic than the other, “real” scene he was also watching.

To free himself from these maddening apparitions, out of sheer defense of his sanity, Tesla set himself the task of gaining control of these episodes. Like Robert Louis Stevenson, he found that the self-administered psychotherapy he devised in order to soothe his terrifying visions could be refined into a precise tool for “dreaming up” his inventions.

At first, if an unpleasant visual memory presented itself, young Tesla tried to counter it with a memory of a more pleasing sight. But he found that he had to continually summon “fresh” images — because for some reason, after a while, the pleasant images lost their ability to stave off the less-pleasant ones. Since he was young and had seen little of the world, his store of pleasant counter-images was quickly exhausted. By the time he had run through his store of pleasant memories for the third time, they had completely lost their power to stave off the terrifying apparitions. In his own words:

Then I instinctively commenced to make excursions beyond the limits of the small world of which I had knowledge, and I saw new scenes. These were at first very blurred and indistinct, and would flit away when I tried to concentrate my attention upon them, but by and by I succeeded in fixing them; they gained in strength and distinctness and finally assumed the concreteness of real things. I soon discovered that my vision was getting farther and farther; getting new impressions all the time, so I began to travel — of course, in my mind. Every night (and sometimes during the day), when alone, I would start on my journeys — see new places, cities, and countries — live there, meet people and make friendships and acquaintances and, however unbelievable, it is a fact that they were just as dear to meet as those in actual life and not a bit less intense in their manifestations. (1)

He continued to refine this ability until he was about seventeen, when he began seriously to think about inventing. He was delighted to discover that he was able to visualize possible inventions with great facility. He didn’t need to make models or drawings or perform experiments — all he had to do was set his mind’s eye to work. He began to evolve what he later considered to be a much more efficient approach to materializing inventions than the age-old process of trial and error, sketch and experiment.

Tesla took pains to note that he regarded his method to be just as “real,” and very much more powerful, than any of the more analytic, less “subjective’ tools of the inventor’s trade. Over half a century before the invention of the computer, he discovered what modern programmers know as “modeling and simulation.” He found that he was able to construct, modify, and even operate his hypothetical devices, purely by visualizing them:

It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it. In twenty years there has not been a single exception. (2)

When Tesla was a student, a fateful incident occurred one day in a classroom. A dynamo, of the sort then available, was imported and demonstrated for his class. The young inventor, who had by that time gained a high degree of mastery over his visualization powers and considered himself well-versed in electrical engineering, pointed out that a more efficient dynamo might be built on slightly different principles. His professor lectured the class on the impossibility of what young Tesla had proposed. Goaded by the challenge:

I started by first picturing in my mind a direct current machine, running and following the changing flow of the currents in the armature. Then I would imagine an alternator and investigate the processes taking place in a similar manner. Next I would visualize systems comprising motors and generators and operate them in various ways. The images I saw were to me perfectly real and tangible. All my remaining term…was passed in intense but fruitless efforts of this kind, and I almost came to the conclusion that the problem was unsolvable…

In attacking the problem again I almost regretted that the struggle was soon to end. I had so much energy to spare. When I undertook the task it was not with a resolve such as men often make. With me it was a sacred vow, a question of life and death. I knew that I would perish if I failed. Now I felt that the battle was won. Back in the deep recesses of the brain was the solution, but I could not yet give it outward expression. (3)

Continue to article page 2 »

© David Jiles, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

About the Author | More by David Jiles
David Jiles, Ph.D. latest book is Creativity and the Secret Language of the Mind (LuLu Press, 2007). In an effort to re-think thinking, he has examined the best creative thinkers e.g. Einstein, Hemingway, Picasso, Tesla, Beethoven and countless others to find common secrets towards creative thinking.

04/07/08