By Tom Evans | Posted 2/1/11 | Updated 11/21/20
In What Blocks Light Bulb Moments?, I explored how different areas of your body and different types of thought can have the effect of blocking or dampening the experiencing of light bulb moments.
A light bulb moment is different from any old thought as it affects our whole body, and mind. People who have experienced light bulb moments report how they can feel it in their water and how it affects every bone in their body. If you have one in the middle of the night, you can be kept awake for hours and compelled to get up and write it all down.
Another characteristic of a light bulb moment is that it tends to happen outside time, in less than an instant. Combined with their elusively random nature, this makes them difficult to analyse in a lab. As far as I know, nobody has MRI scanned someone when they are experiencing one. I will stick my hand up to be a guinea pig if any researchers are reading this.
For this reason, the following deconstruction of how a light bulb moment occurs is completely subjective and based on personal observation. I will state however that I got this whole description as a light bulb moment while in deep meditation. It feels intuitively right to me. The only caveat that I would add is that this is probably one of many mechanisms, yet possibly the one that is most commonly experienced.
Being in the meditative state sets up the perfect conditions for light bulb moments to occur. A still mind gives space for 'the new' to arrive. This can be achieved with a 'formal' meditative session or in the natural points in the day when we fall into this state. Later in this series, I will explore and demonstrate the process of achieving the ideal meditative state to receive light bulb moments, even with your eyes open.
Now the fuel to encourage the introduction of such fresh thought is specifically delivered during the in-spiration phase of the re-spiration process. The hyphenation is not only intentional but provides some elucidation as to what is occurring. Again, this is something I will explore in more details later in this series.
As neurons do not have internal reserves for oxygen, more neuronal activity requires more oxygen to be delivered rapidly through the blood stream. Conventional wisdom suggests that more neuronal activity creates more connections and the likelihood of a 'new' connection being forged increases as a result. So deeper breathing while meditating causes more of this potential interconnectivity in the brain.
While I was writing my book, I had the light bulb moment that it might be fun to use this very technique to gather some insight [or inner-sight] as what really goes on during the process.
This was the result.
When you move your diaphragm, which is also known as your spiritual muscle, it pump primes your pranic tube your life force that stems from your spinal column. This in turn stimulates your main conglomerations of neurons [your chakras] and a massive amount of intercommunication ensues. Initially this is mainly between your gut, heart and third eye.
h1 class="f16">The Anatomy of a Light Bulb MomentAfter a few minutes, the pranic force seeps outside your physical body. There is a point known as your omega chakra, a few inches below the bottom of your spine your root chakra point. From there, your prana seeps into Mother Earth and informs her you are ready to receive.
A nanosecond later, it rises up your spine past your crown to a point known as the alpha chakra just above your head. At this time, you become the pivot point between the superconsciousness and Mother Earth your heart being at the very centre. Sometimes a big tingling up and down your spine can accompany this whole process.
If at that time you are internally silent, the information transfer occurs. It seems to happen inside time and outside space. Every neuron in your brain lights up and you experience the beginning of a light bulb moment. The process is not yet complete.
The information is passed to Mother Earth who checks it is safe and timely for you to receive it. It checks to see if the idea is ecologically sound for both you and the planet.
Your root and sacral chakras are then consulted about the safety of the idea from a personal perspective. It next passes into your gut centre for further ' internal quality assurance'.
Our 'lower minds' communicate upwards with a very basic language normally with just a simple 'yes' or 'no' and only occasionally a 'maybe'. Learning to trust your gut and root minds separates the successful from the 'also rans'.
If it's a 'yes', your gut then passes it to your heart centre so you can fall in love with the idea. The heart mind communicates upwards with a sliding scale where a zero [or negative] represents a loathing of the idea and a ten [or eleven] that you are totally on love with it.
The idea then returns to your pineal gland at the top of your spinal column and the centre of your brain. From there, it permeates to enter your outer cortex and begins to leak into your consciousness. You then start to become consciously aware of the 'new idea'. It is first decoded and interpreted by the right hemisphere which looks at it from a holistic perspective. Finally, it is passed to your left hemisphere for 'processing'.
In real time, much less than a second has elapsed. Yet, as all your 'minds' are in agreement, you know you have to act on this 'news' it just feels right.
Your throat chakra might even get it on the act and shout "Eureka!"
The 'processing' of the idea might take some time. Isaac Newton was reported to have got the whole of the Theory of Gravity in this way, in less than a second, and to have taken the rest of his life to work on it. The incident with Newton's apple by the way may well be apocryphal and somewhat of an urban myth.
Next in the series, we will look at the process of amplifying these seed ideas and giving them momentum in the real world such that they have an increased likelihood of actually happening.
©2011 Tom Evans. All rights reserved.
Renaissance Man and Imagineer Tom Evans is the author of several books about creativity. more