Blog
#13: How Hypnosis Can Help You Meet Your Muse
Many famous artists and scientists have used self-hypnosis
intentionally
or unintentionally to access discoveries and intuitive
insights. The Nobel Prize-winning poet William Butler Yeats
wrote
of the time when he was sitting at his desk writing poetry and
accidentally
dropped his pen. When he bent to pick it
up, he
recalled many fantastic adventures, one after another, and then
realized
that he was remembering dreams of nights past.
When he
tried to think about these dreams, they drifted from his memory
and
he again forgot them. He realized
that when he wrote poetry, he
was in this dream state, equivalent to deep
hypnosis.
Thomas Alva Edison, possibly the most famous and prolific
inventor in U.
S. history, said that he made many of his discoveries
while napping in his easy
chair in his library. He would spend
some
time pondering details of a particular challenge he faced, then
would ask
his mind to give him an answer. He then
fell asleep in
the chair, letting both his arms dangle down over the chair’s
arms.
In one hand, he held a large glass
ball. When he fell asleep, his
hands
would relax and the glass ball would clatter to the floor. The
resulting vibrations would wake him and
he would have an answer,
sometimes in the form of a diagram. These answers were not
always correct, but
many were, or were able to eventually lead him
to a correct answer.
Children are spontaneously and naturally creative. They often
daydream, and can access
information intuitively, a process which
is quicker than analytical
thinking. Of course, accessing both the
intuitive and the analytical minds simultaneously is often the best
way to be
creative. This can be difficult for many
people.
Hypnosis and self-hypnosis are
skills that will help with this.
This blog’s offer: call my office
for a free fifteen minute
consultation regarding a specific challenge in your
creative
endeavors. I will also let you
know if hypnosis or another method
would be likely to be helpful.
Also: Come
see my photo show at The Coffee Shop, at 1135 W.
Sheridan Road, in
Chicago. The show will be there through
March 31st. There will be a
special reception with music and
celebration from 7 pm until 9 pm on March 22nd. Laurie
Little, a photographer and
award-winning film-maker, has
some beautiful photographs of Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula in
winter. Laurie also designed
my blog, with a little help from
me. My
photographs were taken during my travels in Kenya
and Mali. Some narrative accompanies many of the
pictures.
