powerful and transcendent creativity
machine our amazing human brains
creativity is defined as the ability to
combine diverse elements into novel and
original ideas or products that are in
some way useful or adaptive creativity
is not a single process but a set of
complex stages and cognitive mechanisms
and our brains are built for this task
think about it all of the marvels of
human ingenuity from Transcontinental
railway systems to rockets to the moon
to life-saving medicines to the
uplifting strains of Beethoven’s Ode to
Joy to fashion magazines and referring
back to James talk even the recipe for
bacon-wrapped cheese sandwiches all of
these work began as a seed of an idea in
a human brain just like ours I study
creativity and our amazing neural
machines 20 years of research has
convinced me that we all have a
remarkable creativity potential but
there’s a gap between the potential and
our reality many I’m afraid have bought
into the idea that there are creative
people and uncreated people and for one
reason or another they’ve put themselves
in the second category and simply left
all creative endeavor to others one of
my goals as a researcher and also a
world-class appreciator of that vast
cornucopia of human creativity products
is to narrow that gap and to broaden the
person
of those who have blocked their innate
creative ability to that end two
different advances recent have shaped my
research first no imaging techniques
have allowed us to peek inside the
brains of highly creative individuals
what we see is barring serious brain
injury we all have similar brain
structures
it’s the activation of those structures
and the networks they form that
distinguish high creative individuals
from those who are less so now granted
there are some genetic influences but
second research in the fields of
cognitive rehabilitation cognitive
behavioral therapy and neurofeedback
have shown us that we can alter and
influence our behavior brain activation
systems we can change our brains and
alter our brain activation patterns this
is really a great time in history to
have a brain
now combining those two areas of
research brings me to what I want to
talk about today one highly creative
people activate their brains in certain
patterns when they’re engaged in
creative work and second if we can learn
to imitate those brain activation
patterns of highly creative people we
can enhance our own creativity and by
doing so we can enrich our lives and the
lives of those around us I talked about
brain activation patterns as brain sets
because brain sets are really the
biological equivalent of different mind
sets just as different mind sets affect
the way you see the world different
brain sets affect your perception the
memories you call to mind and even the
way you solve problems so what brain
sets of highly creative people might
influence our creative process let’s
look briefly at a set of seven brain
sets that I feel embody the most salient
mental aspects of human creativity and I
call this the creates brain set model
it’s based on your science research from
our lab and from labs around the world
as well as my interviews with over 400
creative achievers and biographical
information from creative luminaries
both past and present so you can think
of this brain sets model as sort of a
QuickStart guide to your own creativity
machine
and we’ll start by looking at the brain
set that I call the reason brain set
certainly a state that is very important
to us as human thinkers it’s a state of
focused attention in which we are
processing consciously information in
our working memory in order to solve
problems to make decisions and to set
goals all goals that are very important
in the creative
this state is characterized by
activation of what’s called the
executive control network in the brain
where lateral aspects of the prefrontal
cortex are highly active these are the
control these are called the executive
centers of the brain using much of the
same circuitry the evaluate brain set is
an even more focused state of attention
here creative ideas that we’ve generated
can be judged and screened for relevance
and appropriateness there’s certainly a
place for evaluation in the creative
process but be warned that judgmental
states of brain are poisonous to
creative idea generation and what we
found is that highly creative people
tend not to spend very much time in the
evaluate brain set instead they prefer a
set of brain activation states that are
characterized by the activation of
what’s called the default mode network
at the brain now you can see in this in
this graphic that this is characterized
by activation of center line structures
in the brain and the volume on the
executive control areas on the sided
brain are turned down brain sets that
are associated with creative idea
generation are also characterized by a
state called cognitive dissonance in
cognitive dissonance
you are aware of information that is
ordinarily screened out of conscious
awareness by a set of automatic
filtering mechanisms these filtering
mechanisms are important and necessary
to keep us from being overwhelmed by the
vast amount of stimuli that our brains
process at any given instant
but research in our lab and in other
labs indicates that highly creative
people prefer states of cognitive
dissonance and also that their filters
these filtering mechanisms are somewhat
looser and more porous the loose filters
of cognitive dissonance allow more
information into conscious awareness
that can provide content for novel and
original ideas so three brain sets are
associated with the generation of
creative ideas and let’s look at them
individually the first is the absorb
brain set which is a state of D focused
attention and cognitive dissonance in
which your mind is open to new
experiences and ideas imaging research
suggests that this is the gateway to
those aha moments those moments a
cognitive inspiration that may feel like
they come out of the blue or even that
they are coming from somewhere outside
of ourselves William Blake the visionary
poet believed that his ideas came to him
from visiting spirits that were jostling
him to get his attention a subject in
one of our studies a prominent
songwriter believed that the song she
composed were actually written by the
Angels when she received them by
sticking up some sort of antenna and her
brain to pull them in now the reason
these creative inspirations feel so
foreign is because they’re being
developed below the level of conscious
awareness and only feed-forward into
consciousness during moments of
cognitive dissonance if you don’t spend
much time in the absorb brain set it’s
likely that many potential ideas would
simply fade away without ever having
reached the threshold that would push
them into conscious thought so how can
we get into this absorb brain state
there are several evidence-based ways
one is to
practice openness meditation as you
practice openness allowing your thoughts
your emotions and your sensations into
awareness and observe them
non-judgmentally it increases your
ability to enter this brain set for
instance right now take a deep breath
and become aware of where your feet are
touching the floor become aware of all
the places where your body is touching
the seat and become aware of all the
places where your clothing is touching
your body and now become aware of what
you can hear other than my voice as we
open up to sensations we’re loosening
those cognitive filters another way to
enter the absorb brain state is by
walking in places of natural beauty many
creative insights have occurred as
people walk in nature as you walk in
nature you are surrounded you’re
bombarded by sensory stimuli on all
sides and this D focus is the attention
and dis inhibits cognition and by the
way when you’re in the shower you’re
also being bombarded by stimuli on all
sides which is why I believe that we
come up with so many good ideas there
another state that allows you to
generate creative ideas that’s what I
call the connect brain segment and this
is a state of divergent thinking where
you’re able to generate multiple
solutions to a problem by making
connections between remotely associated
bits of information this is a great
one way that research indicates we can
reliably enter this state is through
elevating our mood as your mood becomes
more positive your attention broadens
and it becomes easier to think
divergently and creatively and generate
more ideas so to this end I recommend
that you make a list of things that
reliably elevate your mood and brighten
your day like shopping now if buying
that new pair of shoes or that new Golf
Club happens to be an item on this list
remember that you can just tell your
partner hey I’m buying it to enhance my
creativity
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the final grains that that’s associated
with creative idea generation is the
envision brain set a state that’s
devoted to mental imagery this also by
the way activates much of the mental
circuitry that’s associated with actual
vision the ability to see in the mind’s
eye what does not yet exist is a
hallmark of creative thought as
Michelangelo and Einstein have both
attested vivid mental imagery is a skill
that can be enhanced through practice
and one of my favorite exercises for
practicing it is this take yourself
mentally to a place where you’ve
experienced serenity in the past this
could be a quiet forest or perhaps a
beach and see hear feel and smell all
that is around you
do this for several minutes each day
adding more and more detail to the
experience and this will not only
enhance your ability
to visualize it will also give you a
mini mental vacation the transform brain
set is a state of inner focus where you
transform negative emotions into
creative output many creative people
have produced excellent and moving work
when you’re in a low mood you can
express this through writing putting
paint to canvas through music or other
creative medium for instance Duke
Ellington said I merely used the energy
creative expression activates the reward
centers of the brain and you don’t need
to be the victim of your low moods but
you can use them for creative ends
finally we look at the stream brain set
and this is a state where ideas and
motor performance seem to flow in a
smooth stream without conscious willful
control it’s a state that we see in
improvisation in jazz and in comedy to
state associated with flow or being in
the zone some research indicates that we
can get closer to this state this very
desirable state by practicing
mindfulness being in the moment so for
instance if you’re preparing a meal just
savor each ingredient as you savor it’s
the way it looks the way it smells and
its texture so these are the seven brain
sets but I think our most salient to
creative to human creativity
now research indicates that not only do
highly creative people prefer to be in
brain sets associated with cognitive
dissonance that they also move more
flexibly among the brain sets than those
who exhibit lower creativity and that’s
important because it allows them to take
the novel and original material
generated and disinhibited states and
process it and organize it in the reason
and evaluate brain sets to make it more
useful and adaptive we can learn to move
back and forth between brain sets as
well we can practice this and one of my
favorite exercises to practice it
although this is not scientific is to
alternate in 5-minute blocks between
solving a crossword puzzle which
activates the reason brain set and using
words from the crossword puzzle to write
a mystery story which activates the
connect and the envision brain sets so
in summary what we’ve seen from highly
creative people is that they generate
more creative ideas by matching their
brain set to the stage of the creative
process at hand and moving flexibly
amongst the different brain sets with
practice we can do this too and then we
can narrow the gap between ordinary
performance and creative possibility
our brains are powerful creative
machines and each of us within that
machine has a unique repository of
experiences memories knowledge and
skills that no one else on the planet
has that means that you can come up with
new ideas that no one else in the world
can possibly do I challenge each of you
to expand your palette of brain sets to
explore to invent to express in short to
take advantage of the unique and
precious resources that dwell within
you [Music]