The challenge of “seeing” consciousness
Since consciousness is so all encompassing, it is challenging to see. Like the water surrounding a fish deep in the open ocean, it is hard to gain perspective on its vastness and all pervasive nature.
But in order to foster our creative abilities, it is essential that we attempt to “see” consciousness in action.
As a starting point, we can begin to get a sense of consciousness by beginning to watch how it changes.
Consciousness and change
It is readily apparent that the objects of our experience—thoughts, emotions, sensations—are constantly changing. We are hungry one moment, goal-oriented in the next, then distracted by a memory of our childhood home or the attractiveness of a co-worker.
What is less apparent, however, is that our awareness of being aware, the ways in which we are processing information, is also changing.
We can see this by looking at the remarkable changes in consciousness we go through in just one 24-hour period, changes occurring as we cycle through the various states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep.
Waking Consciousness
Our waking consciousness, which is presided over by a distinct sense of self sometimes known as the ego, allows us to tend to our basic needs, communicate with others, and to actively engage the world around us.
Our waking consciousness allows us to carry out our creative insights, but is often prone to habit. Habits, such as tying our shoes without thinking, have the positive aspect of saving us time to reflect on other things.
But if our waking consciousness becomes overwhelmingly habitual, it actually cuts us off from the vitality of our experience, which thwarts creativity in the long run.
Dreaming consciousness
Dreaming cuts us off from the physical world but brings important awareness to all the unprocessed stimuli that ends up in that vast repository known as the subconscious, stimuli that we had neither the time nor the capacity to process during the day.
Curiously enough, the brain waves of one who is dreaming are very similar to the patterns of one in the throes of creativity.
As many of us have experienced, dream consciousness can lead our creativity in new directions and move us past obstacles that have left our waking consciousness stumped.
Deep sleep consciousness
Deep dreamless sleep is like consciousness’s daily reset button.
During this time all input from both the outside world and from the inner psyche ceases, allowing, in a sense, awareness itself to rest, replenish, and wipe the slate clean.
How the 3 types of consciousness work together
Revisiting our airport analogy, waking consciousness describe those times we choose what planes to takeoff and land, dreaming consciousness addresses other planes we avoided looking at or failed to notice at all, and in deep sleep we allow the control tower, the runways, and all the planes to fall away into oblivion, only to rebuild itself entirely anew when we start dreaming again or wake up in the morning.
Each of these three basic states of consciousness—waking, dreaming, and deep sleep—are vital to our creativity. Broadly speaking, waking consciousness allows us to carry out the tasks needed to complete a creative project; dreaming, like imagination, allows our awareness to explore existing creative possibilities; and deep sleep is like our daily return to source, a visit to the boundless creative potential that underlies everything.
About the author
Austin Hill Shaw is a creativity expert who works with individuals who want to unlock their full creative potential and organizations that want to build cultures of innovation. He is the founder of Creativity Matters, author of The Shoreline of Wonder: On Being Creative, and inventor of The Creativity Quiz.
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