How To Use Your Subconscious to Better Your Writing
Our subconscious is a magical thing.
Our subconscious is a magical thing. It’s constantly hard at work behind the scenes, occasionally offering up little glimmers of ideas, inspiration and solutions.
When it comes to your writing, your subconscious can be an amazing tool. It is the generator of ideas while you’re at the gym, eating your dinner or hanging up the washing. It is the incubation for all of your thoughts and experiences, and is the vital step before those beloved aha moments.
Get some sleep.
Thomas Edison said, “Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.”
The theory that you can make ‘requests’ to your subconscious is an exciting one. You literally just have to lie back, drift off into a deep sleep and let your mind do the work for you… sign me up!
On average, humans have between 3 to 5 dreams a night . Let’s assume that we remember 1 or 2 every few nights (if we are lucky, although I’m sure many people have the ability to remember far more). Imagine being able to highjack them before they begin, so that they can help you work through a problem, fix that plot hole or develop that missing characteristic in your protagonist.
Before you go to sleep, think about your “request” from every angle. Better yet, write the request or problem completely out on paper. Hold onto those thoughts until you drift off into sleep, and see what your subconscious can do for you once it takes the reign.
Practice mindfulness.
Practising mindfulness every day can help declutter your mind from unnecessary stresses. Whether it’s through exercise, meditation, reading or simply lying on the couch, allow yourself to be fully present in those moments and allow yourself some clarity.
There have been reports claiming that when Einstein came to a standstill in his work, he would lie down on the couch and wait for inspirational thoughts to enter his mind. And I think it’s safe to say he delivered some pretty decent work.
Giving your mind a break can ensure that when it comes back to the task of writing, your subconscious is not scrambling through a clutter of thoughts. In all that mess, it may not find those nuggets of gold.
Listen to music.
Whenever you find yourself stuck on a piece of writing, pop on some music. I have many playlists, most of them pertaining to specific pieces that I’m working on. If I’m currently writing a Thriller, for example, I’ll listen to dark, eerie or sombre music depending on the scene in progress. If I’m writing a scene set in a nightclub, you guessed it, I’ll put on some bangers. Famous author Gillian Flynn even creates specific playlists as if they belong to actual characters in her novels, to get into their state of mind.
Whenever I’m travelling (even if it’s just to and from work), I’ll spend at least 30 minutes with my music on shuffle and do nothing else but listen. Let’s be honest, most of us love to pretend we are in a dramatic scene of a movie when an emotionally triggering song comes on. And that fake movie could be your next fictional hit.
Something magical happens when you listen to music. The best thing is that it can trigger your imagination and clutch onto gems from your subconscious, with very minimal effort on your end.
Get it down in your journal.
Ideas are fickle things, and often come to us in the most inconvenient of times and places. You can be staring at your blinking cursor for hours on end, unable to construct a single thought. Next minute, you jump in the shower to give your mind a reboot, and wham, covered in face wash, shampoo dripping into your eyes, an exciting idea burns through your body.
Keeping a journal on you at all times means you can scribble half-thoughts, interesting tidbits and inspiration as soon as they strike. And often when we are writing something down that has struck a cord within us, it can pull out another thought, and then another.
The simple act of writing an idea down, reading it and re-reading it can implant the idea more firmly in our mind. Any subconscious thoughts we then have that link to that idea are able let loose. Before you know it, you’ve written 3 pages based off that little half-though you had whilst exfoliating.
Just be open…
Our subconscious is an amazing little thing. Help it take the wheel for you every now and then, because you never know what little treasures it has in store for you.