Creativity Challenge 2002

Increasing Awareness Improves Creative Potential

Creativity Challenge 2002 #24

In the early 1980s I had the good fortune to take some workshops from some Bulgarian teachers who had been doing work that lead to what was called SUPERLEARNING.

During one of the workshops we were introduced to the concept of scotoma that was defined as deminished perception. The facilitators described it as a series of mental and psychological filters that our brains and personalities develop to protect us against sensory overload. Since then I have learned that these can also be the emotional, sociological and pscyhological filters that are developed and create our cultural, professional and personal Paradigms (how we see, hear, taste, touch, feel, experience things).

Over the years since I have discovered that with practice we can temporarily remove filters and expand our abilities to sense and experience which in turn can greatly expand and enrich our creative thinking abilities.

sco·to·ma Pronunciation Key (sk-tm)
n. pl. sco·to·mas or sco·to·ma·ta (-m-t)

An area of diminished vision within the visual field.

    [New Latin scotma, from Late Latin, dim sight, from Greek
    skotma, dizziness, from skotoun, to darken, from skotos,
    darkness.]

This week let's practice removing a few apparent filters.

MONDAY
pick a color, not one of your favorites, randomly and deliberate focus on finding examples of it throughout the day, keeping notes of everything you see with that color and everywhere you saw it.

TUESDAY
pick a specific sound and listen for it all day

WEDNESDAY
pick a texture and seek it out wherever you are

THURSDAY
look for as many examples of vertical stripes as you can find from small to giant scale

FRIDAY
pick a geometric shape and seek it out both with your sight and touch (triangles, squares, rectangles, octagons, hexagons, pentagons)

See if on one of the days you can find 144 or more examples.

Choose to have a more creative week this week.

Alan

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