Episode 28 - Hypnogogia

How Salvador Dali and other creative thinkers tapped into using hypnogogic imagery for inspiration.

Transcript

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Hey there, I'm Anthony Alvarado. You're listening to the Rough Draft on X-ray FM. And for today's show, I thought I would just read a chapter from my book DIY Magic. This chapter is on hypnagogia. What is hypnagogia? You have experienced it countless times, even if you don't know the name for it. You know the feeling. You're lying in bed, or even better, napping on the couch, and the images of the day, the background thoughts that are always there, a constant hum begin to take on a certain Cheshire cat leer. Fanciful and odd images begin to swim by, as effervescent as soap bubble rainbows, fairy wings, a blue stag, patterns of red and blue. For me, there is often a tunnel or kaleidoscope quality to the imagery. All swirl around just as your consciousness relaxes its grip on reality. You're experiencing hypnagogic imagery. Hypnagogia in Greek means roughly abducting into sleep or leading to sleep, depending on how you translate it. It's the liminal in-between state where you're just beginning to dream, but are still conscious. One of the most famous examples of hypnagogia fueling the creation of art is Samuel Coleridge's best-known poem, Kublicon, which came to him after his reverie was broken by a knock on the door. And some might blame his visitor for interrupting the creation of the poem, but the truth is that without that knock on the door, Coleridge would not have been cognizant enough to begin writing anything down or to remember it afterwards. Creative types, from writers to inventors and scientists, have long been aware of the rich trove of insight from our unconsciousness that can be made available to us through hypnagogic imagery. The list of inspired people who have made use of hypnagogic imagery is impressive. Beethoven reported obtaining ideas while napping in his carriage. Richard Wagner was inspired by hypnagogic imagery to write his ring cycle. Thomas Edison reported that during periods of half-waking, his mind was flooded with creative images. And the philosopher John Dewey said creative ideas happen when people are relaxed to the point of reverie. Other geniuses knowledgeable of this technique include Sir Isaac Newton, Johannes Brahms, Sir Walter Scott, and the person perhaps most successful at harnessing the creative energy was Salvador Dolly. A well-read student of Freud, Dolly, who never used drugs or drank alcohol, except for champagne and moderation, turned to this unusual way to access his subconscious. He knew that the hypnagogic state between wakefulness and sleep was the most creative for the brain. Like Freud and his fellow surrealists, he considered dreams and imagination as central rather than marginal to human thought. Dolly searched for a way to stay in that creative state as long as possible, just as any one of us on a lazy Saturday morning might enjoy staying in bed in a semi-awake state while we use our imagination to its fullest. He devised this technique. Dolly would sit outside in the afternoon sun, drowsy after a big lunch, with a metal mixing bowl in his lap and a big spoon in his hand hovering over the bowl. As he began to drift off to sleep, his grip would relax and drop the spoon clanging into the bowl and waking him up. He'd then repeat the process, drifting along in this way, suspended between waking and dream, all the while taking in the hypnagogic imagery that would become the fuel for his paintings. How simple and how obvious and elucidating this is to think that those images of towering giraffes, lions stretched out of pomegranates, and four-dimensional Tesseract crucified Christ, war in fact straight out of dreams, makes one realize that the mojo driving the king of surrealism is in fact available to us right here and now. And the only cost is trading a nap for a drowsy state of temporary self-denial. The method also works for more than just wild imagery. Edison would use the same thing to gain inspiration for his inventions, drifting off to sleep in his rocking chair while holding a rock in his right hand that he would drop into a metal bucket on the floor. My own experiments have shown that a ceramic plate works just as well as a metal bowl. Of course, some may prefer trying this experiment with a tape recorder at hand instead of a pencil, but I found that operating technologically advanced equipment can be counterproductive to fostering the desired dream state. Obviously, if you're hunting for images rather than words, then only a pencil and paper will do. Another tip, you may want to dim the lights or even try writing with your eyes closed. And you'll be surprised at how easy this is if you practice it a little bit. You don't need to watch your hand to be able to scrawl something legibly. Your hand knows what it's doing. So it's as simple as that. And best of all, there is absolutely no hangover or come down to this trip. It is most pleasant. However, if you allow yourself the time to take a full nap afterwards, after you've gotten your notes and sketches down, then you may as well enjoy that too. And that is from my book, DIY Magic. And I'm Anthony Alvarado. Thanks for listening to the show, and see you again next time.