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Post by hengest on Jan 10, 2022 17:39:18 GMT -5
Thought we might have a thread to discuss creativity in general, as it comes up a lot on this board and generates a lot of what we do here.
I find that my best ideas are generated more or less from nothing. You want to have a post office, make a table to generate one, roll something up, justify it, and there's your game setting. Or something like that.
I know that others report that as well.
When I was younger, I used to cultivate and extend the hypnagogic state, the state between waking and sleeping, in order to see the beautiful images and trace the intriguing thoughts that occurred to me there (now I am too tired to do anything but actually sleep). Charles Dickens describes this state neatly in Oliver Twist.
The poet Tennyson writes of a state that may have been similar:
Such intensity I may have experienced in unusual dreams, with attendant flight of fancy that seemed to generate endless understanding and ideas, although I cannot "elevate" them to a normal waking state. They seem to flee or to become inaccessible, like the stars in daylight, on my waking.
I suppose the hypnagogic state allows one to have a foot in both worlds, to be awake enough to observe the mind in its "fairy tale" state.
And even without cultivating that state, it seems that my best creative output comes when I just sit down with no thoughts, cast aside anything that seems obviously derivative or bad, and simply record what presents itself.
What is your working method, if you have one? What other creative endeavors have you worked on? All thoughts related to creativity welcome on this thread.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 10, 2022 18:13:39 GMT -5
When I was younger, I used to cultivate and extend the hypnagogic state, the state between waking and sleeping, in order to see the beautiful images and trace the intriguing thoughts that occurred to me there (now I am too tired to do anything but actually sleep). Charles Dickens describes this state neatly in Oliver Twist. I tend to pass through this state into sleep each night and (if the alarm has not gone off first) pass through this state each time I wake up. I have always done this and I have to be extremely tired to fall asleep too fast to experience it. I am never quite sure if I am awake or not. When I wake up without the alarm, I often seem to pass from a dream directly to this state and at some point I become aware that I have consciously assumed editorial control.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 10, 2022 18:24:50 GMT -5
I do not ever recall anything frightening in these states. Although several references I found all seem to tend toward scary, which is not my experience.
In grade school I rode the school bus 90 minutes each way and if I were left alone, I was always staring out the window day dreaming for those three hours a day every day and it was best when it was raining or snowing. So it was very much a trance state and I spent 3 hours a day most school days for years just indulging my imagination. Had D&D existed then, I would have eaten it up.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 10, 2022 18:31:25 GMT -5
Interesting to note that the Wikipedia writeup on hypnopompia is nothing like my experience at all.
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Post by hengest on Jan 10, 2022 18:50:33 GMT -5
I tend to pass through this state into sleep each night and (if the alarm has not gone off first) pass through this state each time I wake up. I have always done this and I have to be extremely tired to fall asleep too fast to experience it. I am never quite sure if I am awake or not. When I wake up without the alarm, I often seem to pass from a dream directly to this state and at some point I become aware that I have consciously assumed editorial control. I think when I was a kid, I took a pretty long time to fall asleep and just did wakeful thinking until I dropped off. During college, I noticed the hypagogic state and learned to cultivate it some. I admit I used this mostly for entertainment and not for any great creative project. Re: Dickens, there is a painting that depicts him asleep (or nearly asleep) and "seeing" the vivid characters from his creative works. ( Dickens' Dream by Robert William Buss, 1875) Note that the images farther from the dreamer look like sketches, while those nearer him are more finished and in color. This is my experience with the hypangogic state: unlike my regular dreams, which are minimally visual, the images that present themselves between sleep and waking are very bright, detailed, and vivid, in some instances more so than waking sight. There is an interesting article about dreaming and Dickens here, accessible to a general audience. Even apart from "real" creative activity like I attempt on this board, I have found (as have many) in life that it happens that the work I do with minimal "oversight" is often the best. This happened once with a project I worked on for a long time. The first to see it suggested I make an extra introductory part to "orient" the reader. I wrote that part in annoyed disgust, paying minimal attention to it, in one weekend. It was praised as the best part of the whole thing. Which is not to say I sought it out in a half-dream, but I (in my unwarranted resentment about having to do it) just did not engage my editing mind very much. As you say, PD, I have found the state pleasant and not scary. Certainly it and similar states are portrayed positively or at least as pleasant: But I have had the experience of "sleep paralysis" as well, which is scary. The sense that you are fully awake and unable to move is unpleasant. I assume that this is a different thing altogether, caused by a failure of the induced paralysis of sleep to wear off when you wake up.
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Post by hengest on Jan 10, 2022 18:52:45 GMT -5
Oh, about the painting above, I assume that the sketch / color distinction was a deliberate compositional choice, now I learn that Buss died before he could complete the painting. Very interesting.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 10, 2022 18:58:20 GMT -5
Oh, about the painting above, I assume that the sketch / color distinction was a deliberate compositional choice, now I learn that Buss died before he could complete the painting. Very interesting. Odd that it is "better" and makes sense for having not been completed.
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Post by hengest on Jan 10, 2022 19:04:03 GMT -5
Oh, about the painting above, I assume that the sketch / color distinction was a deliberate compositional choice, now I learn that Buss died before he could complete the painting. Very interesting. Odd that it is "better" and makes sense for having not been completed. Who knows, it makes so much sense as it is, it is easy to imagine that the artist (I know nothing about Buss) is more than halfway through and has a creative insight that he doesn't speak aloud or doesn't even recognize consciously, stops working on it because it is "done" and then dies. Then it looks like he died "before" he could finish it. One wonders the same about Kubla Khan by Coleridge, the thing is so perfect it's hard not to imagine it as a completed work.
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Post by El Borak on Jan 11, 2022 0:47:17 GMT -5
Odd that it is "better" and makes sense for having not been completed. Who knows, it makes so much sense as it is, it is easy to imagine that the artist (I know nothing about Buss) is more than halfway through and has a creative insight that he doesn't speak aloud or doesn't even recognize consciously, stops working on it because it is "done" and then dies. Then it looks like he died "before" he could finish it. One wonders the same about Kubla Khan by Coleridge, the thing is so perfect it's hard not to imagine it as a completed work. I thought it was complete, that it was what it was intended to be, imagined as a fragment of some mythical lost work. Kubla Khan BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ’twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.
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Post by True Black Raven on Jan 11, 2022 10:47:32 GMT -5
This is a mind blowing thread. When I am awake, but have not yet opened my eyes, I am only trying to sink back into slumber.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 11, 2022 11:05:14 GMT -5
Odd that it is "better" and makes sense for having not been completed. Who knows, it makes so much sense as it is, it is easy to imagine that the artist (I know nothing about Buss) is more than halfway through and has a creative insight that he doesn't speak aloud or doesn't even recognize consciously, stops working on it because it is "done" and then dies. Then it looks like he died "before" he could finish it. One wonders the same about Kubla Khan by Coleridge, the thing is so perfect it's hard not to imagine it as a completed work. That is a great comment, maybe he decided not to finish it, but we will never know. As was mentioned, I thought Kubla Khan was completely finished to the degree intended.
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Post by hengest on Jan 13, 2022 20:38:27 GMT -5
Glad to hear others on here are into this poem.
I also think of it as complete. But I guess some have taken the preface at face value:
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Jan 14, 2022 12:19:44 GMT -5
Glad to hear others on here are into this poem. I also think of it as complete. But I guess some have taken the preface at face value: I did not know any of this.
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Post by hengest on Jan 14, 2022 14:17:04 GMT -5
The Perilous Dreamer Yeah, I think it is often printed without any of that in various collections. But he did include it in the first edition published in his lifetime. So I suppose the basic possibilities for interpretation are: - the whole story about being interrupted while writing down the lines composed in a dream is part of the fiction
- it really happened, or at least substantially really happened (there was more composition but much was lost because of the interruption)
- something else or some strange combination
Even if all this really happened, I think of it as a completed work, he finished it as he was able which I guess is true of any work of art.
Edit: forgot to include this, just learned this from Wikipedia. From a personal letter to John Thelwall, October 1797, likely date of composition of Kubla Khan:
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Post by hengest on Jan 30, 2022 21:46:05 GMT -5
I may need to start a new post on this, but I can't help but post it here:
The remarkable passage quoted above is by one Father Bourzes from his observations on "Luminous Appearances in the Wakes of Ships in the Sea." It seems to be have been taken from a volume printd in 1762.
I got this from the book The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination by John Livingston Lowes. I am only a few chapters in, but so far, it is fascinating. The author seeks the sources of the material that Coleridge drew on for his poems Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Totally absorbing book about creativity.
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Post by The Semi-Retired Gamer on Jan 31, 2022 8:39:50 GMT -5
Pretty cool stuff.
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Post by hengest on Mar 17, 2022 17:35:59 GMT -5
Minor follow-up here.
I enjoyed talking with a couple of the regulars here about Kubla Khan, which has been one of my favorites for over half my life (learned it on a whim when I was 19).
That book that I mentioned above, The Road to Xanadu...I didn't keep going with it. Not because it didn't look cool. It did! And I believe that it is.
But I have little free time and I think my time hanging around here and reading and working has helped me to understand what creativity is. It no longer feels like such a mystery.
This doesn't make me an awesome poet like Coleridge. Or an awesome DM or any other super creative type.
I think everyone is a creative type. But I think that now the basic way it functions, at least however much can be observed...is now clear enough to me, or as clear as it's going to me. And that book walks you through this. The specifics of the roots of Kubla Khan in the author's creative process would be of interest to me, but I just don't have time.
I realize this may sound ridiculous, but if I'm not going to say it here...where am I going to say it?
At least I've learned something!
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Post by hengest on Apr 3, 2022 14:47:39 GMT -5
Follow-up here. The post quoted in part below was originally here posted by True Black Raven . I don't want to respond to most of what's on that thread, so I'm responding here instead, since I want to make a remark about creativity. There is nothing that is perfectly original, or nothing I know of. I noted on a recent thread (will try to find it and link later) that sometimes people want to attribute absolutely originality and perfection to their pet artist, musician, celebrity, writer. I don't think that kind of thinking is consistent with reality. However, it is common. And I think what's in bold above is the other side of it: when we put everything good, creative, original onto someone else, we kind of assume that we don't possess any of it ourselves. Then we have to stick to that "idol" no matter what. I think the MIY mentality may be a good antidote for the unhealthy hero-worship or saintification of this or that "titan" of the hobby. And I say this believing that the people in the early years of the hobby did a ton that was worthy of real respect, but that doesn't mean they have to be uniquely perfect for all time.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 3, 2022 15:33:04 GMT -5
Follow-up here. The post quoted in part below was originally here posted by True Black Raven . I don't want to respond to most of what's on that thread, so I'm responding here instead, since I want to make a remark about creativity. There is nothing that is perfectly original, or nothing I know of. I noted on a recent thread (will try to find it and link later) that sometimes people want to attribute absolutely originality and perfection to their pet artist, musician, celebrity, writer. I don't think that kind of thinking is consistent with reality. However, it is common. And I think what's in bold above is the other side of it: when we put everything good, creative, original onto someone else, we kind of assume that we don't possess any of it ourselves. Then we have to stick to that "idol" no matter what. I think the MIY mentality may be a good antidote for the unhealthy hero-worship or saintification of this or that "titan" of the hobby. And I say this believing that the people in the early years of the hobby did a ton that was worthy of real respect, but that doesn't mean they have to be uniquely perfect for all time. I think people in general do not understand what "absolute originality" even is. Most people across the "old school" and "new school" gaming world, seem to think it is something that shows no influences of anything that came before it. By that definition, there will never be anything original done ever again. No "absolute originality" or "absolutely original" whichever way you want to put it means that all the influences and sources are blended together to produce something novel, something rare and possibly, though not necessarily, unique. Something that surprises people and makes them think along new lines, something inspiring.
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Post by hengest on Apr 11, 2022 20:52:15 GMT -5
Another mini-topic for this thread...
I think there are two forces in expressing creativity, or two practical forces or practical...necessities.
One is the central creative act -- coming up with something.
The other is marshalling that something so that it becomes accessible for others in some form.
Most of my material on here is the first part. If I had more skill in the second, I could write a novel (maybe).
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Post by True Black Raven on Sept 23, 2022 11:16:00 GMT -5
Another mini-topic for this thread... I think there are two forces in expressing creativity, or two practical forces or practical...necessities. One is the central creative act -- coming up with something. The other is marshalling that something so that it becomes accessible for others in some form. Most of my material on here is the first part. If I had more skill in the second, I could write a novel (maybe). One frustrating thing about creativity is having a great idea when you are absolutely NOT in a position where you can write it down and then when you could write it down, it has vanished from your mind.
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Post by hengest on Sept 23, 2022 12:23:33 GMT -5
Another mini-topic for this thread... I think there are two forces in expressing creativity, or two practical forces or practical...necessities. One is the central creative act -- coming up with something. The other is marshalling that something so that it becomes accessible for others in some form. Most of my material on here is the first part. If I had more skill in the second, I could write a novel (maybe). One frustrating thing about creativity is having a great idea when you are absolutely NOT in a position where you can write it down and then when you could write it down, it has vanished from your mind. I hate this. I have developed a "holding cell" and mnemonics to prevent this from happening.
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Post by True Black Raven on Oct 4, 2022 13:49:23 GMT -5
One frustrating thing about creativity is having a great idea when you are absolutely NOT in a position where you can write it down and then when you could write it down, it has vanished from your mind. I hate this. I have developed a "holding cell" and mnemonics to prevent this from happening. Wow, how do you do that? I have tried different things, but not had much success.
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Post by hengest on Oct 4, 2022 16:47:05 GMT -5
I hate this. I have developed a "holding cell" and mnemonics to prevent this from happening. Wow, how do you do that? I have tried different things, but not had much success. Assuming I am not hanging from a helicopter or otherwise overwhelmed by staying alive, but just cannot write something down at the moment, I try to review the idea and all its parts, making sure I am attending to everything I like and want to keep. I go over it all a couple times and attach summary words or phrases to each section. Then I make a set of those words, like ELF, RAINBOW, GRASS or something (made-up example). I then make sure I know what each one is attached to. Usually this process brings up a related idea, so I work that in to. I quietly return to the words and glance at their "contents" to make sure they stay fresh and then when I can I scribble it all down. This doesn't usually happen with gaming materials because I do them almost exclusively when I'm already typing.
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Post by hengest on Oct 4, 2022 16:49:00 GMT -5
I hate this. I have developed a "holding cell" and mnemonics to prevent this from happening. Wow, how do you do that? I have tried different things, but not had much success. I know some people on here describe being in the "zone" during gaming, I have less experience with that but I think I do have a degree of experience with it inside my own head. So in effect the technique I described lets me dip in and out of the "zone" and kind of keep the coal burning while my body attends to whatever it is supposed to attend to. I also let myself get up out of bed ten times before I go to sleep to write things down.
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Post by True Black Raven on Oct 4, 2022 17:59:29 GMT -5
Wow, how do you do that? I have tried different things, but not had much success. Assuming I am not hanging from a helicopter or otherwise overwhelmed by staying alive, but just cannot write something down at the moment, I try to review the idea and all its parts, making sure I am attending to everything I like and want to keep. I go over it all a couple times and attach summary words or phrases to each section. Then I make a set of those words, like ELF, RAINBOW, GRASS or something (made-up example). I then make sure I know what each one is attached to. Usually this process brings up a related idea, so I work that in to. I quietly return to the words and glance at their "contents" to make sure they stay fresh and then when I can I scribble it all down. This doesn't usually happen with gaming materials because I do them almost exclusively when I'm already typing. I have tried the whole mnemonic thing, but have never gotten it to work for me, although oddly I can spell it.
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Post by True Black Raven on Oct 4, 2022 18:00:28 GMT -5
Wow, how do you do that? I have tried different things, but not had much success. I know some people on here describe being in the "zone" during gaming, I have less experience with that but I think I do have a degree of experience with it inside my own head. So in effect the technique I described lets me dip in and out of the "zone" and kind of keep the coal burning while my body attends to whatever it is supposed to attend to. I also let myself get up out of bed ten times before I go to sleep to write things down. That is dedication, once I am in bed, I am loath to get up again, even to write down and idea.
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Post by hengest on Oct 4, 2022 21:54:21 GMT -5
I know some people on here describe being in the "zone" during gaming, I have less experience with that but I think I do have a degree of experience with it inside my own head. So in effect the technique I described lets me dip in and out of the "zone" and kind of keep the coal burning while my body attends to whatever it is supposed to attend to. I also let myself get up out of bed ten times before I go to sleep to write things down. That is dedication, once I am in bed, I am loath to get up again, even to write down and idea. Since ideas are the only good thing I can produce, I am loath to lose them if I can possibly help it.
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Post by The Semi-Retired Gamer on Oct 9, 2022 7:56:21 GMT -5
That is dedication, once I am in bed, I am loath to get up again, even to write down and idea. Since ideas are the only good thing I can produce, I am loath to lose them if I can possibly help it. I know I've said it before but there's a notepad & pen on my nightstand as well as a notebook I take to work to jot down ideas in on the go.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Oct 9, 2022 16:47:11 GMT -5
Since ideas are the only good thing I can produce, I am loath to lose them if I can possibly help it. I know I've said it before but there's a notepad & pen on my nightstand as well as a notebook I take to work to jot down ideas in on the go. I should do that.
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