Why do fiction writers love their subconscious mind?
Today morning, my father asked me, ‘Why were you awake at 4:30 am? I saw your room’s light was on.’
‘Were you watching TV?’ my mother asked.
I wasn’t watching TV. But my half-asleep brain was on an idea-finding spree. And because I did not want to lose those ideas, I had to sit up again and again through the night, switch on the light, and note down what my subconscious mind dictated.
‘Stop it, stop it now, and let me sleep!’ I scolded my mind. But no, it was determined to unravel the plot of the story I had struggled and failed to figure out during the day.
What my wakeful, alert brain could not deliver, my sleepy mind rattled out within one night. And I can tell you I now have a brilliant idea for my next book and I can’t wait to start working on it! All thanks to my subconscious mind.
Subconscious is idea powerhouse for fiction writers:
Writing fiction is like weaving a dream. And dreams rest in the realms of the subconscious, don’t they? I’m sure all fiction writers experience the power of their subconscious minds. Ask any fiction writer, they will tell you that it is the subconscious that conjures up their most brilliant ideas. Being a writer myself, I can say that when our logically thinking conscious mind traps us in a writer’s block, it is our subconscious that pulls us out by suddenly delivering an idea when we least expect it.
The conscious mind is the genius that processes our awareness of the world to help us make sense of things. The subconscious mind is the magician that makes sense of what we are not consciously aware of and delivers marvelous insights and solutions our conscious mind could never have conceived. I think that every fiction book has much in it that just ‘came to the writer’ like magic. That is why we creative writers love our subconscious mind so much. It ignites our imagination, fuels our creativity, and makes the creative process a mystical experience.
The subconscious mind never rests:
Our conscious mind gets tired and needs sleep and relaxation. While writing, when I cannot think up an idea, my conscious mind feels frustrated and exhausted and makes me give up. But my subconscious mind never gives up. It keeps on working silently. Even when I’m watching TV or walking in the garden or bathing or sleeping, the subconscious keeps on working. And once it has silently put two and two together to make five, it jolts me into attention with its startling solution.
That’s not always a good, actually. The subconscious likes hitting you with the eureka moments when you want to rest or concentrate on something else. And because you don’t want to lose its ideas, you must pay attention to it and note down everything it dictates. That often means staying awake all night jotting down notes when your conscious mind is screaming for sleep.
The subconscious mind is brilliant at jigsaw:
Subconscious loves creating patterns out of a jumble and fit disjointed bits together to form a coherent whole. It fits scattered ideas and thoughts together like a jigsaw, pulling together a picture that you never knew existed. And you can only marvel at why you didn’t earlier see the connections that were there all along. Why you needed to be absent-minded or almost asleep to make sense of the jumble your alert brain failed to figure out.
Subconscious works on autopilot:
Your subconscious is wiser than you. And it works on autopilot. It can deliver a solution when you aren’t even thinking about the problem. And that is what makes it feel like magic.
Doctors and scientists may understand the biology of the brain, but I wonder whether anyone would ever understand the powers of the mind. Would we ever know what creates our dreams, our thoughts, our intuition? What gives our subconscious such magical abilities to dive into the knowledge that our conscious mind can never access?
I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to fathom these mysteries. All I know is that I love my subconscious for fueling my creativity with most startling suggestions. I’m sure all creative people would feel the same.
What do you think? Has your subconscious ever surprised you with its magical genius?
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