Max Schupbach <max@max-jytte.com> writes under the
Subject: Linear thinking LO22841
>At writes:
>
>>Nowadays I meet very few people who, on a regular base,
>>daydream about the future. In this I absolutely agree with
>>Cees Zwart that daydreaming should be re-invented and
>>re-introduced in Management Development."
>
>I am just so thrilled to read this. Having worked with the
>psychological background of physical illness for many years,
>I understand daydreaming to be one of best activities one can
>undertake to preserve one's health. It not only reduces stress
>and forwards detachement, but also is the fertile ground on
>which creative processes can happen.
Greetings Max,
It thrills me also that this line caught your attention.
While writing those sentences, I was thinking how I encouraged my
granddaughter Jessica's daydreaming and especially that she do it verbally
so that I could follow her. She is now able to come and sit in my
vincinity, "switch" on her dreaming, doing among others those things which
you have described above, "switch" off her dreaming, jump up and go for
the next thing in life.
My encouragement is as follows.
# I try to restrict myself to making "hmm" sounds. With this I
signal to her that I am eating whatever her dream is cooking up.
(In terms of my theory of "deep creativity", I restrict myself to
digestor action close to equilibrium and force myself to act as
a minor crystal.)
# I make these sounds frequently, yet unobtrusively, so as not to
disturb her "open space". (In terms of "deep creativity" I reduce
the entropy production in her surrounding system SU, i.e. the
"world-outside-me", to a bare minimum.)
# I try to make these sounds whenever she deliberately employs
nonlinear thinking to head for brainstorming or braintranquilising.
(In terms of "deep creativity" I assure her that it it is OK to
swing
any CONTENT between the assymptotes "equilbrium" and "edge
of chaos" by her OWN entropy production.)
# I never ever refer directly to the information which she has given
me on her daydreams to guide the rest of her learning. Dreaming
awake is something just as personal as dreaming asleep. (In
terms of "deep creativity" I assure her that in any FORM she is
responsible for maturing in the seven essentialities.)
Max, you consider dreaming as the fertile ground on which creative
processes can happen. I consider it as part and parcel of the act of
creation. Fertile ground is never just out there. It is always a creative
outcome by nature or culture. Any modification of fertile ground is for
worse. Fertile gound is part and parcel of a plant growing lushly.
Kekule discovered the ring structure of aromatic compounds in organic
chemistry after having dreamt asleep on them. Einstein discovered the
mass-energy relationship after having dreamt awake on space-time
communication. (He even gave us a name for this kind of daydreaming --
"Gedankenversuch", thought experiement.) Both discoveries were major
scientific breakthroughs.
Nevertheless, your metaphor of dreams as "fertile ground" is very powerful
and to the point. It is a pity that so many people first want to find
barren ground on which to base their learning. This is the case when they
want learning without dreaming.
I dream of the day when all people belonging to a LO deal with each others
dreams as the "fertile ground" in which the LO grows.
Best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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