DREAMTIME

Where do we go when we design? I mean in our minds. Where do we go mentally? Is our mental design space recognizable to us?

I don’t know about anyone else, but the mental place or state that I go to when I problem solve feels familiar. For me at least, it is akin to going to a room, and each time the room feels rewarding. Call it what you will; a place of meditation, or an energized state.

One way that I know that I am in this room is when there is an abounding of mental images. As I problem solve, the images grow and decrease. They float in and out. And they do so with freedom. Idea images trigger other idea images.

The images are never wrong. The possibilities are free from the constraints of a working reality. This dreamtime is the most precious aspect of everything that we do. This sense of the possibility of the unlimited is a wonderful experience.

This design dreamtime state is at the core of our creativity. Yet I never hear anyone talking about it. I was never presented with this concept in school.

Yet we talk about athletes being in the zone. Athletes perform specific exercises to increase their zone potential. Religious mystics cultivate an inner vision. Jazz improvisors develop the capacity to hear the next notes in their minds before they play them.

Yet as designers, we do not speak of our mental dreamtime. We do not discuss the mental multiplication of images that occurs within our imagination. Many of us don’t know what to do if we get a fresh mental image. (Hint; make a transparent drawing.)

An awareness of the fantastic design state of our imaginations should be cultivated. And it should be celebrated.