FreenotingBrief on a special technique that Image-Streaming's inventor believes to be its equal by Win Wenger, Ph.D. Freenoting provides a way to get far more out of any text you read and any lecture you attend, and is a major technique for solving problems This writer gets pulled into a lot of conferences and symposia. Because of curiosity he often sits in on sessions on topics he knows nothing about — and knowing nothing about the presenter. As a result, the sessions he exposes himself to are of mixed quality.In several of those sessions where the presenter and presentation left something to be desired, yours truly tuned out the presenter and in whimsy turned to writing "his own presentation" in the topic he "knew nothing about." Two results were most surprising: The faster I wrote and the less thinking about what I wrote while I was writing it, the better emerged a nice little dissertation on the topic I had thought I knew nothing about. After a few minutes of doing this, I would notice the presenter nowsaying something which I had just written down a minute earlier! As I continued, time and time again I would notice the presenter now saying things which I had previously written! With a little checking, I learned that nearly everything I had written, after the first couple of pages, was accurate — including much about the topic or subject which the presenter never got around to saying, but maybe should have! By Freenoting, I had gotten far, far more from that presentation session than the presenter had presented! Why it works This phenomenon turned out not to be "psychic," however. Here is how I found that out. When I experimentally attended sessions presented in a language foreign to me, I'd still render a pretty decent dissertation on the previously "unknown" topic, but of nowhere near the quality as when in a session taught in English. The explanation, indeed, turned out to be pretty simple, and confirmed what we had already found to be the case also in other contexts: By ignoring the presenter, I had routed such information as he had to offer straight to the part of the unconscious which reflexively sorts out ALL our data, past and current, conscious and unconscious. By this rapid torrential profusion of writing, the insights, formed from this process and pulled into the focus of consciousness through this writingstream, reflected this sort-out and data-association. It also reflected, among these, the pattern predicting where it was the presenter was going with his lecture.Most important, no matter how unknown a topic or subject was to me consciously, enough data and cues were floating around unconsciously to become embodied, through that sorter and through that writing, into a respectable and reasonably accurate short book or long paper. Even in the worst presentations, the presenter usually was presenting enough fresh data to enrich this outcome, accounting for why I was getting such better results in English-language sessions than in those conducted in a foreign language. This worked even though I was ignoring that presenter so hard that whatever he presented was skipping my conscious mind altogether, enroute to that reflexive insight-sorter. Characteristics of good Freenoting With a little modest experimentation, the best Freenoting turns out to have these characteristics: Its "rules" are similar to those of brain-storming. Get that censorious editor out of your way, either by "suspending judgment" or simply by running faster than judgment can plod along with to keep up..... Write faster than you can think about what you should be saying and about whether you should say THAT! Without pause or hesitation. If it occurs to you in the context, go ahead and write it. Be willing to say the wrong and the ridiculous — that helps free you to say those items which make the real breakthroughs. The first entries are usually stock stuff or throwaways; your best entries are toward being the last ones for the episode. The faster and harder and more continuously, and for longer, that you drive the Freenoting process, the better are your results. The first few pages can usually be thrown away. Be willing to write a lot that you can throw away, because that brings you to those pages filled with true gems you definitely will NOT be throwing away!!! Applied to learning, Freenoting is a powerful way to bring conscious the core of what you already know about every conceivable topic or subject. Once you've brought that core conscious, the rest of what needs to be learned in that context wraps itself conveniently, easily, quickly, and in some depth of insight, around that already-known core.Freenoting can be done the usual way, hand-written on paper; or onto keyboard as in typewriter or computer; or into a tape recorder, though ease of retrieval becomes an issue there. Although a live human listener is by far the most preferred way to do most of our other Project Renaissance procedures, a live listener is not recommended for use in Freenoting, simply because the torrential monologue becomes a bit much for most listeners! Anyone who knows Gregg's Shorthand would be at an extreme advantage here because the speed of uninterrupted, torrential writing is so key to excellence of results. If you decide to try out Freenoting in some class or at some lecture, take along a tape recorder the first time or so to allay your concern over "missing something." The lecturer will be flattered because s/he will think you are paying close attention to what s/he is saying. In a way, you are. Best times to Freenote At least once per day or so, on whatever occasion or topic Once or several times during any substantial reading assignment, and at its conclusion From time to time when reading any informative book or formal paper As a major way to solve problems, especially unclear or confusing or muddled or ill-defined problems:  start Freenoting for a while somewhere in the problem context. Freenoting sessions should last ten to twelve minutes, and longer if the content seems to be getting hot. Intensity and speed are even more important than duration for getting to some most remarkable results, but that duration also makes a great difference. This procedure is excerpted from one of the many major methods to be found in the book, Beyond Teaching And Learning, which is reviewed and available in the Books section. Reader feedback:   1   |   2 Comments to Win Wenger This brief may be freely copied—in whole, but not in part, including its copyright notice—for use with people whom you care about.

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An Immediate Path for Any Creative Task by Win Wenger, Ph.D.  If you can ImageStream (and 99.999% of everyone can after learning the simple procedure), you can always start any inspired creative project at will without waiting for inspiration. You can always spill forward with what comes next, and never have to pause or stall out until you've finished. At the finish, you can always discover what you've left out and whether you prefer to include or leave it out. When you ask your ImageStreaming faculties a question, they ALWAYS respond with an image. You can always ask your ImageStreaming faculties such questions as the following, and get an image — What do I really want to say here? What's the main point I REALLY want to make here? How best do I start this? What comes next here? What's the most important thing I've left out here? and ALWAYS get an image as answer. Write or sketch a few sentences of description of that image, and what that image means in answer to that question will HIT you and you're on your merry way! In these uncertain times, you may be your own best resource. Here is a wonderful project for you this summer... With gas and travel prices being what they are, how about an intense writing vacation?Who, amongst our colleagues and participants here, has written and published one or more books? Will not every one of you who has done so agree that the creating of that first book or so did more than has almost anything else to focus and develop your thoughts, your perceptions, your awarenesses—not only on the topic you wrote on but generally? Every one of you has seen things which no one else has seen, and thought thoughts which no one else has thought. Some of these are valuable, even invaluable. Whoever here that's interested in personal development and in building personal competencies: if you have not yet created such a book, then please, time is slipping away. Create such a book! Many of us here have remarked transformative experiences, those experiences stemming from a lot of very different causes. I respectfully submit that one of the most powerfully transformative experiences is to create a book, especially on something that is important to you. Especially the first book or so—but I've found even after fifty-some published books that each new book is STILL a further transformative experience, powerfully further focusing my thoughts, my perceptions and awarenesses. That process can do as well for you. It's not me that's anything special. I'm a very ordinary person who has gotten into some very extraordinary things. Some of those things are directly transformative in their own right, but one of the very strongest for me has been the creating of books which I've known to the depths of my being were meaningful. Worlds await you. Here are a few suggested ways to get yourself started on your own wonderful journey of transformation: Never stall out. Since you ImageStream and now can always, every time, get an answer in sensory images and impressions, whether understood or not, You can always ask your faculties, "How do I get started in this?" and start describing what comes in response to that question. Within a few sentences you have full inspiration underway. (Forgive this redundandundandundancy, but this simple point cannot be emphasized enough!) You can always ask your faculties, "What comes next?" and start describing what comes in response to that question. Never let yourself be stalled for more than 30 seconds, at any point. You can always ask your faculties, "What's the most key thing I've left out or underplayed?" and start describing what comes in response to that question. Within a few sentences you will have a clear picture, clear enough also to know whether you want to include the issue in question or to leave the current draft intact. Practice of ImageStreaming also brings up your vocabulary, language comprehension and expressive skills, all very useful to your own writing. Don't worry about getting your writing right until after you've gotten the first draft down on paper or into your computer. Not only is "most writing re-writing":  Freenoting and Windtunneling are pretty good formats for flowing forward in and for digesting any event, any development, any issue. Much of the resulting content you can pull into your main draft afterward. Borrowing a page from Peter Elbow and his excellent book and program, Writing Without Teachers:  draft an essay and write it out to its conclusion. Take that conclusion as a starting point for a new essay, write IT out to its conclusion. Take THAT conclusion as a starting point for a new essay, write THAT out to its conclusion... Within very few iterations, you will be really saying what you mean, saying some truly essential things. Be astonished at the powerful stuff you have it within you to say. Personal, first-hand observation and experience is worth 27 times as much as an equal volume of other people's reported wisdom and information. Experiment with DEAM (Double Entry A-Ha! Method):  On one sheet of paper begin the writing out of a one-line description of your topic or sub-topic, but give precedence to recording, on a second sheet of paper, all the associations and stray thoughts that occur to you. By the time you are halfway through writing that one-line description of topic or subtopic, you may have two or three pages of ideas recorded on the other paper. These secondary associations and ideas always occur to you anyhow, but pass through invisibly and are gone unless you use something like the piecemeal writing of that one-line description on one sheet to "hold open the windows of your perception" so you can notice the associated thoughts and perceptions passing through them. Your determination to capture notice of these and write them down plays an important part in your success with the DEAM process. Write in sustained all-out bursts, for hours, if possible days at a time, to capture as much as possible of your associated thoughts. Your re-writing can be on some sort of regular schedule if you like—with more of the contents already anchored on paper, less is likely to be lost—but make your creative writing like a spouting firehose and get into record as much as possible of that whole pattern of inspiration and associated ideas that have just come to you. I find I do my own best work in the hour or so before waking, each morning. How to activate that? Whether or not you remember anything from before you woke, have notepad or audio recorder right where you can make that the focus of your first conscious act in the mornings. Speak or scribble a few sentences on anything that occurs to you to say, or anything even if nothing has occurred to you to say—and suddenly your whole gestalt of inspiration and actualization clicks into place. Get that down on paper or into the computer immediately, defer that first cup of coffee until afterward. In sustained bursts of creatively writing, get on a roll. Stay on that roll as long as you can. When you fall off that roll, get back on it as immediately as possible, until that whole inspired gestalt is safely on paper or in your computer. There's plenty more where these few suggestions came from. For example, create your own writer-creating processes with Toolbuilder.Another example:  Check out the more conventional but invaluable suggestions contained in Writer's Market, available from the reference room of any public library. There is also all the information contained in my CoreBook with Mark Bossert, End Writer's Block Forever!, which has become an entire self-contained course of creativity methods for writers. This wee little bit here, however, should be enough to get you started; and from there, if you sustain your writing-related activities, feedback can teach you the rest of what you need to know. Please let me know from time to time how you are doing with this. Live long and prosper, in an increasingly richly interesting world! Main suggested readings: The creativity-methods course for writers, End Writer's Block Forever! The main collection of articles on ImageStreaming comprises an entire curriculum on this phenomenon and basic tool. Here is an additional collection of highly useful articles and instructions on ImageStreaming. Comments to Win Wenger  You may copy this brief —in whole but not in part, including its copyright — for use with people whom you care about or wish to inform.

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WinsightsNo. 56 (Dec. 2001/Jan. 2002)

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Working with Metaphor by Win Wenger, Ph.D. Sensory images Ninety-five percent of your brain works in sensory images, only one to two percent in words. Hence, most of your intelligence is based where there is an issue in translation. We can figure out some things, working from specific point to specific point in our word-based consciousness, but not most; and too often we fail to take enough into account, trying to do it all from our word-thinker. But because our word-thinker is loud and focused, running with nice strong signals, we usually do try to do it all from there when what we most need is the reverse path: taking information from non-verbal observations into that verbal portion to bring it into focus. So it is rare when any of us brings much of our own actual intelligence to bear on anything, whether learning or teaching or solving problems and figuring out things. So we have a great deal of keen understanding, each of us, but are seldom aware of even any part of it. When some tiny portion of understanding does work its way through our various internal noise and barriers and into our loud focused word-conscious, it's such a rare thing that we call it inspired creative genius. A way for some tiny portion of our own understanding to slip through into our word consciousness is when that consciousness is asleep and inner noise levels are down: some of our dreams carry understanding from our main intelligence. But the main processing language of that intelligence is images, not words, so we are left with a translation issue — that of understanding what the dream meant. Moreover, we sleep through so much of the performance that we usually have forgotten the parade of messages given us in our dreams by the time we awaken. Dream messages Dreaming as a route to understanding and inspiration is as old as history itself and likely older: our Judeo-Christian and western heritage (as well as that of the Muslims) traces back in large part to a time when an obscure lad, sold into slavery by his own brothers, won his way to the top administrative position in ancient Egypt and from there eventually saved his family and tribe, as well as Egypt itself, because he had a knack for accurately making sense of dreams. The keys to some of the major discoveries and inventions shaping our own times were "received" in dreams. As we noted in the book, Discovering The Obvious, in our more recent history Elias Howe received the crucial piece of insight in a dream which enabled him to invent the sewing machine. Even more recent are the accounts of how some of the computer whizzes at M.I.T., very near here, have learned to "dream computer dreams" which teach them the answers they are seeking. Another, more easily controlled way to bring our intelligence and our consciousness into closer contact is to deliberately work with imagery and metaphor. Sometimes insights will "leap across" into consciousness when we treat a problem or issue metaphorically: "What if this problem were a crab-apple? Who or what in the problem would be the stem? Who or what the fruit-flesh? Who or what in the issue would be the seed or pit? What would the coloration be which signifies ripening? — Hey, what would 'ripening' consist of in this matter? — " and so on, structuring out the problem in sensory ways, in various ways consciously puzzling through the thing making such comparisons in hopes that your conscious mind will come close enough to your intelligence that a spark will jump across the gap. "If Your Problem Were a Crabapple" The procedure (with a partner) Each of you choose a problem to work on, one that you care about, one to which you don't yet see a good answer. Describe (to your partner[s]) why you choose that problem to work on. Table or chair or piano or flipchart, or whatever physical object:  when it's your turn, you pick some common object there where you are. Let that object stand for, in some way resembling, your problem (how does that stack of books represent this problem?). Identify 10 to 20 physical aspects or features of that object. Then, with each such feature:  If this object is the problem, then ____ represents such-and-such part or aspect of the problem. If playing with the features of the problem doesn't bring good answer to mind for you, when it's your turn again, run that problem with some other object and try again. While describing to your listener the features of the problem and of the object:  you, the person working on the problem, as far as you can go with it, describe in detail the physical features of the object and how, somehow, that feature represents such-and-such aspect of the problem. Listening partner:  your role is to listen, indeed ONLY to listen and not interrupt or get in the way while your problem-solving partner is flowing. But once the problem-solver starts to falter, draw him or her out further:  ask questions about the object that's being compared, questions which will encourage further comparison. Mentally manipulate features of the object — "What if that brace on the chairleg were broken" — as additional ways to play with the features of the problem itself. Chances of getting good answers to a given problem this way, within 2 to 3 object-metaphorizings, are pretty fair. Trick is: to have an audience to describe to; and to carry the process through, even when things get silly or seem pointless, until the ideas spark. As with "brainstorming," often it's that last comparison, stretching for one more after the usual ones are gotten out of the way, that will spark the gap. "Walk in the Woods" This historically "tried-and-true" procedure for creative problem-solving is very similar in its basic principles to our preceding exercise on metaphor, "What if the Problem Were A Crab Apple," but its application and form differ. It's another way of bringing your word-consciousness and your (non-verbal, sensory-imaging) main intelligence close enough together for a spark to jump across and become an a-HA! This "Walk in the Woods" procedure has the further advantage of having a built-in "ranging" device: With a real electric spark, as you got close to what would let it jump, you could feel your hairs rising from the buildup of electric potential. The "ranging" device in this present procedure is simply that whatever catches your attention as you walk around this place with a problem in mind, is likeliest to in some way "resonate" with the issue and bring your conscious mind to where the spark of inspiration/ideas/solutions can jump across into consciousness. So that what catches your attention in your surroundings, as you walk around in reference to a given problem issue, is even likelier to produce your a-ha! than were the arbitrarily chosen objects in the "Crabapple" experience. This procedure can be done either with a live partner, note pad, or tape recorder, or with some combination of these. The version below is written for notepad but is readily interpolated into the other recording device(s). The Procedure Have ready something you can write extensively on, such as a notepad, and a pen or pencil. Write on the top of that notepad what problem you are working on this time and why you care about solving it. "Tuck-and-Take" — tuck the notepad into pocket or under your arm and take it with you. You will have ten minutes to stroll around outside of this building and let something....SOMEthing simply catch your eye and attention. On your notepad, write what features of this object also come to your attention. List 10-20 physical aspects or descriptive features of this object. Then describe how this object in some way represents the problem situation and/or its solution. And how the various features of this object in some way represent the various features of that situation. An imagination stretch: Put your hand gently on the object, then silently, mentally, ASK that rock or tree or bush or whatever object several questions ABOUT the problem situation! Listen intently, then write down whatever impression, in whatever form, comes to mind as a response, whether it's a particular memory seeming at first to have nothing to do with the matter, or some particular aspect of the object you're looking at that catches your further attention, or whether some sort of insight or answer-in-words comes to mind AS IF it were somehow that tree or bush literally answering you. Write up enough of your experience that you can report it to listener(s) in some detail. Advanced problem-solvers also like these concrete metaphors Originally, I developed these very simple, concrete metaphor ways of solving problems because a lot of the schoolteachers I have to teach each summer are very concrete-minded (these work even for the most concrete-minded of these, hooray!) and because, in both my own creativity-training programs and in sitting in on those of others, I had often seen people for various reasons experience some difficulty in getting into effective use of metaphor or otherwise getting loose enough from a virtual death-grip on whatever problem to be able to look up and see alternatives. Happily, these two very concrete ways of using metaphor have turned the trick —that is why we now reference these among our battery of arguably the world's best problem-solving methods, in the CPS Techniques section of this website. Unexpectedly, and even more happily, even the more sophisticated, experienced and advanced professional creative problem solvers also appear to delight in these two very concrete methods. Originally I had envisaged these two techniques as an entry point to introduce people to creative solution-finding, using these two methods mainly as intermediary steps leading toward the "real" methods I'm nowadays used to using. Yet these two methods work so well all by themselves that we can offer them here in their own right as major ways you can effectively and creatively solve your problems. The apparent success of these two concrete methods has led us to seek out other very simple and concrete ways also for solving problems (and for bringing about other desired effects). One of the latest examples of these is the very simple, direct Windtunnel method which we published last month as Winsights No. 55, which is also part of the CPS Techniques exhibit of the world's best creative problem-solving methods. We are building this exhibit to become a world resource freely available to anyone on the planet who would like to solve a problem or discover an answer. As in the present instance with "Crabapple" and "Woods-Walk," each method is laid out step by specific step in self-taught form. "Crabapple," "Woods-Walk," and all these dozens of other methods can sit gathering dust on the (metaphoric) shelf, or you can actually use them and get some benefit from them. Once you've done so and found them to be what they are, we'd appreciate your steering to them others who can use them. Thank you for your attention. Postnote:   For this writer, the original source of "Problem-Solving Woods-Walk" was Sidney J. Parnes, Visionizing: State-of-the-Art Techniques for Encouraging Innovative Excellence (Buffalo, NY: Creative Education Foundation, 1988). However, Dr. Parnes claims his source was conversations with this writer. Also, we have amended the procedure, and Dr. Parnes may in no way be held responsible for any shortcomings in the present version. This is, by the way, the same Parnes who helped develop the original Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem-Solving (CPS) procedure and program which launched the world-wide creativity movement nearly half a century ago. Comments to: Win Wenger This brief may be freely copied — in whole, but not in part, including this notice — for use with people whom you care about.

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Write More Freely and Effectively:An immediate path for any creative task! by Win Wenger, Ph.D. This is a message to not only the many writers among our subscribed members and visitors, but also to anyone who wants to be a writer, or who faces a writing task, or who is looking to any creative project.Learn to Image-Stream—find self-taught instructions in the clusters of linked articles which begin at Image-Streaming and at Welcome to Image-Streaming—if you haven't done so already. An image-based answer is always there in response to any question you ask yourself, reflecting your best-available insight in that context, from the associations reflexively and instantly made by that 70-or-so percent-by-volume of your brain which associates by sensory images instead of by the conscious word- and word-based associations made by the loud 2% part of the brain. Once you are reasonably smooth and practiced in Image-Streaming, prepare yourself specific questions in context of what you are asking for here. Image-Stream on each question. Your image-based answer is always there, instantly. What do you do with that image-based answer? The language of that majority of your brain that's providing you that answer, is a different language from that used by the conscious, word- and word-based associating 2% of your brain, so chances are that the translation expresses as a metaphor, just as in the more significant of our dreams. We use inductive inference or a triangulation process to get at that metaphor, as described in the second page of the self-taught instructions set at High Thinktank; but when pursuing creative writing, we've a much quicker way that usually serves quite well. Simply write fast and furiously whatever comes to mind in describing the image that popped up as answer; and with that, whatever else comes to mind, a la Freenoting, for a minute or so, and it pops right in as to what you should be writing at that point. A number of our members and subscribers here have long since learned to Image-Stream—it's pleasant and fun to explore—but I'm not sure how many here are actually using it for practical purposes, as you likely should be doing at least some of the time. I have seen only a few letters from people here who are using it for the purpose of creative writing or for any creative project. Even so, here is how that works. I hope the example here will give you a good feel for how to use the process to make great connections and applications through specific questions: Don't wait for inspiration—it's already there. At the start of any project you can ask yourself, "What's the main point I really want to make here?" An image will immediately and always be there for any reasonably practiced Image-Streamers who asks themselves that question. Write furiously a few sentences or even paragraphs, describing that image and whatever comes to mind in the context, without editing, and—boing! boing! boing!—your main message clicks into place. Very little if any of the actual Freenote scribblestorm makes it into your formal draft, but you've clued in to what you really want to say. Also at the start, HOW to start? If in doubt, just ask yourself, "How best to start this thing?" and an image will immediately and always be there for any reasonably practiced Image-Streamers who ask themselves that question. Write furiously a few sentences or even paragraphs, describing that image and whatever comes to mind in the context without editing in, a Freenote scribblestorm whose written content you can throw away after you've gotten your a-ha! or a-has! from it, and your exposition or narrative gets wonderfully underway from what you've clued in. Never stall out. At any point where you find you've paused and aren't sure how to proceed forward, simply ask yourself "what's next?" An image will immediately and always be there for any reasonably practiced ImageStreamer who asks himself that question. Write furiously for a few sentences or even paragraphs, describing that image and whatever comes to mind in the context without editing, in a Freenote scribblestorm, and your exposition or narrative gets wonderfully underway again from what you've clued in. At the end, you can always ask yourself, "What's the main thing I've left out here that maybe I should include?" An image will immediately and always be there for any reasonably practiced Image-Streamers who ask themselves that question. Write furiously for a few sentences or even paragraphs, describing that image and whatever comes to mind in the context without editing, in a Freenote scribblestorm. After discovering the main thing left out, you can evaluate and choose as to whether or not that is, indeed, worth the rewriting to include it. If you do include it, you might repeat the procedure to see what else you've left out that might be important. Use this in any field, topic or project, not only writing:You can do this for any non-routine task in any field or specialty, not only writing. Once you've become reasonably practiced in Image Streaming, brainstorm out a bunch of specific questions whose answers would facilitate your handling of that task. Then you ask yourself one of those questions, process it out, see what further specific question the answer raises for you, then ask that one in turn and process it out. Then go on to your next prepared specific question. The book you can thus write for yourself on the topic you are asking about will probably be better generally, and certainly better for your own purposes, than any book you can find on the subject. Getting to the essentials in your writing or project:Back again on the topic of writing: with regard to #1 above, what do you really want to say in your piece of writing or work of art? There is a wonderful procedure suggested by Peter Elbow in his book and training program,Writing Without Teachers. His procedure is as effective for that purpose as is our ImageStream-based technique in #1. It can be used on its own quite well, and even better when used in combination with our ImageStream-based method. Here, in short, is a version of Elbow's technique: Write out your essay or exposition to its conclusion. Take that conclusion, set the rest of that first essay aside and, with your conclusion as your starting point, write out a new essay to ITS conclusion. Take THAT conclusion and use it to start a new essay and write it to ITS conclusion.... You will find that by 3 or 4 iterations into this process, you are saying some extraordinarily powerful things. Combine that with our ImageStream-based technique in #1 above and things will become.... quite remarkable. There is much more, even, that can help you. The book we were originally writing, on how to totally blow past and eliminate writer's block, grew in the writing and became a comprehensive self-taught course on creative writing techniques. We commend to your attention the book by Wenger and Bossert,End Writer's Block Forever! Even if you've only lightly thought about writing, consider the fact that, noticed or unnoticed, you have seen things that no other human being has seen, and thought thoughts that no other human being has thought, and that searched out and examined, SOME of these (and you won't know which UNTIL you've searched out and examined them) are truly meaningful, worthwhile, potentially a valuable contribution. Also consider—and anyone who has written and published a book here will, I think, agree with me on this point—that writing about a topic, especially writing and polishing a book about a topic, is one of the most effective ways of learning about that topic, and certainly is far better and more effective for that purpose than is any classroom instruction. Writing and preparing your own book on a topic especially meaningful to you, with the intent to make it meaningful to readers:  to do that is life-transforming. It develops and organizes your perceptions and thoughts and understandings in ways that no other method can. I commend this to you as a major strategy for developing yourself and your life wonderfully. See also the main book on Image-Streaming Comments to Win Wenger You may copy this brief —in whole but not in part, including its copyright — for use with people whom you care about or wish to inform.

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Double-Entry A-Ha! MethodA really simple, easy, idea-generating and problem-solving device by Win Wenger, Ph.D. Double-Entry A-Ha! Method (DEAM) is our latest little device, an idea-generating method which is surprisingly simple and surprisingly productive despite its simplicity. It's as simple as writing on two sheets of paper at a time instead of on one.Now that's simple, isn't it? Well, there are a few more details to the process. DEAM, created in October 2005, resulted from our search for a creativity and problem-solving method so easy and effective that literally everyone can use it successfully the very first try. DEAM is part of the Evoked Sidebands method for problem-solving and for building understanding. Evoked Sidebands was created in March 2005. Evoked Sidebands is, in turn, part of the new major Sidebands technology which we've been building since 2005. It helps us to carry forward ourToolbuilder premise — that the best use of a good method for solving problems is on the problem of how to create even better such methods. If only more people besides us followed that obvious premise! Some of the problems solved as a result would be the great problems of common concern, and the world would be a much better place. The "Double-Entry" part of the title, the "DE" in DEAM, refers to the method's writing on two pieces of paper at the same time. On one sheet you write your brief topic-to-be-understood, or question or problem. While you are writing that, though, you give priority attention to whatever thoughts and perceptions you notice coming to you during that problem-writing, and record these on the second sheet of paper. Often you'll fill the second sheet with such comments and observations before completely writing a single sentence of your problem-statement on the first sheet. The thoughts and perceptions and observations had been there all along; they just hadn't been noticed before. Deciding to notice them, and giving priority to them in your writing — and your act of writing them onto your second sheet — bring them into view for you. You may be amazed at how many ideas you have, and how many of those ideas are relevant and even good, once you proceed to write down everything that comes. DEAM is an amazingly simple way to bring your ideas into view, to where you can review them and pick among them for the best. Be sure to write them all out first, before judging and deciding which may be any good and which aren't. Save the judging until you've gotten them all down on that second sheet of paper and have something there to judge. Summary of what DEAM is and does:With Double-Entry A-Ha! Method, find that you are able to — Generate great ideas and answers with extraordinary ease and fluency, as part of almost any problem-solving method. DEAM originally was and is part of the extraordinary Evoked Sidebands method, also primarily an idea-generating device. DEAM is a powerful tool for understanding almost any situation quickly, easily, and in meaningful, useful depth. DEAM is a powerful learning tool, for any topic or subject where understanding is needed. DEAM is especially useful in science, in the arts, or on the job. And in human or interpersonal or personal matters. And in technical matters.Is the Double-Entry A-Ha! Method so easy and so powerfully productive that even your slower friends or students or family members or managers or bosses can easily learn, master, and power their ways forward with this method? If you are already a genius — could DEAM easily and powerfully propel even you forward? Only you can answer that for sure. Read on and make it work for you. Resources you have as part of a natural reflex:You have a lot more going on in your mind than in your conscious thoughts — a lot more even in your immediate physical sight than you consciously notice. As you sweep through a room on your way to someplace else, for example, you might not notice that room's most important features or even a long-lost object sitting there in plain sight that you had been looking for, because your attention was someplace else. You have literally hundreds of lines of thought, and streams of perception, going on in your mind at the same time. Ordinarily, though, you never get around to noticing them, however important some of them may be to you. Any time that you are trying to solve a problem, understand a situation, figure out someone or something, or learn a key point in a lesson — your effort to do so reflexively evokes dozens of unnoticed lines of thought and perception in you. Most of these point directly to the very understanding that you seek — but you never noticed them! You shrugged away even the few that you did notice even just a bit, because they seemed to be distractions to you, having little if anything to do with the task at hand. And so you went back to struggling with the problem, situation or question. Next time you start a problem or question and for a moment find your thoughts and perception somewhere else entirely, seemingly on something having nothing to do with that problem or question, try following out and investigating that "somewhere else" in detail and depth and see if you don't come to some remarkable insights. Double-Entry A-Ha! Method is an easy way to pick up on some of the lines of thought and perception which are at the very edges of what you are able to notice when you pay attention to those edges. Double-Entry A-Ha! Method is an immediate, direct way for you to notice some of the most productive of these sidebands of your awareness, to pick them out and to bring them into your fully conscious focus of attention. Once in focused attention, you can judge their value, use them, and come to understand whatever it was that you were trying to figure out. Here is how it works: Instructions how to do DEAM: Have ready two sheets of paper and a pen or pencil. Have a question or problem or situation-to-understand ready in your mind to write out, in two or three short sentences, in your own regular handwriting. Before you do so, though, Prepare and intend to notice and record any other thought or perception which comes to your mind WHILE you are writing your question, problem-statement or situation description. Give priority to recording any sideband awareness which comes to you while writing your question. Give priority to writing or recording that sideband awareness, even though it interrupts your writing of your question in mid-sentence or even mid-word. Within five to ten minutes, you should have somewhere between five and twenty-five thoughts and awarenesses, recorded by this simple device of paying attention to your sidebands while writing your question, and giving priority in writing to what is in those sidebands. Some of these will be new ideas which you would not have reached by conventional methods. With all the writing of thoughts, perceptions and ideas on the second sheet, it may take you ten to twenty minutes to get the complete task done, even though the writing of the initial question or topic statement alone on just the one sheet would have taken you but a half-minute. You are likely to become very much surprised at how this perceptual-focusing device generates such a rich flow of diverse ideas for you. Some of the ideas which seem at first to be irrelevant and/or off-the-wall will, when you are done and are free to evaluate them, turn out to be brilliant. Your best ideas likely will occur near the end of the process. Just get them recorded for now; don't judge whether they are good or bad. Record all the ideas first; judge among them only afterward. Let's try DEAM now, on a question or issue or problem you would very much like to figure out. Get the topic or question to the point where you can write it out. Line up two sheets of paper and a pen or pencil. Prepare to write a problem statement or question or topic to understand, on the first sheet, but before you start writing it — Intend to write, on the second sheet, everything that comes to mind WHILE you are writing the brief question or topic on the first sheet. Surprise yourself. Orienting comment: DEAM is mainly an idea-generating device, though it can be used to build understanding in a subject being learned. The more comprehensive Evoked Sidebands is also in large part an understanding-generating and idea-generating device, corresponding most closely to the first three steps of the Osborn-Parnes CPS process and easily combined with that or other problem-solving processes to become a complete problem-solving procedure. One may also "stage out" the specific steps of Evoked Sidebands, as with the Brainstorming/Convergence cycle in the Osborn-Parnes, each cycle based upon the outcome of the previous cycle, to make it a complete problem-solving procedure. See  Evoked Sidebands Invitation: It is my hope that you will test out this remarkably simple method in your own experience — and that you will like the results so well that you will want to share them with people whom you care about. ... And that you do have people whom you care about. If they in turn also like their results well enough, it is possible that the simple act of making these instructions further available may just help improve things more generally. Worth the experiment? Comments to Win Wenger  Conditions for permission to reprint:  You may freely reprint this article — in whole, but not in part, including its copyright notice — in your own website as a guest article, or to other friends and listgroups, or in hardcopies, to use with or bring to people whom you care about.

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Windtunnel Rapid Flow with Feedback by Win Wenger, Ph.D.  Windtunnel has become a favorite process among many of the creativity experts and creative problem-solving professionals who have experienced it during the several years since we invented it. As a result, there are several versions of it floating around among other programs, and as the method evolved we ourselves have published several versions of it. Here is the most up-to-date and, we believe, most effective present working version and now official version of this extraordinarily productive and energizing process, matched only by the version in the new Toolkit CoreBook now about to be published. Windtunnel works best as a partnered method, or with pairs partnered within a group. Because it gets so lively, it provides a great way to start a conference, colloquium, training group or workshop. Also quite productive, Freenoting works well with pen and notepad, or on a computer keyboard. The full instructions for how to do both are here, adapted from the CoreBook, The Creative Problem-Solving Tool Kit. With each of these methods will be a section on the rationale or explanation; a brief statement of its purpose; the steps of the procedure itself; and aftermath. WINDTUNNEL — an especially energizing version of the brainstorming method for ingeniously solving problems. Explanation:   The problems you and we are attempting to solve now, did not solve based upon what you know about the problem, and if not solved by now despite good efforts, they probably won't solve based upon what you know. There, what you know about the problem is getting in the way between you and the fresh perceptions wherein you will find real solution. Scientific research in brainstorming has demonstrated that the best ideas occur near the end of a brainstorming session, after you've used up what you think you know and still have to keep reaching for more. Both the aptly-named Windtunnel and its counterpart Freenoting as described afterward below are especially strong, rapid ways to use up what you know so that you have to reach out for more. That is when the really interesting ideas start happening.Purpose and General Strategy of Windtunnel:   Contrasted to ordinary discussions, where you usually have to wait your turn to slip in any ideas, with Windtunnel one has to answer on the topic for 12 straight minutes — rapidly, without pause or hesitation! — and generally not repeating yourself. Your listening partner will record elements of your deluge, as described below. The purpose of Windtunnel is to get you, as quickly as possible, to the point where you run out of things to say — and then have to keep going, not letting on that you've run out of things to say! Keep going without relenting until your facilitator calls time. Then you and your partner can compare notes on what you think were the most interesting ideas that happened. The Procedure:   Everyone will be paired with a partner. Have with you several sheets of paper and a pen or pencil.Determine and write down the question, problem, opportunity or challenge you would most dearly love to find good answer to. (About 2 minutes) What are three specific aspects about that issue? Please write these down in turn as questions. See if you can make these three new questions more specific and, if possible, more powerful to ask, than the original question. This in itself is a good start to problem-solving because it has you doing something TO the problem instead of the other way around. It's a start and in itself may get new ideas flowing that you might quickly jot down on the side. Number these three new questions. Be with your partner for this occasion. Between you, quickly choose which of you goes first as Listener-Recorder and the other first as Windtunneler. Facilitator arbitrarily picks and announces the number of the question the Windtunneler is to answer. Windtunneler:   answer in a descriptive rapid-flow torrent, without pause or hesitation, and without repeating yourself much, telling everything that comes to mind in the context of that question. Sustain that flow for twelve minutes without any let-up. When you finally run out of things to say and reach the flounder-around-and-dig stage, keep on going without letting on that you've reached that point. Don't edit or judge, just flow rapidly for the twelve minutes until facilitator calls time. Listener:   Be there for your Windtunneling partner, if need be encourage him to continue but don't interrupt or interject your own thoughts. Your main job is to listen, and to jot down two to four of the most interesting ideas you hear going by; not necessarily the best, and not necessarily not the best, just the most interesting ideas. Don't try to capture them all — that effort would only slow your partner down when we really want to keep up the speed — just capture, as best you can out of the torrent, the ideas that are most interesting. (12 minutes or even a little longer, as determined by the Facilitator on how productively things are flowing.) Then, for just a half-minute or so, Windtunnelers make notes on what were the most interesting ideas they heard pass their own lips. Listeners consolidate and flesh out their own notes. Windtunneler and Listener compare notes on the most interesting ideas heard between them. (4 to 5 minutes) Between you, create a new and more powerful question from the context that you have developed in this experience. All notes from this experience belong to the person who Windtunneled. Please transfer these into the Windtunneler's possession. Reverse roles — the previous Windtunneler becomes the new Listener, the former Listener becomes the new Windtunneler. Facilitator will announce which question is to be answered this time. Please repeat Steps 4 through 8 so that both of you have both sides of this experience, and both of you have had this chance to gain fresh insights and possible answers on the most important question or challenge of your choice. Aftermath:   check yourself through on the following questions. Some of them will likely be discussed between you in small groups and/or generally. Did you get fresh insights and ideas about the issue you worked on? Did you feel that your partner was really listening to you, really hearing you? What made you feel that way or the other way? If 'B' was positive: How did it feel to you to have someone really hearing you, really listening to you, on a matter that was important to you? What do you think might be some of the effects of having someone really hearing you and listening to you on important matters? What are some other things one can say or do to cause his partner to feel he's really being heard and listened to? If you value the effects you cited in D, can you and your small-group teammates fashion a list or prescription? Title of the prescription: "These are the ways to make someone feel really heard and meaningfully listened to." You may be asked to present your list. You might want to make note, at the bottom of your list, for your ownsubsequent use,of an idea or so from what other groups present of their own lists. You might want to experiment with some or all of your list, over the next few days or weeks, with others here in the group with whom you are exploring this method and with others not present here, not only to gain more traction on your own issues but to see what positive effects you can have on others around you. Our intention with each of these procedures is not only to help you generate fresh ideas, understandings of, and even if possible effective solutions to, one or more of your major challenges. We also have you learning these several methods by experience, hands-on so to speak, so that you can go on surmounting your challenges with these and further tools, long past the walls of this workshop or exploratory group or training group or party today. Save and keep handy the more powerful question you created from the context you built while you were Windtunneling. You can get to use it with other, different, problem-solving methods, those taught from the Project Renaissance context and/or other methods besides. We have been finding that combining different problem-solving methods is usually well more powerful than any one particular method — and in any case, it is good to have more than one method, one program, in your toolkit ready to use. Using Such a Method to Figure Out Things When You Are Alone: Having an external focus to which to project and describe your thoughts, observations and ideas is crucial to developing your awarenesses. The strongest development of your awarenesses is when you have a live listener really hearing you. If this is a listener you respect, you are on your good behavior in your describing; you don't take short-cuts or slur over aspects; you are stating as fully and clearly as you can to communicate experience and sometimes-subtle perceptions to that meaningful listener, and this focuses you into examining and perceiving those awarenesses more fully and clearly than would otherwise be the case. The reality of our modern lives, though, has us working alone much of the time, sometimes in conditions which make it more difficult to round up a meaningful listener each time we need one to help us figure things out. Yet you can still use some of the same dynamics as you are experiencing with the Windtunnel method, even without a meaningful, live listener. Use an audio recorder. An audio recorder is less effective than a live listener, but far better than nothing, and often a lot more conveniently to hand. The difference in effectiveness is made up for by going longer — it takes about sixteen minutes of torrential outpouring into an audio recorder to reach the same point of fresh insights and ideas that you get with a live listener in twelve minutes in Windtunnel. And it takes more self-discipline to keep on going without pauses with that audio recorder than with the meaningful listener there trying to take in what you are saying. It may help you to imagine, or even determine, that you will have some particular person as a meaningful listener listen later to the audio that you are recording — that will help you focus. These sessions do take some effort, as you've discovered with Windtunnel; the time and effort you invest in them you want to be as effective as possible in generating new insights and ideas, so shaping that external focus is very much worth your while. One other drawback to an audio recorder is retrieval of your data afterward, more difficult than if your meaningful listener were already writing down the high points of your outpouring. One new advantage would be to HAVE a meaningful listener and to USE an audio recorder at the same time. This would give you extra focus, and you would have also that comparison of notes featured in the partnered Windtunnel along with the convenient retrieval of your data, and you would have the audio besides which you could at leisure play back to capture additional insights from. Having a meaningful reader can provide you a nice external focus also for developing your awarenesses in whatever context. Some of you are more comfortable writing, privately at your own desk, while others of you are more comfortable speaking aloud as in Windtunnel. Here is a process called Freenoting, which does for writing some of what Windtunnel does for talking... FREENOTING — the twin and counterpart of Windtunnel Explanation:   Like Windtunnel, and like Alex Osborn's original Brainstorming from which both Windtunnel and Freenoting have descended, one gets to the fresh perceptions and insights he needs by working his way past all the knowledge he already has on the challenge, question, problem or topic at hand, using it up by expressing it as fast as he can think of it until that previous knowledge and assumption is all used up. Then, by the effort of keeping going and not letting on that one has reached that flounder-around-and-dig stage, one more readily reaches out and casts in new directions trying to find anything that will help keep that outpouring going.For your ongoing practice, the instructions you have along with your experience from Windtunnel should help you with Freenoting just as your instructions for Freenoting should likely help you with subsequent rounds of Windtunnel. Our concern here is not only to help you solve a meaningful problem or so but to build skills and methods you can take with you and practice further, on as many issues as you find to work on. Purpose and General Strategy of Freenoting:   You need to be free to entertain any hypothesis, even if it's one you've come up with yourself, enough at least to check it out. The purpose of Freenoting is to enable you to come up with hypotheses very different from those you ordinarily would coax from already-too-cultivated grounds, to see with fresh eyes a topic or even a field whose very familiarities are preventing you from discovering fresh answers. Freenoting is like a brainstorm in that you use it to generate a very high volume of output, initially without critical judgment. Critical judgment is essential, but bring it in later and separately, as a distinctly separate step. Some of that output may be throw-away, but some of it is valuable ideas and notions you might never have gotten to otherwise. Your rapid discourse without much repetition onto a note pad or computer keyboard if you type fast enough, as with telling it out loud to an audio tape or a live listener, quickly uses up all that you'd normally say in the context. The continued rapid-flow demand of your flow will force you to draw upon resources beyond your stock conscious knowledge. Force yourself to go on without pause or hesitation, force a vacuum into which can upwell some astonishing insights and relatings. Many of these will prove to be remarkably valid and original. The key is to flow and sustain that flow. Flow faster than you can stop to consciously think what should come next. You've got to keep pumping without letup in order to keep up a good head of vacuum pulling up previously unconsidered associations and data. Procedure of Freenoting:Keep that uncritical effusive flow going, without let-up. Rapidly write or type without pause for 15-30 minutes, in the general context but without much concern as to whether what you are writing is indeed in the context. Don't edit. If it occurs to you, get it down on paper or into the computer, without hesitation, and keep going. Don't fear absurdity. Less of this output will be absurd than you might think! Some of what at first seems the most absurd will turn out to have some of the most original and valid elements of value somewhere embedded in it. In Brainstorming per se, facilitators and participants are advised to be alert for any idea which results in a burst of laughter because, so frequently, the most absurd idea turns out to be a genius-level superb idea in disguise, once examined. Don't repeat too much. Keep reaching for something different to say in the context. But don't hang up over whether you've said something before; there may be a new association there with that old point. If it comes to mind, say it, get it down, get it expressed and recorded. Freenote without concern as to something being correct or accurate. Get it all down where you can look at it. Do your editing later, maybe even your secretive shredding later, but definitely not during this torrential flow. Free up as completely as you can during these free-noting intervals to avoid editing your own thoughts and perceptions, by effusing as torrentially as possible. Your current ongoing perceptions will be somewhat more productive of fresh insights than is your stock of knowledge. We very much need knowledge, but we can't let that become static in a changing universe. Ongoing perception is our window on ever-evolving infinity. Lean your attention somewhat, without editing, toward your ongoing perceptions, especially your ongoing sensory impressions. This will be easier if you speak in present tense, even when relating past events or observations. Continue to write in this torrential outpouring for twenty to thirty minutes. Go through what you've written, and mark with a different color or with a *star* your 4-5 most interesting ideas. As you see, this takes a little longer than Windtunnel because speaking aloud to a live and meaningful listener is so much more effective, but Freenoting is something you can do any time in the privacy of your own desk, or in the anonymity of your own airline seat. Aftermath:Whichever one or both of these procedures you use, you have a new way of generating fresh insights and answers. How valuable these are to you are strictly a function of these four things: What you notice and decide to use them on.  How well you use them  How well you can use them  How often you practice them on real issues and challenges. Discovering the Obvious is our main book of methods for solving problems, for innovating, inventing and for making original discoveries. Also available from Project Renaissance:  all the newest and easiest methods of problem-solving, in the CoreBook, The Creative Problem-Solving Tool Kit. Feedback from a blogger Comments to Win Wenger You may freely copy and share this paper—in whole including the copyright notice but not in part—to share with people whom you care about.

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Contact:   Project Renaissance PO Box 332, Gaithersburg, MD 20884-0332

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©2008-2011 Project Renaissance