Edward Prince Furniture Design - Creativity - How to be more creative - The senses
Creativity - The Senses
“The average human looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or fragrance and talks without thinking”.
Leonardo Da Vinci
So let’s not be average! Leonardo Da Vinci engaged in a rigorous regime of exercises to develop his sensory skills. He knew all the senses play an important role in both direct and indirect thinking . The brain takes in information through your five senses and helps you form an understanding of yourself and the world you live in – your reality.
Traditionally there are five biological senses, NLP practitioners refer to them as VAKOG – Visual (see), Auditory (hear), Kinaesthetic (touch/movement), Olfactory (smell) and Gustatory (taste). If you can see spirits then there might be a reality TV producer interested in your skills.
Information received from the world is processed in different parts of the brain. Researchers have found that by stimulating different parts of the brain patients have been able to taste Thai green curry or hear birds singing.
Heightened sensory acuity not only involves developing skills in sensing external information it also includes refining the same sense internally. For example visual internal images are images you see inside your head (qualities used in visualisation) visual external images are images you see with your eyes (qualities used for perception).
A fascinating sensory quirk is synesthesia. This is when the brain’s wires are crossed giving people the ability to sense one or more forms of energy with a sensory system other than the one typically used. For example, feel shapes, smell noises, see flavors, hear colours etc. It affects about one in every 2,000 people with coloured hearing being the most common quality. The writer Goethe saw musical notes in colour and novelist Anthony Burgess described the oboe as “silver green lemon juice” and a flute as “light brown and cold veal gravy”.
So let’s take a brief look at each of the senses:
Sight
Your eyes provide input regarding such things as color, light, body language, and facial expressions. When properly received and analyzed by your brain, it allows you to find your way around, appreciate visual art, anticipate movement and sense danger. Vision is polysensory: you see not just patches of colour but objects that are hard or soft, warm or cold, rough or smooth, light or heavy. The eyes sense these qualities because the visual, tactile and kinesthetic senses are fused.
“The eye is the window of the human body through which it feels its way and enjoys the beauty of the world.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Sound
You probably don’t think of sound as influencing you beyond communication and entertainment, however sound and frequencies can significantly affect the way you think and behave. Sarah Ulmer, 2004 Olympic Gold Medal cyclist, used a particular music to raise her energy and get into the right mindset for peak performance. Don Campbell who popularized the “Mozart effect” identified many ways in which music can affect human behavior including: improve concentration, enhance intuitive leaps, form mental pictures, slow and equalize brain waves
“God gave man two ears, but only one mouth, that he might hear twice as much as he speaks.” Epictetus
Slow baroque music is a popular way to tune into the creative brain although any slow high frequency complex structured music will work. Heart and breathing rates responds to musical variables such as frequency, tempo and volume speeding up or slowing down to match the rhythm of a sound. The faster the music, the faster the heart will beat and vice versa. A lower heartbeat reduces physical tension and calms the mind, a state suited to effective creative thinking.
Touch
You only have two eyes, two ears, and one nose, but your body is covered with very sensitive touch receptors. These provide information about hot and cold, hard and soft, smooth and rough, pain and pleasure. When the tactile system works correctly, a hand will be quickly removed from a hot stove, gloves put on in the cold, and you smile when receiving a caress from a loved one. Take time to explore the feel of objects comparing the many different textures, temperatures and sensations.
"There is a chord in every heart that has a sigh in it if touched aright". Ouida
Smell
The human sense of smell is able to distinguish up to 10,000 separate odours. You are often surrounded by fragrant scents from perfume and flowers and the delicious smells of freshly baked bread to the pungent odours of cleaning agents, diesel fumes or cigarette smoke. Most people have a limited vocabulary for describing smell. Perfumers categorise smell by the following descriptors: Floral, Minty, Musky, Ethereal (Pears), Resinous (Camphor), Foul, and Acrid
“Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles and all the years we have lived.” Helen Keller
Aromatherapy works by using various odours to achieve specific therapeutic results through their limbic system. The odours of essential oils trigger limbic responses that affect the person physically, mentally and emotionally. The oils affect the brain depending on the oil’s chemical constituents and memories associated with that odour. Researchers have proved there are links between foul odour and ill health.
- Oils recommended for stimulating the mind and body are: Basil, Lemon, Rosemary
- Oils recommended for calming the mind and body are: Bergamot, Frankincense, Marjoram
The next time you are in a shop explore the smells. try the different cheeses in a cheese shop the scents of fruits and vegetables in the grocers. the different herbs and spices in the Indian dairy how do these smells affect your moods, how do they stimulate your memory?
Taste
Taste is closely linked to smell as they are both chemical sensors. Taste often brings you pleasure. You probably have the tendency to eat the things that taste good. However taste can also warn you of danger. You know that milk may be sour or food may be rotten based on the way it tastes. When eating your next meal slow down and compare the different flavors, try to identify the ingredients in your curry or salad and compare the differences in flavor and odor.
“The senses do not deceive us, but the judgment does.” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Developing your sensory acuity means you’re developing your perception ability, which greatly aids in mastering your emotions and improving your creativity and decision-making skills. Why? Because with greater awareness you can take in more information and consequently you can make better informed decisions about what you want to do in regards to your health, wealth and relationships. Recent studies show high correlations between acute sensory perception skills and mental insight so it’s wise to develop your sensory acuity.
“The intellect can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their union can knowledge arise”.
Emmanuelle Kant
10 things you can do to create a sensorially stimulating environment:
1. Play music that encourages creative thinking.
2. Display stimulating images and visual references around the room.
3. Replace fluorescent tubes with full spectrum light bulbs.
4. Paint the walls with stimulating colours.
5. Introduce smell with, flowers or aromatherapy oils.
6. Hold tactile puzzles, games, clay for when thinking.
7. Play darts or table tennis when stuck (right/left brain stimulation) or go for a walk.
8. Have comfortable furniture, floor cushions which accommodate a range of ergonomic working positions.
9. Install humidifiers, ionisers and air purifying plants.
10. Take time to relax or mediate