‘Mind at Play’ Workshop

April 25th, 2006 Fred McVittie

This is the description of a workshop that I am thinking of attending, (although a date hasn’t actually been given of when it will be held). If it happens, and if I hear about it in time, and if I decide to go along, and if I can find the room it is being held in, I’ll report back.

There has long been a tradition in arts training, particularly training in the performing arts, of physical and mental exercises designed not to lead to any particular outcome but to produce a certain desired state in the performer or artist. These ‘warm-up’ exercises often take the form of games and play-like activity. In fact it is occasionally overtly stated that to be an artist one needs to learn to ‘play’ like a child. This suggests that there is a particular mental state found in play behaviour which is desirable for the creative process to be fully engaged in. Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi has identified and written extensively on a mode of cognition which he refers to as ‘flow’, again associated with certain types of focussed play, but also found in individuals who are able to fully absorb themselves into an activity of any kind. As with the above terms, the flow state corresponds to a loss of ego boundaries, a complete identification with the action, and often an unproblematic sense of mastery or control. Research has also been carried out on a similar condition found in athletes during certain peak experiences of sport activity. This subjective state, which is known colloquially amongst athletes as being ‘in the zone’ seems to correlate closely to a state in which the brainwave patterns become much simpler than at other times and adopt what is called the alpha wave state. There seems to be a further correlation in athletes between the adoption of this alpha wave state and the achievement of maximum potential. This cluster of terms and activities; play, flow, the alpha-wave state, and being ‘in the zone’, clearly refer to a family of closely related states which have particular relevance for the achievement of optimal performance in all areas, including theatre and creative arts. This workshop will introduce a range of techniques which will allow participants to experience these states.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity: flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York, HarperPerennial.

Posted in Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi, Exercises, Neuroscience, Play, Story | No Comments »

Liquid States of Mind

April 26th, 2006 Fred McVittie

William James (1892) famously uses the term ‘Stream of Consciousness’ to describe the unbroken succession of images which seems to characterize the flowing, river-like experience of wakeful awareness. He also writes of the ‘oceanic’ feelings associated with religious experience (1902), an entailment picked up by Freud (1973) and Clement (1994) and which also figures in first-person accounts of certain varieties of peak experience; a feeling of unbounded unity with the wider cosmos and an apparent dissolution of the boundary between self and world .

Clement, C. (1994). Syncope: The Philosophy of Rapture. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. New York, Harper & Row.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity: flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York, HarperPerennial.

Freud, S. (1989). Formulations Regarding The Two Principles in Mental Functioning. The Freud Reader. P. Gay. New York, Norton: 301-306.

Grau, O. (2003). Virtual art: from illusion to immersion. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.

Greenfield, S. A. and T. F. T. Collins (2005). A Neuroscientific Approach to Consciousness. Amsterdam, Elsevier B.V.

Gurwitsch, A. (1979). Human Encounters in the Social World. Pittsburgh, PA, Duquesne University Press.

James, W. (1981). The Principles of Psychology. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

Posted in Clement, Catherine, Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi, Flow, Freud, Sigmund, Greenfield, Susan, Gurswitch, Aron, James, William, Liquid, Metaphor, Phenomenology, Psychology, Religion | No Comments »

Effortless Action as the removal of the Free Won’t

May 22nd, 2007 Fred McVittie

The condition of ‘Flow’ described by Cziksentmihalyi is the unimpeded acceptance of appropriate intuitive action, the minimal operation of the Free Won’t. This state is a non-standard experience of consciousness in which (self) awareness is both extended and heightened. An implication of this is that the awareness that we think of as normal is a construction of the ongoing operation of Free Won’t. We are normally self-aware because we are normally preventing ourselves from doing things. The Flow state is similar in many ways to that of Wu Wei, or ‘effortless action’ described in Chinese philosophy and analysed by Slingerland. The apparent paradox of ‘Effortless Action’ in which one ‘does nothing, and yet nothing is left undone’, is resolved if we understand that the ‘doing nothing’ which is referred to is the active nay saying which forms a part of routine consciousness. When this constant, identity-forming negation is removed, then what is left is the smooth, unimpeded flow of experience and being.

Slingerland, E. (2003) Effortless Action: Wu-wei As Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. Oxford University Press.

Posted in Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi, Flow, Free will, Slingerland, Edward | No Comments »

Bad Mojo

June 29th, 2007 Fred McVittie

In writing about the experience of ‘flow’, Cziksentmihalyi treats it entirely as a positive way of being, allowing optimal performance of the task in hand and apparently having no questionable consequences. What is not brought out is the fact that flow demands no particular moral or ethical alignment; it is as easy to enter the flow state when engaged in a dangerous, illegal, or immoral activity as it is when involved in the kinds of activities Cziksentmihalyi indicates. In fact, it may even by simpler to experience flow when behaving ‘badly’ than when doing the right thing. One possible interpretation of flow is that it involves the automatic following of subconscious prompts without the usual steering provided by consciousness. As we engage in an activity, at each moment a number of possible alternative courses of action present themselves and unconsciously we begin to prepare ourselves for carrying out one of these possible alternatives. The alternative which the unconscious mind chooses, and which is subsequently presented to consciousness for approval prior to its being actuated, is ideally the most appropriate for the task. When this is the case then the conscious mind does not exercise its right of veto and the action selected by the unconscious is carried out. If this process is repeated, with unconsciously chosen actions constantly being allowed to proceed without the intervention of consciousness, then the feeling is one of unrestrained mastery and control. Everything that we do feels right. Also, because the conscious mind is not playing the role of censor or monitor in this process it becomes less prominent as a part of our experience; there is a sense in which consciousness seems to slip away leaving only the activity, to which we are unproblematically connected.

It is clear from this process than the conscious right of veto, our ability to say ‘no’ to an action begun by the unconscious, is constitutive of the self-consciousness which marks normal awareness and which possibly prevents our entering the flow state. However, as noted above, there is no requirement within this process that this unself-conscious engrossment can only be achieved in ‘good’ behaviours. On the contrary, the conscious exercising of our ability to stop ourselves carrying out certain actions, the use of what Libet refers to as the ‘free won’t', is mostly clearly in evidence when the action is socially or morally unacceptable. When we feel a temptation to carry out some behaviour which we know (consciously) to be wrong, then we are presented with a choice. We can either carry out the action and embrace the feeling of unimpeded flow that it brings, or we can veto the action. Whilst this latter option may not bring the sense of well-being that Cziksentimahayi indicates, it could nevertheless be said that it is in these moments that we are the most conscious. It could even be suggested that ‘giving in’ to flow involves the dissolution of the very self-reflectiveness and responsibility that makes us human.

Posted in Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi, Flow, Free will, Libet, Benjamin | No Comments »