“…disorientation begets creative thinking.”
In an article titled “How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect,” the New York Times describes studies indicating that anomalous experiences–encounters with things that don’t make sense–invigorate our brain’s drive to find meaning, which it does by seeking patterns. It seems maintaining coherence is such a strong imperative for us that our drive and ability to do so increases when we encounter its absence. Students who read a nonsensical story were later more able to find and remember patterns of letters than were a second group who read a perfectly understandable story. So far, though, the impact is only relevant to implicit learning, when we learn without being aware of it, rather than explicit learning, when we intentionally set out to learn something.
Another potentially related phenomenon that I notice occurs whenever I show students images of exquisite corpses or when they participate in making them is the sense of pleasure involved. These odd, sometimes unsettling images of disparate parts attached together consistently elicit a smile, sometimes outright laughter. Is it nervous laughter, a defense to reassure ourselves the lack-of-coherence is not a threat, or is some aspect of it enjoyable?
The article concludes: “the new research supports what many experimental artists, habitual travelers and other novel seekers have always insisted: at least some of the time, disorientation begets creative thinking.”
This is reassuring given that my own creative process is primarily one of configuring meaning out of disparate parts.