Chapter 5

Synergistic Oscillation

"Fully involve the right brain and you don't just double your brain power, you increase it many times over." – Colin Rose

"The more complex the activities of the mind, the greater the need for play." – Star Trek

Where and how do you get your best ideas? What process do you use to maximize the quantity and quality of the ideas you have to work with? What is known about the brain/mind that can be used to optimize this process?

Chapter 2 described how to obtain ideas and information from the external environment by directing our subconscious information filtering mechanisms. Chapter 4 suggested ways to increase the effectiveness of brainstorming sessions with others. This chapter discusses strategies for optimizing the individual brainstorming process. Dialogue was discussed first because forming project teams that balance complementary "what" and "how" expertise establishes the optimum infrastructure for supporting creative thoug ht by individual team members.

Just as we have two legs, we have two brain hemispheres that specialize in complementary opposite modes of thinking. Just as we can run more than twice as fast as our top hopping speed, we can more than double our brain power by overcoming the tendency to use one side most of the time¾by learning to use both sides of our brain synergistically.

Mobilizing the creative right brain gives the logical left brain more ideas to analyze. The disciplined structure of the left provides a context within which creative ideas can be organized and applied, often resulting in new questions for the right side to brainstorm. The result is a dynamic loop between the hemispheres, which I call a "brain dance."

The notion of using complementary opposite modes of thinking goes beyond left-brain right-brain synergy, however, so I expanded the brain dancing metaphor to include other sets of opposites.
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