3 papers in the library · publishing 2022
June 30, 2022 Tobi Zausner
In those moments when focus on creative work overrides input from the outside world, we are in a creative trance. This psychologically significant altered state of consciousness is inherent in everyone. It can take the form of daydreams generating scientific or creative ideas, hyperfocus in sports, visualizations that impact entire civilizations, life-changing audience experiences, or...
Cambridge University Press eBooks June 2, 2022 Tobi Zausner
Empathy and dissociation form a paradoxical and dynamic fusion of opposites in the creative trance. Inherently structured by its domain, cultural traditions, personal preferences, and rules to achieve excellence, the creative trance is an experience of empathy connecting the creative person with the work produced, while dissociation separates the trance state from waking consciousness. Empathy...
Cambridge University Press eBooks June 2, 2022 Tobi Zausner
Creativity and its trance states can extend to lifesaving acts of heroism that far exceed ordinary human limitations. By entering a creative trance in the middle of a raging forest fire, the firefighter Wag Dodge invented a new way to reroute the path of flames. Altered states can also occur when individuals lift a multi-thousand-pound vehicle to rescue a person trapped beneath it. They display...