Random Thought
Random thought is my term for letting my mind wander free while in a state of intense consciousness. It has similarities to meditation, in that controlled thought processes are turned off. It works with or without sensory input, and the result, for me, is usually that my mind will settle on, for example, a previously unconsidered link between seemingly unrelated things. It can work as a creative state for problem solving, but it isn’t that productive creative process that is described as ‘flow’. Rather it is allowing a very high degree of mental alertness to be presented with a tabula rasa. Occasionally the mind gets hijacked by an issue that’s been simmering away in my unconscious, but typically if an obscure memory pops up, it turns out to be a missing puzzle piece of a current picture.
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An example that was enjoyable (to me):
A brief random thought session had me pondering on cohesion between fact and meaning, and that led, later in the day and among other things, to reading this: The Art and Science of Dynamic Network Visualization.
