Rob Vanston is a student studying a Creative Writing MA at the University of Brighton, and has an unhealthy interest in cosmic horror. He is currently doing a writer’s residency for the Centre of Arts and Wellbeing where his aim is to explore the experiences and benefits of mindfulness on his creative work through this blog.
“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.” [1]
––Neil Gaiman
I finished my meditation at 1.45pm, feeling serene and collected, and decided to go home. These weekly visits to the Brighton Buddhist Centre are now part of my regular routine. On leaving the Centre I decided to walk down Bond Street, and it struck me that even though it was raining, it didn’t bother me. Normally I’d be pissed off that I was walking to the bus stop in the downpour, running even, to get out of the rain. But my mind was at its calmest since starting this adventure, making the rain seem poetic in nature as it pattered to the ground, gently washing the path before me.
This newly discovered tranquillity gave me the opportunity to let my mind wander without having to think too much about assignments or deadlines. Looking out of the bus window, I became absorbed in the number of bustling people going about their routines. What was going through their minds? Were they thinking about their ‘to do lists’? Were their thoughts on tonight’s dinner? Were some going home or going to work? Were they meeting someone else? Was the woman in the red hat on her way to see her partner? Was the guy in the smart jacket going to meet her? Each one of them gave me their stories just by being there in that moment of time. They might not have been the right stories or even their real stories, but they were stories I had been able to conjure up in the late afternoon rain.
This new feeling of calm helped to stimulate me to be creative. By stepping back from my interior thoughts and allowing myself to absorb the present, the now, I took in the surrounding action and created a story from the visual, mental gaps that I saw in random people. Below is a poem that was conceived on the bus home:
poetry in transit
spectres in blurred rain
wander in daily routines
oblivious to watching eyes.
bluebeard steps onto bus
with a cockerel for a crown
sits meekly in space meant for wheels.
he stares at wet footprints
watching water dribble, meander
slowly down the bus.
a hand thumps the door
a girl in red velvet sweatpants
swears as the bus moves away.
Writing the poem helped me to realise that after you come out of meditation, your mind is in a state of reverie, a ‘condition of being lost in thought’ [2] similar to that of daydreaming. Sigmund Freud (nobody’s favourite psychologist) made the link between daydreaming and child’s play calling it ‘phantasying’:
‘the child distinguishes it quite well from reality; and he likes to link his imagined objects and situations to the tangible and visible thing in the real world.’ [3]
further positing a link between daydreaming and creative writing:
‘[T]he creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantasy which he takes very seriously – that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotion while separating it sharply from reality.’ [4]
Reverie, as defined by the Oxford Learner Dictionaries, is ‘a state of thinking about pleasant things, almost as though you are dreaming.’ [5] Many famous people have claimed that their works are derived from dreams or dream states that they had experienced. H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘would either directly inspire his stories or be featured prominently in them’ (Joshi, 1982) [6], most notably in his Dream Cycle series of short stories and novellas, and Mary Shelley is said to have conceived Frankenstein shortly after experiencing a waking dream stating:
‘My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie.’ [7]
Now, I’m not saying that every encounter after experiencing reverie is going to make you write a blockbuster horror story, no, I’m arguing that reverie can be a form of inspiration for any writing or creative practice, even if it lasts for a few precious moments like a bus journey home. John Brehm, the American poet, also argues this point in his book, The Dharma of Poetry. In it he posits that writing poetry after a meditation session can is a form of mindfulness because poetry ‘presents another powerful way to disrupt the habitual momentum of the mind, its automatic reactions and obsessive self-concerns.’ [8] One of the ways in which you can experience this is by practicing one of his writing prompts, ‘Making Friends with ‘Ordinary’ Objects’ [9]. I did this when I got home.
After a few minutes of meditation he suggests to ‘bring your attention to something within your field of view’:
Photo: My Stinky Trainer by Rob Vanston
In reality, you can use anything, if nothing strikes your fancy make something up. Brehm then says to set a timer for two minutes. Take everything in about that object; form, shape, colour, ‘the way it catches light and shadow, the way it stands forth in space’, what are it qualities? Is it rough, smooth, does it smell (yes!), is it new or old? Does that object have a personality?
Brehm then suggests to ‘let your mind rest on and with that object, try to experience it as a friend and fellow traveller in this strange journey of life’. As I read this I find that Jess has been using this method too in her lectures, minus the meditation.
I notice the strange green of my Nike trainer, and how it has faded since I bought it several years ago. I never wear it when it’s raining as there’s a hole in its sole. What would my shoe say to me if I asked it how it felt? Would it be my friend, or would it go on strike, after all my feet do stink and even I don’t like them. The timer pings and Brehm tells me to write whatever comes to my mind for five minutes. I do this, but my hand-writing is so messy even the code breakers at GCHQ would probably be in uproar. I’ve never had to free write before and found his to be a bit of struggle, however, my poetry tutor John McCullough says that some of his best poetry lines come from free writing. You can write tons of stuff and eventually a word or a phrase will appear like a golden nugget. Keeping a notebook on you is handy too, ideal for jotting down ‘observations while you’re out and about to an account of daily events, your rants and raves, ideas for poems, single words, clippings from newspapers, responses to books or poems you’ve read, notes from research’ [10], in effect you are gold mining for creative information.
The other John, Mr Brehm, says after you’ve finished writing to say thank you and bow to the object, you’ve made a friend. I do this conscious of the fact that my partner could walk in at any time and wonder wtf is going on. This doesn’t happen but the neighbours from across the road the witness whole thing.
Left
I sometimes hate being put on
your manky dried skin,
your smelly decrepit toe.
I hate the way
you pit me against my twin,
always working me for miles.
You never look after me,
always leaving me dirty, unwashed.
yet I hold you up, support you.
I dread the day I become soleless,
for I have seen what becomes of
my predecessors, thrown away,
unwanted, unloved.
I would not have normally written this as my genre is cosmic horror and anything in between that has tendrils and tentacles. Writing about my lonesome left shoe, it would seem, has had a profound effect on my mental capabilities. My stinky trainer stopped my busy life to make me think about it, it made me question its worth to me and the world around it. It made me think about my place in the universe of lonely footwear. It made me stop to think and that is what mindfulness is supposed to do.
Christina Reading writes that ‘[I]f these moments of reverie and contemplation are essential to the creative process, we must take care not to iron them out in favour for more tangible goals […] time spent letting the mind unravel, unwind and roam is essential to the creative process. […] This time is not lost but well spent.’ [11] A sentiment which I am fully onboard with.
‘…time spent collecting one’s thoughts, time to work undisturbed. This is space for contemplation and reverie. It enhances our capacity to create’ [12]
––bell hooks
Read Rob Vanston’s other blog posts in this series –
Writer in Residence | Rob Vanston | Mindfulness: How Meditation Can Help With Mind Clutter
Writer in Residence | Rob Vanston | Mindfulness: The Problem of Men Asking for Help
[1] Neil Gaiman, ‘Where do you get your ideas?’, Neil Gaiman [Online]. Available at: < https://www.neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Essays/Essays_By_Neil/Where_do_you_get_your_ideas%3F >. [Accessed on 12th March 2024].
[2] ‘Reverie’, Merriam-Webster [Online]. Available at: < https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reverie >. [Accessed on 11th March 2024].
[3] Sigmund Freud, ‘On Creative Writer and Day-Dreaming’, in Freud The Complete Works, ed by Ivan Smith (eBook, 2010) p. 1921. Available at: < https://mindsplain.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Freud_Complete_Works.pdf >. [Accessed on 12th March 2024].
[4] Freud, p. 1922.
[5] ‘Reverie’, Oxford Learner Dictionaries [Online]. Available at: < https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/reverie >. [Accessed on 16th March 2024].
[6] S. T. Joshi, A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft, eBook edition (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2016) p. 16.
[7] Mary Shelley, ‘Appendix A: Author’s Introduction to the Standard Novel’s Edition (1831)’ in Frankenstein: 1818 Text (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) p. 176.
[8] John Brehm, The Dharma of Poetry (Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 2021) p. 12.
[9] Brehm, p. 134.
[10] Linda Anderson, ‘Keeping a Writer’s Notebook’ cited in Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings, edited by Linda Anderson, eBook edition (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006) p. 26.
[11] Christina Reading in ‘Chapter 5: Covid Diaries’ in Christina Reading & Jess Moriarty, Walking for Creative Recovery (Axminster: Triarchy Press, 2022) p. 117.
[12] bell hooks, Art On My Mind: Visual Politics (New York: The New Press, 1995) pp 125-126.
Bibliography
Anderson, Linda. ‘Keeping a Writer’s Notebook’ cited in Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings, edited by Linda Anderson, eBook edition (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006) pp. 26-35.
Brehm, John. The Dharma of Poetry (Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 2021).
Freud, Sigmund. ‘On Creative Writer and Day-Dreaming’, in Freud The Complete Works, edited by Ivan Smith (eBook, 2010) p. 1921. Available at: < https://mindsplain.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Freud_Complete_Works.pdf >. [Accessed on 12th March 2024].
Gaiman, Neil. ‘Where do you get your ideas?’, Neil Gaiman [Online]. Available at: < https://www.neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Essays/Essays_By_Neil/Where_do_you_get_your_ideas%3F >. [Accessed on 12th March 2024].
hooks, bell. Art On My Mind: Visual Politics (New York: The New Press, 1995).
Joshi, S. T. A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft, eBook edition (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2016).
Reading, Christina, & Jess Moriarty, Walking for Creative Recovery (Axminster: Triarchy Press, 2022).
‘Reverie’, Merriam-Webster [Online]. Available at: < https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reverie >. [Accessed on 11th March 2024].
‘Reverie’, Oxford Learner Dictionaries [Online]. Available at: < https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/reverie >. [Accessed on 16th March 2024].
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: 1818 Text (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
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