# Am I "creative" if the process is entirely subconscious? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 30, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-creative-if-the-process-is-entirely-subconscious/662292 "2013-06-30T21:40:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-creative-if-the-process-is-entirely-subconscious/662292/1 "2013-06-30T21:40:43Z")
Apologies for any melodrama - I’m stuck in bed with a stomach bug, and feeling pensive and mopey. The simple question is the thread title. The slight expansion is that most (like 90%) of my interesting ideas for writing come from my dreams. I do lucid dream, but I don’t get ideas from my lucid dreams. I’m perfectly capable of taking my ideas and editing or expanding them while awake, but I very rarely come up with original ideas while awake. (I can think of one instance in the last year - inspired by a music purchase while I was driving to work, which I could argue is a form of sleeping for me.) So - is it misleading or appropriative for me to claim that I am creative? I don’t really care one way or the other (stomach bugs will do that for a person) just curious as to what people think. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-creative-if-the-process-is-entirely-subconscious/662292/2 "2013-06-30T22:37:26Z")
I’d say yes. Even if it’s worked at assiduously, the creative spark is on some elemental level subconscious. Ask the most diligent creators where their ideas come from and when you boil it down, they’ll often have no idea - the ideas just _come_. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-creative-if-the-process-is-entirely-subconscious/662292/3 "2013-06-30T23:06:34Z")
I do creative for a living, and I’d say that 50% or more of it comes from “my subconscious.” It’s the ingrained talent and training and experience working on its own, below my level of conscious, focused conjuration. So yes, if it comes from you, it’s creative even if you didn’t somehow labor out every turn of the conceptual crank. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-creative-if-the-process-is-entirely-subconscious/662292/4 "2013-06-30T23:16:16Z")
> [@Lasciel](#): > > …The simple question is the thread title.. The simple answer is “Yes.” Subconscious is still you. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-creative-if-the-process-is-entirely-subconscious/662292/5 "2013-07-01T00:02:58Z")
Sure. If you think about it, all thoughts spring from a subconscious process. No one consciously decides what their next thought is going to be. When you wake up in the morning with, say, purple elephants on the mind, did you intentionally choose this thought? No. The decision was made for you, and you either roll with it or actively work to get another thought on the front burner (the content of which is also not under your control). I sculpt. Rarely do I ever plan what I make before I’m actually doing it. At most, I’ll decide on a general theme before I start. But then the rest is on automatic. Occasionally, I’ll stop to digest what I’m doing, backtrack if need be. But normally it just “flows”. Whenever people have asked me questions about why I do what I do, I always turn into a giant idiot. It is a non-verbal experience for me, and most times I just feel like I’m watching passively, not really directing anything. Research indicates that creativity is a productive form of thought inhibition. People with disorders of inhibition (schizophrenia, Tourette’s, ADHD) often are endowed with greater creativity than others. They don’t necessarily possess greater skill or endurance to carry it through, but it seems that they do generate more raw material for awesomeness. Anecdotally, I know I tend to produce my best artwork when I having the hardest time controlling my tics–especially the cognitive ones. I’m at my least creative when I’m like how I am now, relatively tic-free and normal. Sigh. I guess everything has a trade-off. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-creative-if-the-process-is-entirely-subconscious/662292/6 "2013-07-01T00:04:02Z")
Sure. But you have to take those subconscious and turn it into something. That’s the hard part. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-creative-if-the-process-is-entirely-subconscious/662292/7 "2013-07-01T00:16:42Z")
I dunno about “hard” so much as time-consuming. Now, whether they turn out any good or not, that’s based more on experience and craft, which I’m working on. Those I think of as conscious pursuits - the more I work, the more experience I have, and the more I work, the better craft I demonstrate (at least, I surely hope so). I like the way \*\*monstro \*\*put it - the creative spark seems like something that I’m just watching happen, that I didn’t do it, I was just there for it to happen. I know that the finished product depends greatly on the execution of the basic idea. God knows I’ve read enough works with a really interesting premise that just fall flat due to bad writing craft or shoddy workmanship. I’ve also read really good works that weren’t amazingly inventive, but were well-executed. I just think it’s interesting that I don’t have any problems with mentally feeling ownership of the boring editing/expanding aspects, but I really feel a bit of a bystander for the creative part. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-creative-if-the-process-is-entirely-subconscious/662292/8 "2013-07-01T13:32:58Z")
That is such a cool question. I’m a lifelong insomniac, and sometimes when I’m thinking of a scene in order to get to sleep, I realize that my subconcious has taken the story in a way I never could, I am aware that I am not thinking this, but it is like my “mind’s mind” has taken over the plot. ---
**Author:** ![Postariti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Postariti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Postariti)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-creative-if-the-process-is-entirely-subconscious/662292/9 "2013-07-01T22:24:00Z")
You might enjoy this article - [5 famous things you won’t believe were invented in dreams.](http://www.cracked.com/article_20498_5-famous-things-you-wont-believe-were-invented-in-dreams.html) I agree that you can take credit for what you create in your dreams. It doesn’t matter how or when you are creating it, you are the one doing it. My brother actually dreams complete, complex stories, it’s amazing. Unfortunately, he never gets around to writing them down.