Where the Stories Come From (Lynn Kerstan)

So there I was, flapping my elbows against my sides and clucking like a chicken. In front of several hundred chortling people.

What? You’ve never done that? Well, neither had I. But in its way, that long-ago night was a transforming experience. Even though I, unlike the other "subjects" on the stage, was not actually hypnotized.

I certainly didn’t feel under any power but my own. So what that I went along with all the hypnotist’s instructions? I have a degree in theatre. I like to perform. When he said, "You are Anna Pavlova dancing the dying swan," I loped and pirouetted and finally shuddered to stillness in a heap. When he told me I was watching the saddest movie I’d ever seen, I wept.

I can fake all that stuff. To this day, even though I was selected to appear in the popular San Diego nightclub show a dozen times, I remain convinced I was just playing along.

Which is, of course, exactly the heightened suggestibility produced by hypnosis. Hmm.

I wanted to know more about this phenomenon. The hypnotist, a brilliant entertainer, was also a scholar (with Ph.D.) dedicated to teaching people how to access and use the power of the subconscious mind. In exchange for some basic research work, he took me on as a student. Later, utterly fascinated, I studied with a non-entertainer expert in the field. Then I found another all-consuming interest and moved on.

What does this have to do with writing? Very sketchy, non-tech outline here. The imagination that creates whole worlds and complex characters and powerful stories resides in a mysterious no-place (related to brain activity), described by some as the alpha state. When the brain vibrates at the frequency range in which nocturnal dreams and daydreaming takes place, we are in the realm of the subconscious. But imagination and dreaming are not its only functions. Far from it.

Almost everyone has experienced the subconscious doing its silent work. Driving is a good example. You set out for a familiar destination. You’ve got a lot on your mind. Suddenly, you look up and discover you are almost there. You have little or no recollection of changing lanes, stopping at lights, making turns. While you were planning the day’s schedule or trying to make a tough decision, your subconscious was driving the car. Conscious and subconscious minds, working together.

During our waking hours, our brains operate at a higher frequency range (beta), which lends itself to the practical, the rational, the decision-making roles. But always the subconscious is there, like an underground river. And just beneath it (at a lower frequency, theta) our emotions thrum.

All good stories require imagination (subconscious), craft (conscious), and emotion. A writer must access and interweave them, which is no easy thing.

We court these mysterious forces that are intricately contained within ourselves. Give them names, like "Muse" or "Gertrude." Stephen King says that his ideas come from the Boys in the Basement. Women writers often call them the Girls. They are rarely within our control, or even within our power to summon on demand.

So we use tricks. Rituals. Affirmations. Sometimes even self-hypnosis. Lucky for us, the subconscious can be programmed. Unfortunately, that’s easiest to manage before adolescence.

But nothing stops a writer with a story that has to be told. We summon our inner Peter Pans, tell ourselves we can fly, and keep telling ourselves that until we are airborne.

Next time . . . the Tricks of the Trade.

(It was going to be this time, but I got diverted. And as any hypnotist knows, a good subject possesses the ability to concentrate. Which is why I was never actually hypnotized. Maybe.)