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Whatever is your very first impression of what's on the far side of the
wall after you've jumped, when that time comes describe that. Continue
describing as if you were still looking at it, even if it were just a
glimpse or a momentary impression, and more of that impression will come.
Sooner or later, you will discover enough of it through describing it that
you will learn how what is here in this answer space is an effective answer
to your problem.
(That suddenness can be supplied by your live listener"Jump NOW!"after you've described the garden side of the wall for a while. Or, use anything happening in your auditory environment, perhaps out on the street with a car horn or dog bark, to abruptly jump over the wall even if you weren't ready to yet, in order to get that needed suddenness.)5. Continuing to explore and describe what you've found here in the answer space is there some feature which especially attracts your attention? Is there some oddity which doesn't fit with the rest of the scene (often the subtler faculties' way of underscoring the key to the message)? Detail that further; or select some particular feature here, such as a bush, tree, or side of a house, and ask it mentally, "Why are you here, in this context? How do you relate to this answer?" In what ways does your picture or impression change, in response to your question? Detail these. (If by now you already fully understand the answer that has been shown you, skip on to Step # 7 below. If you do not yet understand that answer or understand it fully, go instead to Step # 6, next.)6. Mentally thank your subtler faculties for showing you the answer to your questionbut ask their help in understanding it. Find some object in your answer space which can serve as a screen, just as your garden wall did earlier. This can be the wall of a house, a thicket, an as-yet closed door, a curtain, a bend in a hallway, a cover to a photo album, a hillside, anything which fits the purpose of being a screen, behind which you "can't" see, until you suddenly go across into the space beyond it. Without sneaking a peek yet at what's beyond, go up to and lay your hand on whatever that screening object is, and ask your subtler faculties to show you, on its far side, exactly the same answer to the same question as before, but this time in an entirely different scene. (In effect you are creating a second answer space, with an entirely different scene in it. What is the same between old and new pictures, when everything else is different, by inductive inference gives you the key to the "message" or answer! )So: first detail out the new scene after going into it, then search for what's the same between the old and new picturesperhaps it is grass, perhaps the color blue, perhaps water, perhaps people running or perhaps no one there, or triangular-shaped objects, perhaps a certain feeling to both pictures..... 7. Return to here-and-now fully refreshed. If you've been working with a live listener, now grab up your tape recorder, or a notepad and pen. If you've been working with a tape recorder, now is the time for your notepad and pen.... some different medium from what you were using for the original experience.... 8. Like an astronaut returning from a mission to some far world, debrief. Describe in detail, to that different medium from the one you've just been using, a little of your garden experience, but every detail you can from when you jumped over the wall. This further retrospective, describing is often the stage at which understandings and meanings click into place. Also, if you did the original experience with eyes closed, debrief with them open; if for some reason you did the original experience with eyes open, debrief with them closed. To make relation-building effects within your brain a little more immediate, try to use the present tense grammatically while describing and stay in that present tense mode, even though the experience is already in your recent past e.g., "I am looking at all this ripe wheat bending in the wind," not, "I was looking...." ![]()
In order that you don't have to keep looking over at the instructions to see what comes next, and in order to let your eyes stay uninterruptedly closed during the experience and free to deal fully with the subtler reaches of that experience...here is the short form, with a memory device to help you remember each step and the step which comes next. Describe, describe, describe in richly textured detail 1. The Garden;GWAS ("gaWAS")easily remembered word of initials to help you remember Garden, Wall, and the Answer Space beyond it. Continuing from "gaWAS" 4. Question some particular aspect or feature in your Answer Space.This part of the mnemonic is QANS; your total mnemonic is "gaWAS-qans," easy to hold in the back of your mind so each part of it in turn will remind you of the next step in the procedure, until the procedure becomes familiar enough to you that you no longer need any special devices to find your way with. Please forgive our offer of a memory device, but this kind of experience is very new to many people, and we desire that a very wide range of people be able to handle it successfully to surmount the problems around them. If you don't need the memory aid, you don't need to use it. Meanwhile, there it is if you do need it. ![]() Getting the meaning from your displayed answers For inventions, technical or mechanical problems and art, these "over-the-wall" answers are usually quite literal. For most other issues, perhaps because of the sensory language in which the more sensitive regions of your brain work, the answer may be shown in some sort of metaphora cartoon, a parable, a pun or similein which case this sometimes takes effort to figure out consciously. The most important thing in figuring out your answer is to not try to figure it out until after you've let the whole experience unfold, and you've described it out in detail. If your aha! insight hits you in mid-stream, well and goodand that will happen more and more frequently as this process and set of skills become familiar to you. But going for meanings before you've fully detailed your experience invites your conscious knowledge about the problem situation to come back in, interfering with your more sensitive internal data because it "knows" what the answer ought to be, stopping you short of seeing what the answer is. Once your experience is fully described and recorded, though, your "data out there on the table," so to speak, the conscious search for meaning can no longer hide or distort it. Here are several ways to improve your chances of finding the meaning of what you found over the wall (or the meaning of your dreams, for that matter). Likewise, pursue what we call the "Clarification Question," asking your subtler faculties to help you in understanding their answer by showing you that same answer to that same question again, but through an entirely different scene. Usually, three different scenes displaying the same answer are enough to let you infer the meaning from their common elements. ![]() Follow-up questions See also, and describe, what changes occur in your scene or impressions when you ask such questions as Whenever in doubt about what to ask, ask: Most approaches to creative problem-solving teach that one has to invest 90% or more of one's total effort to finding the right question to ask about a situation. Yet your subtler faculties already know what is the most cogent question to ask about a given situation, so asking this directly lets you take advantage of that and saves you considerable time and effort. |
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