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Thoughts
There have been so many times that I have been thinking of something, doing something, or in general I've been lost in whatever activity is going on, when all of a sudden, Boom! I'm struck with some sort of idea, that seems to get transmitted directly to my head, rather than being something that has been meticulously worked out, before becoming a fully-fledged idea.
Usually, when these particular moments arise, it is in the form of a story, or a screenplay that I then start writing down from the flash of a memory.
It's hard to describe, but it's as if these ideas come into my mind fully formed, and they play out like a film set to 10x or 20x speed. It's as if within the space of a few moments I've received something that could take weeks to write down completely.
There was one time when I was in a bit of a state at the end of a friend's birthday party, the night had been pretty wild, and I was in the process of passing out when all of a sudden I saw what happens to our souls when we die. It was messed up, and the image was so vivid (literally like I was watching it take place on my eyelids) I laid down and just watched this weird little movie, and then as it ended everything went black, and I was back to normal.
This happened years ago, but I actually used the same image for a character in the book I wrote and had her see what I saw while she was in a meditation trance in her opening chapter.
I probably butchered the description of that, but I saw it and it made total sense, and also terrified me because it could be true.
This though just blasted me like a ton of bricks and made complete sense when it came to me.
Where Do These Thoughts Come From?
It's not like I was thinking of any of this at the time, it just zapped me. There have been numerous other occasions where the exact same thing has happened, but there is no real explanation as to where it came from.
There are times when a similar thing happens but in a different way. Like, I could be having a debate in my head about a particular topic, and as the conversation is happening, I start to imagine different characters saying this stuff, or having this conversation, and that becomes a scene in a larger narrative.
I wrote a novel that stemmed from one of these conversations, but those ideas are very different. Those thoughts are built up slowly over the course of minutes, hours, or even days until I finally have enough of a basis to start writing, but the ideas that come fully formed are a mystery.
I've always thought of ideas as being given to people, from somewhere, or something.
There's a conversation I remember having with a friend about this same topic, and we got talking about collective consciousness, and she said that she thinks that ideas for stories, or ideas in general get thrown around the network of thought and it reaches someone, and if they don't do something with it, or use it, it is passed onto the next person.
That explanation always stuck with me, because it makes sense, but it also begs more questions.
Think of George RR Martin, he said that the thought that spawned A Game of Thrones was the dire wolf pups being found in the summer snows. From there he built the world and started writing, (obviously, GRR Martin had a lot of knowledge that made him the best person to write his series of novels and build that world, also he had a lot of experience that it was done right) but, based on the topic of thoughts being given to people, anyone could have had that thought, and they didn't use it, while George did, and created something amazing.
What's the takeaway from all of this? Use those ideas that come to you.
