Edison's Thinking Chair

I've been thinking more about the challenge of "escaping the tyranny of reason," and was delighted to come across an example of a noteworthy innovator. Thomas Edison was credited with over 1,000 patents and is widely viewed as one of the most influential inventors of the last century. Twyla Tharp recounts an amazing anecdote about his idea generation process in "The Creative Habit":

"When he needed an idea, Thomas Edison liked to sit in a 'thinking chair' holding a metal ball bearing in each palm, with his hands closed. On the floor, directly under his hands, were two metal pie pans. Edison would close his eyes and allow his body to relax. Somewhere between consciousness and dreaming his hands would relax and open without effort, letting the ball bearing fall noisily into the pie pans. That's when he would wake up and write down whatever idea was in his head at that moment. It was his way of coming up with ideas without his conscious mind censoring them."

Some might call this ridiculous. I think it's fascinating, and potentially very valuable. For someone determined to generate novel solutions, getting past the censorship of the conscious mind is often the biggest obstacle. Why not put yourself in a position to bypass all that?

One thing that struck me: note Edison doesn’t call it the sleeping chair. It's work. It's deliberate, effortful work. But it's effort exerted in an unexpected direction! And there’s proof that it works!

As an aside, I’ve also read about Salvadore Dali doing something similar with a spoon. So either, 1) he was inspired by Edison and took the tactic literally or 2) there’s something of urban legend associated with this story. Either way, the broader point about sidestepping one’s own conscious processing is a valuable one. I'd love to hear if you've got other strange practices yourself, or know of some I should look into!

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