It could be said: show me how you see Hamlet, and I will tell you who you are.


Ludwig Flazen in the chapter 'Hamlet in the Theatrical Laboratory' from Grotowski & Company (2010), p. 101

The East Wind by (1918) Charles Burchfield

 Eventually I could play from when I woke until the time I slept. I stopped playing the songs I knew and started inventing new ones. I had made up songs before, had even helped my father composa a verse or two. But now I gave it my whole attention. Some of those songs have stayed with me until this day.

        Soon after I began paying... how can I describe it?

        I began to play something other than songs. When the sun warms the grass and the breeze cools you, it feels a certain way. I would play until it sounded like Warm Grass and Cool Breeze.

I was only playing for myself, but I was a harsh audience. I remember spending nearly three whole days trying to capture Winds Turning Leaf.

        By the end of the second month, I could play things nearly as easily as I saw and felt them: Sun Setting Behind the Clouds, Bird Taking a Drink, Dew in the Bracken.

        Somewhere in the third month I stopped looking outside and started looking inside for things to play. I learned to play Riding in the Wagon with Ben, Singing with Father by the Fire, Watching Shandi Dance, Grinding Leaves When it Is Nice Outside, Mother Smiling. …

        Needless to say, playing these things hurt, but it was a hurt like tender fingers on lute strings. I bled a bit and hoped that I would callous soon.

The Name of the Wind (2007) by Patrick Rothfuss, p. 141

Homework by Sigrid Hjertén

Since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep his feelings separate from that from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest childhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crysalize and transfix the moment uponwhich it's gloom or radiance rests, James Ramsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated catalogue of the Army and Navy stores, endowed the picture of a refridgerator as his mother spoke with heavenly bliss. It was fringed with joy.

Virginia Woolf in To the Lighthouse (1927), p. 7

Surrealism is the stressing of subconscious or irrational significance of imagery, or in more simplistic terms, the use of dreamlike imagery. Dalí's absurd imagination has him painting 

The extraordinary images seem to appear from nowhere, but there is a logic. The unconscious is a living, moving stream of energy from which thoughts gradually rise to the conscious level and take on a definite form. Your unconscious is like a hydrant in the yard while your consciousness is like a faucet upstairs in the house. Once you know how to turn on the hydrant, a constant supply of images can flow freely from the faucet. These forms give rise to new thoughts as you interpret the strange conjunctions and chance combinations.

• Think about your challenge. Consider your progress, your obstacles, your alternatives, and so on. Then push it away and relax.
• Totally relax your body. Try to achieve the deepest muscle relaxation you can.
• Quiet your mind. Do not think of what went on during the day or your challenges and problems. Clear your mind of chatter.
• Quiet your eyes. You cannot look for these images. Be passive. You need to achieve a total absence of any kind of voluntary attention. Become helpless and involuntary and directionless.
• Record your experiences immediately after they occur. The images will be mixed and unexpected and will recede rapidly. They could be patterns, clouds of colors, or objects.
• Look for the associative link. Write down the first things that occur to you after your experience. Look for links and connections to your challenge. Ask questions such as:
                What puzzles me?
                Is there any relationship to the challenge?
                Any new insights? Messages?
                What's out of place?
                What disturbs me?
                What do the images remind me of?
                What are the similarities?
                What analogies can I make?
                What associations can I make?
                How do the images represent the solution to the problem?

http://www.creativitypost.com/create/salvador_dalis_creative_thinking_technique#sthash.Grg1UT82.dpuf