The Secret to Unlimited Ideas
Your Cheat Code to Unlimited Creative Power Part 2/3
You tried focusing harder — and are 5 coffees deep.
You’ve brainstormed and probably have a computer monitor full of post-it-notes.
But the breakthrough never comes.
You are drawing a blank.
What if I told you the answer isn’t to push deeper and to focus more intensely…
There’s a little-understood part of the thought process that scientists, artists, and geniuses alike have used to generate new ideas — and most were unaware they were doing it.
And once you understand it, your entire ability to generate new ideas — and think more concentratively — will double almost over night.
The Power of Solitude
Nikola Tesla talked a lot about the inventive process.
He didn’t brainstorm in crowded rooms or thrive on collaboration.
He treasured solitude…sometimes while sitting next to enormous arcs of lighting emanating from his Tesla coils.
And it was in these moments of solitude that his mind lit up with visions of alternating current, the induction motor, remote control, and more.
“Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.”
— Nikola Tesla
Tesla didn’t stumble upon his genius in a frenzy of forced focus.
Quite the opposite — he expanded his thinking — for the purpose of conceiving Idea.
And in that decentered state, Ideas revealed themselves.
Tesla’s thought process (and all geniuses) works like a pump: The compressive concentrative stroke of the pump handle may pump the water out, but the decentrative backstroke generates the conditions for Idea to be born so that they can be pumped out.
As such, the perpetual continuity of your concentrative-decentrative thought pulsations will continually keep new ideas flowing.
That’s the hidden principle we’re exploring today.
The Big Question
Why do our best ideas come when we’re not trying to find them — seemingly out of the blue?
Have you ever given thought to why insights and new ideas so often arrive in the shower, on a walk, or while doing something unrelated to the task at hand?
More importantly:
How can we consciously trigger that shift instead of just waiting for it?
For anyone in a creative field, this is imperative. In a world demanding constant productivity and focus, the ability to decentrate is your secret weapon.
Because the truth is:
Trying to “think your way through” problems often buries you deeper in them…
"When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."
— Will Rogers
A Universal Truth Reveals Itself
Your ability to concentrate is directly proportional to your ability to decentrate and both born each other and are opposite ends of the same coin.
Everyone wants the ability to concentrate deeper and clearer. Unfortunately, most people don’t realize that concentration is only one half of the thought process.
The thought process is a cycle — just like your breath. The inhale is a concentrative action taking a large volume and contracting it to a small volume — the exhale is a decentrative action taking a small volume and expanding it into a large volume.
— It is interesting to note that the term inspiration means both ‘a sudden good idea’ and ‘to breathe in.’ For in a way, we are breathing in the idea which we just conceived.
Here are some other terms for decentration ( - ) and concentration ( + ):
( - ) Expansion — Contraction ( + )
( - ) Female — Male ( + )
( - ) Unwound — Wound up ( + )
( - ) Cold — Hot ( + )
( - ) Decay — Growth ( + )
( - ) Wave — Particle ( + )
Artists decentrate when they step away from their project in order to come back and look upon it with ‘fresh eyes.’ Claude Monet even had a sofa in his studio!
In the heavens, the incandescence of stars is the compressed half of the cycle and the expanded cold of vacuous space is the decentrated half.
In the decentrated thought condition, noise quiets.
The storms of thought calm down.
And IDEA is born for the purpose of unfolding it’s seed pattern.
My next article will focus on the fulcrum of the seed, but for now, I do not want to get ahead of myself…
The Man Who Coined the Term
Few thinkers understood the power of decentration more deeply than Walter Russell.
After all — he invented the term.
Walter Russell wrote:
“The product of decentrative thinking is the expansion of radiation which mothers all body forms.” — A New Concept of the Universe, p.67
According to his Universal Law — All phenomena, including your thought conceptions, begins not with effort, but from the still center from which those ideas come.
And in that stillness the seed of Idea is born and germinates. It then radiates and is expanded outward into material reality — not randomly, but rhythmically and logically — just like waves from a pebble tossed in water.
Modern cognitive science supports this in its own language:
When the brain enters alpha or theta states—typically during moments of rest, meditation, or unfocused awareness—creativity spikes, insight increases, and new thought patterns are born.
Notice below: the high-frequency wave patterns of Gamma (concentration) as compared to the low-frequency wave patterns of Alpha, Theta and Delta (decentration)
Is Decentration Avoidance?
“But if I’m not concentrating on the problem, aren’t I just avoiding it?”
No.
Anytime we work on a problem or create a work of art — be it a painting, musical composition or writing, we get tunnel vision. Its natural. We get consumed with the details of our concept rather than honing in on and sculpting the concept itself.
In other words: if we concentrate for too long without balancing it with its equal mate of decentration, we inevitably “see the forest despite the tree."
We need to learn to leave the forest, decentrate our thoughts to the heavens so we can look upon the forest from a new light and perspective.
On Technique
There are many ways to decentrate.
Walter Russell would take a break from painting and sculpting, sit at his piano and just improvise.
Others take walks, some go on hikes.
My best ideas usually come to me in the shower or bath.
If you are having a difficult time letting go of your thoughts, or your environment is too distracting and you can’t get into nature, here is what I suggest…
Try and find a float tank and practice there. A float tank is a tank, filled with highly concentrated saltwater — which makes you float — and is set to the temperature of the skin.
No distractions. Just you, and your thoughts.
The Dream World
Dreaming is one of the purest forms of decentration. Some of the most world-changing ideas have emerged during Delta sleep.
In 1816, Mary Shelley was staying near Lake Geneva when she had a strange, vivid dream:
A pale student kneeling beside the thing he had created…
A creature awakened by electricity…
The birth of her masterpiece Frankenstein.
Other notable ideas which germinated during decentrative sleep:
Dmitri Mendeleev: The Russian chemist who created the Periodic Table of Elements dreamed of the table's arrangement, which allowed him to organize the elements logically upon waking.
Larry Page: The co-founder of Google dreamed of downloading the entire web and keeping the links — which inspired the core algorithm for Google’s search engine.
René Descartes: The philosopher and mathematician said that the foundation for his scientific method came to him in a series of dreams in 1619.
James Cameron: The concept for the film The Terminator came to Cameron in a nightmare — where he saw a metallic torso dragging itself with knives.
The Rhythm of Genius
To decentrate is to disentangle and unwind yourself from your thoughts so you can look upon them and generate new concepts with clarity.
Because clarity of concept doesn’t come from overthinking.
When we stop trying to force solutions, we make room for them to naturally germinate.
Stillness → Concentration → Decentration → Stillness again
In next week’s article, I will talk about the fulcrum which balances and controls the concentrative and decentrative thought pulsations and the source of your power.
You won’t want to miss it…
If this idea stirred something in you or left unanswered questions, let me know in the comments below. I read them all!
Until next time,
Michael R. Post, Classical Aegis
Creator, Beyond the Cosmic Veil
Wonderful presentation of "decentration"
A great read! This just makes you think harder and harder about the true abilities of the human mind and what is really possible.