I’ve talked about how opening yourself up to your subconscious can help generate fresher, more unexpected work, but just where in the heck is this subconscious, anyway?
As it’s bubbling under the surface of our conscious minds, it’s never very easy to grab a hold of. In fact, if you’re looking at it directly, it might not even be your subconscious. Even so, it does have ways of making itself known to us, and once you’re able to spot when this happens, it might be a little easier to put it to work for you.
So when does your subconscious make itself known?
1. Dreams. They may be other things, too, but dreams are first and foremost your subconscious stretching its legs. With one very important exception, dreams are the stories your subconscious tells itself, and if they’re that important to your subconscious, maybe they could be useful to you, too. But remember that dreams almost never make good stories on their own; they need your conscious mind to keep the good elements and remove all the stuff that only your subconscious can appreciate.
2. The very important exception above: lucid dreaming. This is when your conscious “wakes up” inside of a dream, and you’re able to manipulate things in whatever way you’d like. I’ve only ever had one lucid dream–and I didn’t know enough to take any conscious action–but I imagine that this skill could really help you to work with your subconscious in directing the most exciting dream/story.
3. Semi-consciousness. We most often enter this state when we’re just waking up or falling asleep. And very often, ideas will rise up at this juncture– ideas that your subconscious might be handing to you on a silver platter. It might be helpful to keep a pad and pencil in your nightstand because just as they arise unbidden, these good ideas from your subconscious can often disappear just as fast.
4. Hypnosis. This is such a great way to explore what’s happening in your subconscious that we’re going to look at it in more depth soon. Who knew that getting directly in touch with your subconscious could be so easy?
How To Write Subconsciously 