Once again the girl is lying in bed, but is “sleeping” with her heart awake, implying perhaps a kind of creative reverie, sometimes called the "hypnogogic state", a relaxed, dream-like and receptive state of mind that exists just before dropping off to sleep and on waking up in the morning.

The immensely successful Sir Walter Scott, author of "Ivanoe", found that if he meditated on a problem when he went to bed, then he invariable found the solution next morning as he lay relaxed before rising. Robert Louis Stevenson also had a habit of making specific requests of his subconscious mind before he went to sleep, asking it to help him develop a current story or even find ideas for a good new one. The creative mind responds to such sincere requests for assistance.

The Twilight Zone
In a newspaper interview, Paul McCartney described how he wrote the song "Yellow Submarine" when relaxed in bed just before dropping off to sleep: "I always find it a very comfortable zone . . . you've laid your burdens down from the day and there's this little limbo land just before you dip into sleep.

I remember thinking that a children's song would be quite a good idea and I thought of images and the colour yellow came to me and a submarine came to me, and I thought, well, that's nice . . . I just made up a little tune in my head then started making a story, sort of an ancient mariner telling the young kids where he lived . . . written for Ringo in that twilight moment". Notice the familiar features in his comment -- relaxed in bed, thinking in images, not mentally striving, a passive receptive state of mind.

A Creative Block
Although the girl would normally be eager to be with the lover, on this occasion she hesitates because she has already removed her garments and bathed her feet and is reluctant to get them dirty again by getting up to admit him. She fails to make contact her creative love because she is reluctant to break with her habitual way of doings things, and reverse normal procedure -- as hinted also by the fact that the lover has turned and gone away, reversed and gone in the opposite direction!

Deliberate Reversal
Deliberate reversal is second only to combination as an idea-generation tool, and is used in Brainstorming by considering the implications of making something bigger/smaller, faster/slower, group/solo, standard/deluxe, fun/formal, spiced/plain, pliable/rigid, metal/wood/plastic, etc., etc.. Adaptation (APPENDIX D) is a simple mechanical procedure for examining the potential of deliberate reversal.

As an illustration, consider the designer of fire escapes starting out with the primitive system of sliding down a rope. Taking the statement that people would slide down the outside of the rope, he then makes the reverse proposition that they should slide down the inside of the rope instead – thereby generating the potentially useful idea that the fire escape could consist of tube of nylon cloth that the escapees would step into, controlling their speed of descent by simply pushing on the side with their elbows.

Turning Weaknesses into Strengths
When John Sculley became marketing director for Pepsi Cola some years ago, their rival Cocal Cola had a stranglehold on the market because it was so long-established and well known. Sculley’s clever idea was a classic reversal, turning Coke’s apparent strength into a weakness by running ads suggesting it was now “old fashioned” -- and that trendy young people, “the Pepsi Generation!”, should drinking Pepsi instead.

Humour by Reversal
A basic element of humour is surprise, and the common formula for creating surprise is reversal of implied meaning. Comedian Bob Monkhouse, for example, said “It’s not funny being a comedian. People keep laughing at you!”

And there’s more. One day Mrs Thatcher took the cabinet out to lunch and ordered the roast beef. “What about the vegetables?” enquired the waiter – to which Mrs Thatcher replied: “Oh, they will have the roast beef too!”

This formula, which is found in every TV sitcom, is also familiar to stand-up comedians, who comments such as: “A mate of mine is a heavy lorry driver . . . he’s a very, heavy lorry driver . . . he’s married to a heavy housewife . . . they’re weight watchers . . . they watch more weight than anybody else I know”.

Such techniques are discussed in “An Anatomy of Laughter” by Richard Boston, along with an account of a English vicar who made a study of humour and was able to reduce Queen “We are not amused!” Victoria to fits of convulsive laughter.

Interrogate Everything
Notice that in order to find her creative love, the girl in the “Song” has to defy the Watchmen’s creative curfew and contravene convention for a woman by venturing out into the city at night.

Although many breakthrough ideas arise from reversal, many also come from questioning convention and making simple modifications, as explained in the Powerthink Appendix. According to Robert Rosenblum, in “Cubism and Twentieth Century Art” is was contradicting convention that led to the emergence of Cubism, which, he says, “emerges clearly as one of the major transformations in Wester Art. As revolutionary as the discoveries of Einstein or Freud, the discoveries of Cubism contraverted principles that prevailed for centuries . . . In place of the earlier perspective systems that determined the exact location of discrete objects in illusory space . . . Cubism proposed that the work of art was itself a reality that represented the very process by which nature is transformed into art."

Attitude Adjustment
Perhaps Solomon wants us to consider the possibilities offered by reversing attitudes as well as procedures – switching from closed minded to open, rigid to flexible, impatient to patient, dogmatic to tentative, cynical to inquiring, opinion to proven fact, impossibility to possibility, fear to courage, proud professionalism to childish playfulness, picture thinking and sensory delight.

The Return of the Watchmen
Once again, Solomon wants us to think about our thinking, as, in his genius, he compares the human mind to an ancient walled city that appointed Watchmen to guard its gates and vet all newcomers, forcefully excluding potential trouble makers, and admitting only those they felt would live in harmony with the residents already inside.

In similar fashion, as we grow up our mind becomes populated with beliefs we accept as Truth. Very soon, the gates of the mind are closed, and Watchmen, assessment criteria the mind cleverly synthesizes by harmonizing the knowledge it already possesses, begin to step in, reflex fashion, to do our thinking for us – quickly rejecting any new ideas that conflict with what we already believe -- unless we learn to be more self-aware, and take control of the situation and actually THINK.

What Is “Thinking”?
In the context of problem solving and design, real THINKING consists of posing QUESTIONS to the creative mind, then WAITING patiently with complete inner stillness for INSIGHTS, which may arrive as IMAGES, as we try to visualize and feel and see the situation. The questions we need to ask are of the following kind:

What are the real NEEDS of this situation?
What is the real ROOT PROBLEM I need to solve?

What am I OVERLOOKING/ NOT SEEING/ NEGLECTING?
What extra KNOWLEDGE do I need?
What am I ASSUMING that may be wrong?
What CONVENTION is limiting my thinking?
What can be ELIMINATED?

Am I pausing to THINK ABOUT MY THINKING?