REAPING THE WHIRLWIND 231tion phase (gathering information about the problem); then the incuba-
tion phase (mulling over unrelated bits of information, allowing the
unconscious to work on the problem); followed by the illumination
phase (think of Archimedes running through the streets of Syracuse
screaming ‘ Eureka! ’ after fi guring out how to weigh the king ’ s golden
crown); and the last step is, of course, the verifi cation process (testing
the fi ndings).
Some people have described the process even more succinctly as the
three ‘ Bs ’ of creativity. The three ‘ Bs ’ refer to situations that stimulate
the creative fl ow:
- Bed: in the twilight zone between falling asleep and waking up,
or dreaming, when the mind is cut loose from preconceptions and
really starts to fl oat. The German scientist August Kekule claimed
that he had fi gured out the composition of the benzene ring as a
result of dreaming about a snake with its tail in its mouth. - Bath: where Archimedes worked out the theory of buoyancy.
- Bus: or any form of public transport where one can think one ’ s
own thoughts. Kekule, again, recounted that his theory of structure
came to him on the top deck of a London bus.
These three situations create an almost hypnotic ambience. They repre-
sent the kind of setting where bi - sociative thinking — making connec-
tions where none existed before — is most likely to occur (Koestler,
1964 ).
On closer examination, the creative process is littered with ‘ acci-
dents. ’ Discovery often requires an element of serendipity. Creative
people see possibilities in chance occurrences that others might let slip
by. No breakthrough in twentieth - century medicine was more driven
by opportunism than the discovery of penicillin, which happened when
the fi rst detected penicillin spore was borne by a random London breeze
through an open window into one of Alexander Fleming ’ s dishes.
Fleming made sense out of the strange mould that resulted because he
was ready for discovery, after working for years almost exclusively on
this type of experiment. There is a saying: ‘ If your mind is a hammer,
everything you see looks like a nail, ’ or as Louis Pasteur put it, ‘ Chance
favors the prepared mind. ’
Playing in a transitional world
So how it is that some people acquire Creativity with a capital C? What
singles them out? Is it a question of inher itance, deter m ined by biolog ical