SNAP: Seizing Your Aha! Moments

252 Pages·2012·1.97 MB·English

by  Katherine Ramsland

Published 2012 by Prometheus Books
SNAP: Seizing Your Aha! Moments. Copyright © 2012 by Katherine Ramsland. All rights reserved. No part
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ramsland, Katherine M., 1953–
SNAP : seizing your aha! moments / by Katherine Ramsland.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–1–61614–464–7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978–1–61614–465–4 (ebook)
1. Inspiration. 2. Creative thinking. I. Title.
BF410.R36 2012
153.3—dc23
2011041552
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

Foreword by Deborah Blum

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Pasteur's Proposal

SCAN

Chapter 2. Prime Movers

Chapter 3. The Master's Zone

Chapter 4. Mental Hyperlinks

Chapter 5. The Brain's Big Bang

SIFT

Chapter 6. Perceptual Sets

Chapter 7. Reading between the Minds

Chapter 8. The Tao of Data Mining

Chapter 9. Psycho-Entanglement
SOLVE

Chapter 10. Risk and Incentive

Chapter 11. Snaps on Demand

Glossary

Notes

Index
S
ome years ago, when I was working as a newspaper science reporter in
California, my editor assigned me to do a story on Nobel Prize-winning
scientists at the University of California. Frankly, I hated the idea and thought it
was little more than an extension of the university's own excellent public
relations. But, in fact, after I spent several days visiting with Nobel laureates—
researchers who had advanced the science of lasers, discovered new elements,
deciphered the intricate chemistry by which living cells make and store energy—
I changed my mind.
Spending time with these scientists made me appreciate that they were not
super humans. They did not radiate genius as they moved across the room. They
were just people—very smart people, true—with a strong sense of purpose and a
great deal of curiosity about the world around them. And they had all achieved
this moment—a flash of insight, a moment of pure clarity—that had enabled
them to solve a problem and make a discovery that others had missed.
I came to think of genius not as life on a higher plane but as a kind of
lightning strike, that instant when the night is brighter, the air sizzles and glows,
and the surrounding territory is illuminated. So it was with real pleasure that I
read Katherine Ramsland's wonderful book Snap! More than that, I recognized
it. I'd been waiting for someone to really explore and explain my sense of aha!
moments. And I'd been waiting for someone to do it well.
Candidly, I've been a fan of Katherine's work for a number of years now. I met
her when I was working on The Poisoner's Handbook, which is about two
pioneering forensic scientists working during the wild and dangerous days of
Prohibition-era New York. My story focuses on poison killers—to me the coldest
and most dangerous of all murderers because they are plotters and planners.
Katherine's books on serial killers and other murderers helped me figure out how
to describe and explain some of the genuinely deranged characters in my story.
When I received Snap! I thought, Of course! Of course someone who had so
much insight into the human mind—who had worked as a therapist, who had a
graduate degree in clinical psychology—would not only be able to explain the
troubled mind but also to explore what's best and smartest about the way we
think.
Most of us have encountered the idea of an aha! moment before. Many of us
have heard the story of the great Greek mathematician Archimedes leaping out
of his bath and shouting “Eureka!” as he realized the solution to a stubborn
problem. And this book does credit to the history of such ideas, from the insights
of the ancients to the sudden dazzle of recognition by James Watson and Francis
Crick regarding the helical structure of DNA in the mid-twentieth century, and
on to discoveries of our own century.
But what really makes these moments of brilliance so interesting—and so
important—is that they aren't the exclusive property of the Nobel laureates I
interviewed those years ago, nor do they occur only in the famous cases I just
cited. They are, rather, an entirely human attribute—all of us, in fact, have these
snap moments, and for every person they open up different possibilities.
All very encouraging, you might say. But Ramsland asks another question: Is
it possible to improve this potential? What if we sharpen up our memory? What
if we concentrate on staying in the moment, practice the art of mindfulness? Will
we become more adept at recognizing those flashes of insight? And not only
does she ask those questions; she researches the answers, sifts through the
science, and offers some very practical ideas about how we might make this
work.
And here's why I particularly like her approach in this case. You may very
well reach the end of her story and think to yourself: Aha! I feel smarter than I
did before I read this book!
Deborah Blum
Madison, Wisconsin
T
he person to whom I'm most indebted for this book and my writing career is
my agent, John Silbersack, because he urged me to do something unique, and he
fully supported this project. He also gave me several terrific ideas for it.
Second, I thank my editor, Linda Greenspan Regan, for being so enthused
about it.
I'm grateful to several people who assisted me in getting certain facts right,
including Karen Walton, Rodger Berg, Zack Lysek, Lisa Getzler-Linn, Kevin
Sullivan, Sir Alec Jeffreys, Alice Flaherty, and Ruth Osborne. Joel Katz, Dean
Koontz, Rick Arlow, Zach Bloom, George Keeler, John Knific, Tom Carhart,
Tim Marks, Patrick Clasen, and Josh Berman supplied some great personal
stories, and I want to thank Deborah Blum for writing a terrific foreword. I also
appreciate those who read the manuscript: Dean Koontz, John Timpane, and
Shelley Carson.
It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling
of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally
clicks into place. One immediately sees how many previously puzzling
facts are neatly explained by the new hypothesis. One could kick oneself
for not having the idea earlier, it now seems so obvious. Yet before,
everything was in a fog.
—Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit