FNI 5: Word Vomiting

How to bypass your usual word filters. Sometimes when you get asked to word associate or do verbal exercises, your brain freezes and starts to edit out words, you lose the flow and nothing comes out.

Word vomiting is a way to discover words, without having to 'think' of anything. The process is simple. Make a noise, then turn that noise into a word. You can just create random words or put it into a sentence.

This video is a pretty good introduction if you want to see it in action.

Word vomiting is really fun to do on it's own, but you can also use it if you ever feel like you have run out of words. We never run out of noises to make. Try it now and see what comes out.

You will find it sssssluice over your ffffffreak.

And that I cannot deny.

FNI 4: Reading a Poem

This is a classic Keith Johnstone exercise, and here is how you do it.

Reach out and take a book from the shelf, an imaginary book. Hold it, turn it over and look at it, feel the cover. What colour is it? How large and heavy is it? Then flip to a page number and open it. Look at the imaginary page- there is a poem at the top. Read out the title, let the words appear letter by letter as you look at it.

Then once you have the title, read out the poem in the same way. Look at it letter by letter until a word appears. Skip to the next line when one has finished.

You will know when you have got to the end of the poem, because you won't see any more words on the page. You can read as many poems as you like, just flip to another page, read another title and let the rest of the poem.

Tips

Don't think. If you are thinking then you are not seeing. Turn off the clever part of the brain and attend to the imaginary page until you see a letter appear, then see the rest of the word.

FNI 3: Catching Things

This is a nice little brain shakeup exercise, a bit like word association, except you are using imaginary physical and visual cues in order to find things in your brain. You can do it sitting at your desk or walking around the room. Walking around the room is probably better because it will free up your movement.

So just move around and then open your hand and catch something in it, feel it, see it and then say what it is. Keep walking around and catching new things in your hand and telling yourself what they are.

Tips

Don’t stare at your hand and struggle, just say something. If you keep catching birds, then keep catching birds until something new comes up. Relaxing and repeating yourself is actually a great way to get your brain to provide you with something else. Staring in vain at your hand and beating yourself up is the perfect way to shut off any ideas. The more you do, the less you think. And the less you think the more you can so. So stop thinking, just catch.