Stimulating serendipity requires us to be sensitive to our environment. We need to be alert and aware, notice changes, observe others, make connections, and recognize opportunities.
We use perception to understand our environment, and our senses are how we provide the raw data needed for perception.
Our powers of perception are critical to stimulating serendipity, and perception is driven by sensory input. Therefore, we can elevate our powers of perception by improving the quality of sensory data we gather.
We don’t have to improve our vision to improve our perception of what we see. Two people can walk into a room together, one with excellent vision and the other with poor vision, and the person with poor vision may notice and remember many more things about the environment than the other person.
With practice, we can improve our senses.
Elevating our senses to a higher level of performance is a useful practice for developing the property of mindfulness, as discussed in my 7 Serendipity Strategies post.
The first Physician-in-Chief of Johns Hopkins Hospital, William Osler, said, “Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.”
Practice focused sensory awareness
One of the most basic and effective ways to rehearse the senses is simply to focus on them as they gather new information.
A good time to do this is when there is a change in your environment, such as when you first enter or leave a building or room, or when you exit a vehicle.
In most cases, an environmental change will automatically involve the senses of sight, sound, and smell. Taste and touch will usually require more intentional engagement.
Try these simple exercises to help focus on your sensory input:
- Sight. What is the first thing you notice in the new environment? What color is it? What are its physical properties? What is the dominant color in this new environment? How many different colors do you see? Is there anything in this environment that seems unusual or out of place? Are there any noticeable patterns in this environment?
- Sound. What is the first thing you hear in the new environment? Is it a sound you frequently hear? Is it unique to this environment? What are the tonal qualities of this sound? How many different sounds do you hear? Are there any sounds you can’t easily identify?
- Smell. What is the first thing you smell in the new environment? Does the smell remind you of a past experience? Can you easily identify the smell? Does the environment have a pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral smell? Are there several different smells in the environment? How many can you identify? As you move about the environment, do the smells change?
- Touch. What does the surface beneath your feet feel like in the new environment? Do you feel any sensation on your skin? Can you feel noticeable heat or cold? Is there air movement, or is it still? Touch an object in this environment. What is its texture? Does it feel like you thought it would? Does it have curves, corners, or edges?
- Taste. There might not be anything to taste in a new environment, so this can be done anytime you are tasting something. But taste some food or beverage. Can you easily classify it as sweet, sour, or bitter? Is it a familiar taste? Can you identify any particular flavors or seasonings? Is there an aftertaste? If it’s something new to you, does the flavor remind you of anything else?
Practice thinking with your eyes by looking “for” instead of “at”
In an article published in the Journal of Creative Behavior, Rosemary Gaymer explains that being observant is more than just passively seeing. It requires actively directing the eyes’ focus and actively and consciously noticing things.[1]
She further explains that directionless ocular activity is unproductive. We must also consciously choose focus, deliberately activate types of attention to the subject, and sequentially switch our attention between different aspects of the visual target.[2]
Gaymer maintains that we must be conscious of thinking with our eyes. As she explains:
As long as we look “at,” we are not exercising observation. but are being passive. To observe we need to be actively looking “for” something, whether or not we know what is being sought. Serendipity generally does not occur for the unobservant.[3]
She also includes several methods we can use to help improve our observational skills. The following exercises are adapted from her article.[4]
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Practice seeing new things and seeing things from a different perspective
Noticing changes in our environment and being able to see things from varying perspectives is essential for opportunity recognition.
Of course, the practical application of these skills to serendipity stimulation goes beyond simple visual observation. But improving our sensory awareness in these areas still helps train our brain to make these types of connections.
You might find some of these techniques helpful:
- Choose a new vantage point. Look at the same type of environment from different heights. This is fairly easy to do in multi-level buildings with a large central atrium. For example, you can choose a stationary vantage point on the first floor and watch passersby on the second floor, then move to the third floor and view the same second-floor activity from an elevated perspective.
- Look for the new among the familiar. When you enter a space with which you have a high degree of familiarity, look for things that weren’t there the last time. Also look for things that are no longer there from your last visit.
- Seek guidance. Visit a museum or historical attraction that offers both guided and self-guided tours. On your first visit, go it alone. A week or two later, go back and take the guided tour. See how many things the guide points out that you missed on your solo visit.
- Take the long way home. Take a different walking route between two common starting and ending points. Notice the similarities and differences from the things you see along your normal route. If you feel comfortable walking along railroad tracks, this is a great way to see the “backside” of otherwise familiar urban territory.
Learn from Leonardo
In his book, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, Michael J. Gelb introduced the Seven da Vincian Principles, which he named in Italian. These principles were drawn from intensive study of Leonardo’s notebooks and methods.
One of these, sensazione, is the continual refinement of the senses to enliven experience.
Da Vinci said, “An average human looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odor or fragrance, and talks without thinking.”
Leonardo had extraordinary vision, and he placed particular emphasis on the power of sight. So, it’s no surprise that his greatest discipline was painting. He was also a talented singer and musician.
But he championed the refinement of all the senses. He preferred to have musical accompaniment when he painted. He loved the feel of wearing the finest silks and velvets that he could afford. He would fill his studio with the scent of perfumes and fresh flowers. And his passion for the culinary arts allowed him to refine his sense of taste.[5]
We could take a cue from Leonardo and try to make our workspaces more aesthetically uplifting.
We can experiment by listening to different types of music to find out what makes us more focused and relaxed while we work. We can introduce fragrance to our workspace with fresh flowers, fragrant herbs, or essential oil diffusers. We can make our workspace more visually stimulating by frequently changing artwork and other decorative elements.
Gelb also describes several types of sensory exercises similar to those I have discussed above. But he goes on to mention the benefit of cultivating synesthetic awareness.
Synesthesia is a crossing over of the senses, such as hearing color or seeing sound. Or perhaps perceiving certain letters and numbers to have their own color or flavor.
People born with this ability are known as synesthetes. But there is some research that suggests non-synesthetes can be trained in this skill.
Gelb suggests that an easy way to get started is to simply practice describing one sense in terms of another. Here are a few exercises he recommends:[6]
- Draw music: Listen to a piece of music you like. Externalize your sensory impressions of the music by drawing the shapes and colors that come to mind as you listen.
- Make sounds of color: Look at a painting. Try to vocalize the sounds that shapes, colors, and textures inspire.
- Shape the invisible: Try a multisensory sculpting exercise. Listen to one or more of your favorite musical pieces and imagine sculpting them. What shapes would you make? What materials would you use? What colors would you choose? How might the music taste or smell?
- Make transpositions: Transpose the work of visual and auditory artists. If Salvador Dali were a singer or musician, who might he be? If Rembrandt were a composer, who might he be? If Tchaikovsky were a painter, who might he be? If Banksy or Basquiat were musicians, who would they be? If Mary J. Blige (who claims to be a synesthete) were a visual artist, who might she be?
Researchers at the University of Sussex implemented a nine-week training regime in which non-synesthetic participants associated 13 letters of the alphabet with specific colors. By the end of their training, the participants were able to pass a range of tests intended to demonstrate genuine synesthesia.[7]
However, when participants were retested three months later, much of their synesthetic capabilities had faded.[8] So, even though non-synesthetes might not ever fully gain the permanent ability to experience the world as natural synesthetes do, practicing synesthetic awareness can still help us heighten our general sensory awareness.
