A good way to turn your mental attic of experiences into a treasure room is to use trigger concepts - words that will spark a fresh association of ideas in your mind. Like pebbles dropping in a pond, they stimulate other associations, some of which may help you find something new.
He writes in A Whack on the Side of the Head about various cultures having oracles. The ancient Greeks used the ambiguous predictions of the Delphic Oracle, the Chinese used the I Ching, the Egyptians consulted the Tarot, the Scandinavian people used Runes and the North American Indians used Medicine Wheels. The purpose of these oracles was not so much to foretell the future but to help the user delve deeper into their own minds.
You can create your own oracle by doing three things:
1. Ask a question. This focuses your thinking. Perhaps you should write your question to focus attention.
2. Generate a random piece of information. Random selection is important, as the unpredictability of this new input will force you to look at the problem in a new way.
3. Interpret the resulting random piece of information as the answer to your question.
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