Sarah Lolley
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This is Your Brain on Cryptics

7/28/2014

4 Comments

 
PictureA quiet afternoon ski on Mont Royal.
When I'm stuck on a problem and can't think my way to the answer, often the smartest thing I can do is to leave it alone.

I
put on my runners, or in the winter, my cross-country skies, and I go for a long trek.

I don't know if it's the abundance of fresh air, the lack of other voices, the unobstructed views, or the lulling repetition of putting one foot in front of the other but before long the tight knots of the problem loosen and the answer I was seeking floats up into my mind. In the past, I've used this technique to work through creative writing problems -- primarily those that crop up when I'm working on a personal essay -- but I've discovered recently that it applies to solving and setting cryptics, too.


When my father, who taught me cryptics, gets stuck on a puzzle, he turns his mind over to what he calls The Committee of Sleep. He finds that after a good night's rest (he is one of those lucky people for whom there is rarely any other kind), he can immediately see answers to which he was blinded the night before. Within a few minutes of picking the puzzle back up in the morning, the grid is filled.

The New Yorker ran a piece about this phenomenon in 2012 in an article entitled "The Virtues of Daydreaming". In it, psychology professor Jonathan Schooler of the University of California at Santa Barbara is quoted as saying that "if you’re trying to solve a complex problem, then you need to give yourself a real break, to let the mind incubate the problem all by itself."
Picture
Cryptic crosswords can have the opposite effect, too, of course: they can absorb our attention so completely that we tune out everything else. In fact, an acquaintance was telling me recently that when she is seized by a vicious migraine headache, focusing her attention on a puzzle will often keep the pain in check.

What is your brain like on cryptics?
When a puzzle has you stumped, how do you get "unstuck"?
And do you ever use puzzles as a welcome distraction?

4 Comments
Crypticrochet link
7/28/2014 08:23:04 am

I remember that article. I think when we're confronted with a brick wall of a clue - or anything we want a positive outcome from once we figure out its secrets - we reach a point of frustration. That frustration, if endured for too long, leads to an onset of fight or flight and in that state the mind shuts down - it can only fight or run away. Staying there fighting through the challenge only exacerbates the frustration. The brain won't function on that task, it can't. You have only one route: run away.

Not forever mind, we shouldn't quit. We need to get our bearings. Let that frustration subside. Have a cup tea, Go for a walk (or ski?) rip some weeds out of the garden - they deserve death. Go back to something we know and are comfortable with, get the brain back into peace and it will be free to function again. Tied up in angry knots, no one can focus. Our brains are telling us to run - it's chemical. Not cowardice, sloth, ineptitude or weakness. It's that damned medulla oblongata - the old primal brain. It doesn't know a crossword from a charging lion.

Best solution for me is the garden and walking the beach - outside. Away from the stressor. In knitting and crochet I come against lots of gaps in my skills. There is an enormous international support group, videos, tutorials, best practices to shared for all. In crosswords - not so much. It's taken me four years to teach myself crochet and knitting from a total beginner and I think I'm at an expert level now. Having taken advantage of all the support and information available. Monthly meetings with like minded people all keen to share knowledge. In learning cryptic crosswords, it's been much harder. Finding the support while coming up against wall after wall? That's been a lesson in patience. Now I'm finding the support and trying to create more.

Daydreaming, in my opinion, becomes part of the come down after the fight or flight response. An imagined escape from an imagined threat. It's the remedy for creatives.

Reply
Sarah
8/4/2014 01:53:51 am

I'd never thought of "the block" as a form of flight-or-fight response for two reasons. First, it is born of frustration; not physical threat. Second, it isn't associated with the surge of adrenaline that the brain commands when mobilizing to either start swinging for the fences or get the hell out of there.

Recently, though, I've heard of a third "f" being added to the mix: freeze. When the body is under threat, we can fight, we can flee, but we can also freeze and do neither of these. Maybe that's the option our brains are taking when they become blocked. And maybe frustration *is* a form of "intellectual threat". It wouldn't be one our primal brain recognizes, but maybe it's there just the same.

Food for thought.

Reply
Vaughan link
7/31/2014 06:25:23 pm

I think my approach to crosswords is similar to other creative work- if I put enough time in thinking (or letting myself daydream), the solution will come. The difference with crosswords for me is that I like to be looking at the clues and the grid (memory like a goldfish), whereas with thorny musical problems that require true creativity I can hold the problem better in my head. But if I spend enough time staring at a crossword, I will get it out. Usually, though, the next crossword arrives before the other one is finished.

Reply
Sarah
8/4/2014 01:58:24 am

I know what you mean about being able to hold creative problems in mind versus needing the grid to allow the mind to turn over a cryptic clue. I'm the same way. What works best for cryptics is to concentrate on the grid intently for a while, then have some daydream time, then return to the black-and-white thinking.

Of course, from time to time, the answer is a word I've never heard of or a piece of trivia I would never have known.

Sometimes, though, I'm treated. No sooner had I read "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell than the word "amanuensis" appeared in my regular Saturday crossword. The satisfaction at knowing that new word was so great that I can still feel it two years later.

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    About Sarah

    I'm a writer, adventurer, amateur setter of cryptic crosswords, lover of "ah-ha!" moments, and exhausted mom.

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