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Free WritingFree writing - also known as free form, free association or stream-of-consciousness writing - can be used in order to clear the mind in preparation for meditation or as a meditative technique in itself. With this exercise, you write down everything that enters your mind. Structure, grammar, spelling and coherence are not important. The essential factor is to note down everything that comes to you in the moment without censorship or hesitation. This form of writing is not meant to be poetic or wise or even to make sense. (Although if it is poetic, wise and sensible, then it's a bonus.) Free writing, like the free association psychoanalytic method it is based on, may be awkward, angry, embarrassing, uncomfortable or it may be profound, aesthetic or humbling. It could be mundane and ordinary and filled with trivial details. Or it could be cathartic, cleansing and exorcising. You could keep it in a special notebook, type it on your PC, or simply write it on a sheet of paper and rip it up when you have finished. Some creative writers use this technique as a warm up exercise to kickstart their writing sessions. Dorothea Brande in her classic work Becoming a Writer In her book, The Artist's Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self Free form writing gives you the space to unclutter your mind and refocus your thoughts. You don't even have to read over what you have written. Sometimes the act of writing it all out and getting it out of your head is enough. Most of the time though, it is good to read over what you have written as there could be some hidden gems, insights, ideas and solutions buried beneath your random ramblings. Sometimes it can be interesting to look at the symbols and images that crop up in your writing and highlight or underline them noticing whether they are visual or colourful, whether they are related to sounds (auditory) or whether they are related to movement (kinesthetic). Free writing is not only a form of meditation. It can be used as a powerful technique to unleash your creativity and connect you with the hidden parts of your psyche and your imagination.
Read about Reflective Writing.
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developed the exercise of writing down your thoughts upon waking in the morning before getting out of bed. This method is said to allow the conscious writer and the unconscious imagination to meet at the threshold of sleeping and waking.
, Julia Cameron teaches a similar technique to artists and writers called Morning Pages where you write three daily pages of free form writing first thing in the morning by hand.
