Fellini once described the creative process as trying to recall a dream. Visual bits and emotional fragments hang on the tip of the mind in clouded form, shifting in and out of clarity, while the dreamer struggles to piece it all back together.

Well, what if it was the inverse of this process for those who are trying to enter a dream? What if the resonation with a piece of art, the finding of one’s own way into its ideas, and the forming of a genuine connection, what if this was just like trying to fall asleep? A mysterious and uncontrollable feat in which all we can do is construct an environment where sleep seems almost inevitable.

Sleep requires our willingness to lie still and close our eyes, but beyond that, something else has to take over. We have to be guided across the subconscious threshold. We cannot force our way into our dreams, and we cannot choose them. Just like we cannot force ourselves to connect with a piece of art or decide what will inspire us. All we can do is construct an environment, be it physical, psychological, or both, in which some form of connection, even to the smallest part of the idea, seems inevitable.

Pair bongo music with a morning run. Pair soft jazz with Christmas dinner. Listen to heavy death metal in the car with all your closest friends on a Friday night. Watch that film on a date, or alone, or with a bottle of wine. Absorb that painting live in a gallery as it towers ten feet above your head. The mode, the context, the way in which we absorb the art is arguably just as important as the art itself.

I recall an insight Jerry Seinfeld once provided about comedy. He tells a story in which the same joke would either receive laughter or silence depending on the way in which he moved his hands during the punchline. If Jerry was calm, the joke would bomb. But if he was just the slightest bit frustrated, the joke would kill. “But it’s the same idea,” Seinfeld notes. The words are unchanged. The concept of the joke remains intact. And yet the absorption of the piece is drastically different when the emotional context is shifted only an inch.

Granted, we don’t want to go to this effort with everything we consume. We don’t want to have to listen to every song twice, in different moods, in order to appreciate it. But just maintaining this mindset, remaining open to anything, sensitive, raw and aware — This is the key.

The will to try is how we grow. How we develop empathy. How we change opinions, cultivate peace, extend love, express self, pursue truth. Yes, it might take you re-experiencing some stuff you find boring. But art is always worth the risk. Because who knows, perhaps in five, ten, fifty years, that initially rejected creation could become an absolute lifeline.