Hi Mike,
When you think about science as an epistemological undertaking, the role of 'creativity' is IRONICALLY the foundation of it! What I mean is that the mental process of making a scientific hypothesis comes from pure imagination or a leap of intuition or even from conjecture... after which the rational resumes total control of the process. It’s amazing that the most crucial first-step in all of science, the heart of the scientific method itself (the hypothesis) —comes from something so shrouded in mystery!
Einstein kept saying it over and over: the key to his genius was his IMAGINATION.
Side note: Einstein underwent a neural autopsy after his death and although his brain was found to be of average size, there were more convoluted gyri (more folds in the gray matter) and a slightly hypertrophic corpus callosum (bigger left-right bridge). The greater number of folds is associated with more synaptic pathways (‘brainpower’) and the thicker corpus callosum (which I believe is represented in your vision-- I'll explain...) is known to be linked to "complex creativity" but can also associated with eccentricity.
About your vision:
If you accept a naturalistic (non-supernatural) view of things, visions are like dreams in that they are active processes of (sub)consciousness (although they are not volitional acts) that sneak up into our awareness with a life of their own-- so the trick is to be able to unravel the significance of your own visions as they relate to the waking stream of sense data that your subconscious has not yet fully processed. The subconscious works at a different temporal pace as well, so the answer to a problem can come (for example) when you just wake up-- because the subconscious had all night to mull it over and incorporate it into the beta dream state.
Within the Jungian concept of the "collective unconscious" is the idea of ‘universal (ie. anthropocentric) symbols’ that have the same meaning to people within a specific culture.
Some of them are obvious, some of them are cryptic-- all of them are (at best) educated guesses.
Your vision seems pretty cryptic (at first), but I will take an educated guess on it (based on one part undergraduate pyschology, one part postgraduate neurophysiology, and two parts BS):
The two large figures represent yourself, or the two complementary sides of yourself. The fact that they radically changed size in the course of your vision indicates that although your concept of ‘self’ is stable, the manifestations of ‘self’ is quite dynamic. Freud recognized dualistic patterns in concepts of self. (Id/ ego). ‘Duality’ is a deep anthropocentric theme. We have two eyes, two arms, masculine/ feminine, day and night, birth and death, yin and yang. We are bilaterally symmetrical-- we accept that as unquestionably "normal" but exobiologists (who hypothesize about life elsewhere in the universe) will point to all kinds of possible life-forms with multiple axes of symmetry. The concept of ‘duality’ is a very human one.
The two dials in the sky could represent the correlates of left brain/ right brain hemispheres-- the logical brain and the creative brain. Or some other duality like rational/ spiritual. The fact that the figures were holding hands would indicate a good integration between the two sides, which may represents a strong corpus callosum (that’s the only neural bridge connecting the two brain hemispheres) and there’s a significant variance in our population of the thickness of the neural bus at that locus. So it says that your subconscious is somehow recognizing or possibly desiring a harmony between your analytic side and your creative side, or your rational side and your spiritual side.
A final duality in your vision is the divided earth, which in the Jungian (and Freudian view) represent the body... the physicality of our being. I think that you have actually superimposed this on your first duality (happens in dreams all the time) so that the divided earth represents your mind and body (the former is ‘human’, the latter is ‘non-human’). And your ‘mind’ is then divided into the two figures (rational/ spiritual or analytic/ creative).
The harmony of all of these elements at the end of your vision (mind "taking care" of the body gently, the body "not polluting the mind", etc.) therefore represents the transcendental state of complete harmony of between the mind, body and spirit triumvirate. You imply that this has not yet fully occurred-- although it seems that you express hope that it one day will!
Have a great day,
Kyle
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