There are many things we can learn from the life and work of filmmaker David Lynch.

Lynch was a true artist who embodied many of the themes I write about here on Adventures of the Mind: purpose, meaning, psychological insight, and spiritual growth.

What made Lynch most unique was his approach to creativity and how he merged personal growth practices, such as meditation, with his pursuit of creating true art.

I’ll be honest: when I was first introduced to Lynch’s films, I didn’t get them. There are some more accessible works like Blue Velvet and the first two seasons of Twin Peaks, but much of his work leans heavily into surrealism, often at the expense of a coherent narrative. At the time, I couldn’t see what anyone would get out of it.

Take the disturbing mutant baby from Eraserhead. This is a great example of a sequence many find off-putting. It’s confusing, somewhat disgusting, and it doesn’t make much logical sense.

We have been trained as viewers to respect logical cause and effect in stories. This is how we interpret meaning. Our left-brained culture convinces us that logical analysis is the only way to understand reality. We therefore assume that anything not designed to be comprehended in this way is automatically bad or worthless. When we sit down to watch a film, we want to follow the action and understand the why behind events. Lynch’s work often rejects these expectations, leaving audience members in the dark, and people generally do not like being left in the dark.

So what’s the deal?

Here’s a key point to understanding Lynch’s approach to creativity:

He believes the truest art, the kind capable of transformation, is created and understood through feeling, intuition, and insight — not logic.

David Lynch’s entire career as an artist was based around this premise.

As explorers of the mind, it is vital that we understand what makes this approach to creation so powerful.

Deep into the mind

Lynch spent most of his adult life practising Transcendental Meditation. In various interviews and in his book, he explained that this practice changed his life, both as a human and as an artist. It gave him the tools to become a better, less angry, more well-rounded person. It also allowed him to explore below the surface of his conscious mind and to fish the ideas that lurked there.

So what exactly is Lynch talking about here?

The first thing to understand is that we all have access to different degrees of consciousness. Through various methods, we can turn a theoretical dial and tune into different states, experiencing reality from that place.

The state of consciousness we’re all familiar with is standard waking consciousness combined with a logical, analytical framework. This is the everyday experience of life.

However, this is just one of many possibilities.

For example, most of us know what it is like to drink alcohol and shift into another state of consciousness where our perception of the world takes on a slightly different shape and flavour. An intoxicated reality is not the same as it would be when sober. We think differently, we process events differently.

An even better example is the dream state. We dream and find ourselves in a foreign reality that defies much of the familiar.

These are just two of the many possible states available to us. Most of which the average person doesn’t realize are accessible.

Lynch’s practice of meditation allowed him to go deeper into his own mind, enter another state of consciousness, and uncover images, sequences, or insights that would not have been as accessible in a normal waking state.

As someone who has also practised a fair amount of meditation, I’m familiar with the creative possibilities of entering these deeper states. You suddenly become aware of the operation of your own mind. Images that rise up from somewhere beyond your normal thinking process. It feels as if the source of all creativity is offering up these scenes without any conscious input from you.

Even if you have not meditated much, you have almost certainly had dreams that provide a similar experience. The images, emotions, and narratives of your dreams are not consciously thought up. They are revealed to you as deeper aspects of your psyche, a part of who you are. Often, they are emotionally powerful and trigger intuitive wisdom. They do not follow cause and effect but experiential truths.

Cinema, and other forms of audio-visual storytelling, are perfect for capturing and expressing dreams in the concrete waking state because their structure mirrors those dream-like experiences. This is why Lynch was so passionate about the medium.

Catching fish

Lynch refers to this deep creative source as the unified field. He describes it as a vast sea of possibility where new forms emerge as idea fragments. Delving down into it and waiting for ideas to emerge is akin to going fishing. With patience you’ll eventually hook a juicy idea worth bringing back up to the surface.

The deeper you go into unconscious territory, and the more time you spend there, the better chance you’ll have of catching the inception of a powerful idea that can later be expressed in creative work.

With this in mind, aspiring artists would be wise to consider how they can access these deeper states and how doing so may benefit their work.

Lynch refers to the most powerful ideas pulled from the unified field as big fish. These are the stand out images, sounds, feelings, or scenes. They are emotionally heavy and meaningful for both the artist and future audiences.

Many of the memorable sequences found in Lynch’s films were likely first pulled from the unified field. These are the big fish. The moments that have had a lasting impact. The surreal combination of visual and audio that linger long after the film is over.

Lynch stresses the need to protect the purity of the best ideas from the corrupting nature of the world. A big fish may start as a spark, a vague feeling or image, but with proper care, it can grow into an idea that stands on its own. The risk is that these ideas can lose their initial power if their essence is forgotten or if they are exposed to overthinking and logical analysis. Attempting to force the spark of a big idea into a rational framework is a mistake. Instead, Lynch speaks of letting the idea gain mass on its own, becoming something true.

And this, I believe, explains why Lynch’s work is the way it is. Why its originality and strangeness equally attract and repel audiences. Why some people swear by his art, while others view it as pretentious posturing.

Those who feel into the emotional logic pervading Lynch’s work are profoundly affected by it. They intuit meaning that bypasses left-brained reasoning and conventional story expectations. There’s an uncanny recognition, beyond language, as if the big fish scenes touch a primal aspect of humanity, or even reveal an archetype of reality itself.

“Life is filled with abstractions, and the only way we make heads or tails of it is through intuition. Intuition is seeing the solution— seeing it, knowing it. It’s emotion and intellect going together.” - David Lynch

Take the famous diner scene in Mulholland Drive. Two men sit in a quiet Los Angeles diner, one describes a recurring nightmare about a terrifying figure lurking behind the building. They step outside to confront the man’s fear of the dream. As they edge closer, tension builds until a monstrous face suddenly appears from behind the wall. The familiar and the horrifying collide. It makes little logical sense, yet it lands with a strange kind of truth. It’s as if you’ve experienced a similar break in reality before and yet can’t quite put your finger on what it is.

These moments explain the divisive popularity of David Lynch’s films and why his work is often seen as groundbreaking. Those who go beyond conditioning and are able to open themselves up the experience are rewarded with catharsis. These viewers become Lynch fans. They’re using the medium of cinema to open themselves up to deeper truths about the human condition. Moments of surrealism begin to feel familiar despite the surface-level ambiguity, an ambiguity that defines Lynch’s creative process.

The pleasure of mystery

Mystery runs through almost everything Lynch created during his career. It was not just used a storytelling device, but became the essence of his worlds.

“I love going into another world, and I love mysteries.” — David Lynch

The reason we’re so drawn to mystery is that our own lives are born out of mystery. We have no idea how we got here, where we’re going, or what any of this is really about. Mystery is at the forefront of the human condition. Lynch understands this and taps into it to engage his audience.

For Lynch, mystery is not necessarily a puzzle to be solved as much as it is a space to dwell in, a reality to bask in. Mystery and creativity are similar in that they are not optional qualities that can be picked up and down at will, but are the very things that make life what it is, and Lynch’s work is all about exploring that.

What this means is that mystery is infused into the process of creation, and this is where the magic happens. The elements of the story reveal themselves to Lynch in the same mysterious way life reveals itself to us, and this comes across in the final piece.

It leads to an organic form of storytelling. Nothing is imposed on the story. Its structure unfolds by way of the ambiguous images plucked from the unconscious. This approach keeps the work alive, fluid, and lifelike rather than left to shrivel into one of the stale formulas that many stories rely on. A mystery-first approach is unique, and it is part of the reason his work is so special.

So while many people criticise Lynch for being too ambiguous or nonsensical, they are actually criticising the very thing that makes his work so powerful. The ambiguity of his scenes and images is not a bug but a feature. They harness the human gravitation toward mystery, the thirst for deep understanding.

Without mystery, life would be dull. It is the unexplainable that makes things interesting, that keeps us searching. The same is true for Lynch’s films. The pleasure comes from interpreting, from sitting with the not-knowing, from coming into contact with something strange yet faintly recognisable.

Light and shadow

Lynch was big on playing with contrasts and textures, especially light and shadow. Not only was there a shadowy aesthetic to much of his work, but he was also unafraid to explore some of the darkest aspects of the human experience within the themes of his narratives.

For Lynch, light and darkness are two sides of the same coin. One cannot be fully appreciated without the other. This duality, along with many other positive and negative contrasts, allows his creative work to transcend the artificial and tap into something true.

It can be tempting to ignore the darkness, to push away the shadows. We do not like to think about these things, and we certainly do not want to experience them. But to ignore the shadow side of reality is a mistake that leads to repression.

Instead, Lynch treats these darker elements not with judgment and fear, but with curiosity. He is interested in exploring the darkness because this is what makes a work of art real and compelling. It also forces the viewer to wrestle with these shadow elements and begin integrating them into their own lives.

In Depth Psychology, particularly in the work of Carl Jung, this is known as Shadow Work: the intentional integration of the darker aspects of the psyche so they can be harnessed to make the individual whole.

Lynch understood that the duality between light and darkness is an essential part of the human experience. Exploring and integrating both sides is required for a healthy psyche, and therefore, approaching the creation of art in this way not only resonates with audiences but is the duty of the artist.

A creative legacy

What many of his fans, including myself, find most inspirational about Lynch is his uncompromising view of what it means to live the art life. Lynch believed in creativity not as a means to an end, but for its own sake.

He walked the walk. His love for creativity and his artistic integrity are responsible for works that will inspire generations to come.

In a world that often sidelines art and creativity as frivolous pursuits, artists like David Lynch are vital. These rare individuals, who dedicate themselves to the art life, become a symbol of not only what it means to be a true artist, but also an explorer of the mind.

Lynch teaches us that logic can only take us so far when it comes to understanding ourselves and our place in reality. He teaches us to be honest, authentic, and faithful to our experience. He shows us that the deepest, unexplored recesses of the mind are not only fertile ground for creative revelations, but that they might hold the very secrets that can unify and move us toward a final vision of human wholeness.

Ben Worrall