Catch the Big Fish: 10th Anniversary Edition – A Guide to Meditation, Consciousness, and Creative Thinking

SERGIO MORA DIAZ-GUERRA: If you are interested in author’s brief autobiography about his experience in some of his films and process is ok. I was expecting he was going to enter much deeper into meditation reflections and explanations.

United States on Jul 30, 2023

Nelle MercerNelle Mercer: This book is beautifully designed. - such a pleasure to hold in your hand, and the words on the page breathe easily, so read easily. You can open any page and read an interesting bit. I've uploaded a couple passages - for instance, I love Angelo Badalamenti and how he worked with David Lynch... not a big long read, but just enough to capture how much David loved working with him. If you are a David Lynch fan, I would recommend instead of this book, his autobiography/biography ROOM TO DREAM. It's such a creative way to write memories from different points of view. This book leans more heavily on his practice of Transcendental Meditation.

United States on Jun 15, 2023

cblarch: Inspiring, very easy read. Extremely helpful and loving for creative peeps like me.

United States on May 22, 2023

Bill Harvey: 1. The importance of meditation and mindfulness in the creative process

2. The role of intuition and the unconscious mind in creativity

3. The power of visualization and the importance of having a clear vision for a project

4. The value of taking risks and embracing uncertainty in the creative process

5. The importance of remaining true to one's own vision and avoiding the temptation to compromise for the sake of commercial success

6. The role of synchronicity and the interconnectedness of all things

7. The transformative power of art and the ability of creative expression to bring about positive change in the world

8. The importance of maintaining a sense of curiosity and openness to new ideas

9. The power of intention and the impact of our thoughts on our reality

10. The value of a positive attitude and the role of perseverance in achieving success.

United States on Jan 05, 2023

angela: As we age, the thinking goes, we loose much of our gifts, and abilities, and sense. A society where youth prevails likes to promote that thinking. Nevertheless, when we see David Lynch take up, 25 years later, his masterpiece « Twin Peaks », and make, as hard as it is to believe, an even greater work of it, we wonder: How does he do it? Call him a genius? Nowadays we do not believe in such myths any longer. We watch him in the documentary « the art life » and see him at work. And then, by the most elating of hasards, we fall upon this, his book on transcendental meditation, a sort of companion to the documentary mentioned above. Trusting our interest and attention to all things creative, he gives us the secret to his art life, transcendent, unparalleled but how worthy of emulation. He says, if a group of people meditate together, the life of those around them, fourfold as large a community, becomes better, more peaceful. Happier. He gives the aspiring artist, or the aspiring art lover, a treasure of advice, with the generosity meant to convince the reader that it is all within one’s reach. This book is an event that can become one’s transformative...

Canada on Jan 25, 2022

David Tappan: Anyone familiar with Lynch's work would agree it is difficult to imagine how exactly he conjures the images he does. This book gives us a peek into how exactly he does it. This isn't a how-to guide to make David Lynchian copycat films/ art, but a much more potent guide to unlocking your own unique brand of creativity.

As the Buddhist saying goes "A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon."

Catching the Big Fish might require a few read-throughs, but if you fully digest and internalize the lessons here to make them your own, I'm sure you'll come out the end a better artist.

United States on Sep 15, 2021

Konstantin SemionovKonstantin Semionov: Instead of talking about what camera he uses or lens or anything else, David Lynch gives us much more. He shares an abstract process of "fishing for ideas" which has enough space in it to be interpreted and adopted by anyone. Some might say that it is too abstract, but telling people what to do only teaches them one way of thinking, which might not even work for them, instead of figuring out the best way for themselves.

Some very important points in this book, which, if you are creative, could help you achieve more. It's also not necessarily for filmmakers but for musicians, painters, photographers and anyone else who wants to find the creative voice within and start generating ideas.

The book is an almost square shape, and is easy to read at home, but might be a bit challenging on the road.

United Kingdom on Jul 18, 2020

Bernie Gourley: This book consists of a series of topical micro-essays – the shortest being a simple sentence and the longest being a few pages, with the average being about a page. Lynch is most well-known as the director who created such works as “Eraserhead,” “Mulholland Drive,” “Blue Velvet,” and “Twin Peaks.” As the subtitle suggests, the overarching theme of the book is the nexus of meditation and creativity. While many of the essays explicitly touch on how meditation influences consciousness, which in turn influences the creative process, not all of them do. Some of them are more biographical or about the filmmaking process – including discussion of technical considerations (what is the optimal type of camera and how high definition can be too much definition for its own good) and what a neophyte such as myself might call the managerial considerations of movie direction (how to best get one’s vision across through the actors.) Along the way, one glimpses how Lynch shifted from his first artistic love, painting, into the world of cinema.

Lynch is a long-time practitioner of Transcendental Meditation (TM,) which is a mantra-based meditation in which the meditator...

India on Feb 25, 2020

Bodnotbod: Giving this book three stars is a compromise because I'd say it's a two or one for most people on the planet and a four if you're *really*, *really* into David Lynch. I fall into the latter group and so I'm very much willing to forgive the indulgence on display here (although I must add that proceeds from the book go to a charity - even if it is Lynch's own).

It's important to say that this is a short book and most of it is blank. I'm not kidding: a great many of the chapters are less than a page long and chapters only begin on the right-hand page, so many left hand pages are blank. Also, the type is double-spaced and a great deal of room is given to chapter titles which occur at least every four pages and often every two. I don't know what the overall word-count is but it will be fewer than in pretty much every book you own, other than - perhaps - books for children.

Lynch follows - and proselytises for - a specific form of meditation, namely Transcendental Meditation. This is a rather controversial brand (I use the word cheekily) of meditation in that it can (always does?) cost you a lot of money, whereas were you to take up, say, forms of Buddhist meditation you...

United Kingdom on Apr 28, 2018

M. Wenzl: Whenever you're feeling low and in need of a boost, this book is an effective way of raising your spirits. Part-autobiography, part just musings on life, David Lynch brings this small book to life with astute, simple writing, conveying his ideas in a very optimistic way. It's a light read, feel-good and warm, quite the opposite from Lynch's films and art.

The issue that anchors the book is Lynch's focus on Transcendental Meditation. He sells it extremely well, describing its ability to expand the consciousness and one's creativity, TM itself apparently being easy and effortless to learn. However, the one flaw that hampers the book is that while Lynch raves about the benefits of TM, he never explains how it is done, or even how one can become involved in it. So whilst the book is enlightening, at times it's also extremely angering that he's waving this juicy carrott at you, but then cruelly jerks it away. And like a sucker you're expecting him to give it to you. Which he never does. It's odd, since Lynch, a despiser of commercialism, is promoting a concept for which the only way to learn it is through paying an extortionate amount of money for an activity that is supposedly...

United Kingdom on Apr 18, 2008