You may need to use all three approaches, and each has its own language patterns. To chunk down. ask the question: 'What provides an example of that?' Keep repeating the question and see how far you can go. To chunk up, ask the question: 'What does that exemplify?' or 'What purpose does that have?' Again, see how far you can chunk up any word or concept. Laterally, 'What provides another example?' or 'How many can you think of?' Just by exploring the issue within a hierarchy of ideas - the big picture, the significant detail - you will access more ideas and insights.
Uptime and Downtime
Our inner world also forms a thinking spectrum, or continuum. At one end of the spectrum we think and act with alertness and focus externally, as when in conversation with another person. At the other end we enter our own thoughts, daydreams and inner world of reality. The former we term uptime, and the latter downtime, of which dream sleep (or, in the extreme, a coma) provides an example.
We constantly move up and down this thinking spectrum. At one moment we relate to everything around us and respond very consciously to sensory representations. A moment later we may reflect on something, recalling a memory or imagining a future scenario and thus go into downtime. Even when driving a car or doing something that appears to require great concentration we can enter a down-time world of our own, running on 'auto-pilot' and relying on habitual, unconscious behaviour.
