Abstract: A computerized aid to creativity and problem solving to help speed up the creative process using an interactive database comprised of two major parts, or functions. The first part is a database of several thousand questions for clarifying the task, modifying ideas, and evaluating goals, ideas, and outcomes. The second part is a database or more than 60,000 words and phrases expressing the shared concepts of a particular culture, namely American, and more than 650,000 idea associations-to which any number of a user's personal, idiosyncratic connections can be added. The invention utilizes principles of association, memory retrieval, and analogical reasoning. Whether taken literally or as figures of speech, the two databases prompt a user to make his or her own connections by reminding the user of thoughts, feelings, experiences, facts, and images stored so deeply in memory that they normally cannot be retrieved at will.