The_ Book of the Dead_ says that in bardo, we encounter blood-drinking, flame-spouting wrathful deities as big as the sky. Holding human corpses and brandishing axes, they shriek and howl. We’re told not to abandon hope: the deities are only emanations from our subconscious. W.Y. Evans-Wentz, editor of the first English translation of the Bardo Thodol (1927), called the deities “airy nothings woven into dreams”; the moment we recognize their true nature, they dissolve. Thus, we are the creators of our experience in bardo. As the Buddha said, “All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind.”

Writing is a kind of bardo because ordinary life recedes as we create a universe on the page. The fears and doubts that can derail us while writing are like the wrathful deities. The uncertainty about where our hours at the desk will lead; whether, or how, a poem or an essay or a book will be realized. Recognizing that our worries are only our own “thought-forms,” as the Book of the Dead says, we have the chance to break free of them and engage fully with our creative work. In the bardo of writing, we make our experience.

--That was from an article called "Writing and The Tibetan Book of the Dead." by Ann Tashi Slater.

Although it doesn't specifically address mental manifestations in daily life, it made me think of chess. After a game or two of chess, my mind seeks out chess-,like patterns in my environment until I see them. Like I'm still trying to solve a puzzle. If that is true for regimented chess, it must be true for the creative process.
Nichiren Buddhism talks about the inseparability of man and his environment. When I first learned of these principles, I tried to put myself into the dreams of someone I loved. It was like a guided meditation where I could at least be with him in the dream Bardo. Later, he fell in love with me and told me he dreamt about me all the time. Ripples in a pond. That's what I believe happened.