drugs and creativity

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Originally Posted by tonywalt

Are you saying that 2 spliffs cured the rather severe bipolar/borderline schizophrenia, based on your own anecdotal evidence? And just to give my post more integrity, I would concede that it is possible the marijuana may ( or may not) benefit those with anxiety - but two joints will not cure you. For what it is worth, I am familiar with what your classmate offered.

We have extensive threads(arguments and shouting) on marijuana.

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See how ridiculous the 'anecdotal evidence' sounds when trying to validate a claim? You're only reiterating my point. Two joints will not cure me, true, and I might have a psychotic relapse. The interesting thing, though, is that besides the two joints, nothing in my dietary/substance intake changed at the time I was introduced to weed. It is difficult to explain how my life could have improved in such a dramatic fashion without considering the POSSIBILITY that weed was a key factor.

Tons of more research with a randomized, broad sample OUTSIDE of a rudimentary 'rat-lab' setting is needed to come to a more comprehensive understanding of the matter. Aside from this, we are left to shout and have pointless arguments founded on inconclusive anecdotes. Until more light is shed, I advocate keeping weed illegal.

You bring up thinking people were chattering about you when they weren't. This is the one thing I still have trouble with. For various reasons people actually do like to whisper about me, something my friends and family have noticed without me even pointing it out. This makes maintaining mental equanimity hard at times. Its a really sick twist of fate that a person with a tendency towards paranoia and instability should have to deal with it. I'd estimate that a third of the perceived attention is real, while the rest is a paranoid fabrication. I try to just laugh it off though.

Interestingly enough, if we unequivocally know that something is bad for us (liberal alcoholic and nicotine intake), we can make it legal and allow members of society to exercise their command of judgement in regards to how badly they wish to screw up their lives with the substance(s). Somehow this makes sense, which I simply don't get.

If we have a substance (weed, of course), which we KNOW has several beneficial aspects, and comparable if not a little less or a little more negative aspects, the negatives COMPLETELY eclipse the positives. The drug is reduced to exaggerative anecdotes that either paint a pretty picture of it (my previous post) or demonize it (Grit's post) and we all become biased babbling baboons.

Lol, I love these types of discussions either way. I need some sort of release from my hectic college life, right?

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

The THC from those joints you smoked left your system quite a while ago. I was diagnosed bipolar as well, but the symptoms just went away. I think a large part of it was blood sugar issues. I get episodic when I'm at an extremely low weight and suffering frequent hypoglycemic attacks. It is the only thing which correlates with my periods of instability. I don't think every diagnosis has life-long ramifications. Some people suffer chronically, some people sort of grow out of it. I wouldn't attribute your positive mental turnaround to that small amount of marijuana you consumed. It could be the result of any number of things. Mental health professionals are nearly universally guilty of underestimating situational factors in a person's psychological condition. When under extreme stress the mind does funny things. Take away those stressors or develop more effective means of coping with them and a person can avoid being symptomatic.

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Great point, Darcy, and as Hypatia_ said it might have just been a placebo affect. Needless to say, the mind is an enigma.

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Originally Posted by Adolescent09

Interestingly enough, if we unequivocally know that something is bad for us (liberal alcoholic and nicotine intake), we can make it legal and allow members of society to exercise their command of judgement in regards to how badly they wish to screw up their lives with the substance(s). Somehow this makes sense, which I simply don't get.

If we have a substance (weed, of course), which we KNOW has several beneficial aspects, and comparable if not a little less or a little more negative aspects, the negatives COMPLETELY eclipse the positives. The drug is reduced to exaggerative anecdotes that either paint a pretty picture of it (my previous post) or demonize it (Grit's post) and we all become biased babbling baboons.

Lol, I love these types of discussions either way. I need some sort of release from my hectic college life, right?

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The fact that Mexican cartel profits are 60 percent derived from marijuana is enough reason for me to advocate for legalization. I myself know of local violent gangsters who make a living from the stuff. Overcrowded prisons are another. And the hypocrisy of alcohol being legal, a drug far more pernicious than weed, is another reason. I haven't smoked pot in 10 years and don't associate with chronic users, but I think it should be a personal choice. Legalize it I say.

I am FOR the legalization of marijuana and think it's for the most part a harmless drug, especially when compared to alcohol or prescription medication.

In what way did my anecdote demonize it? Please do not put words in my mouth.

The link between marijuana and psychosis is pretty solidly substantiated. I am still for legalization but there needs to be more education to warn those with genetic risk factors for mental illness to steer clear of the drug.

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Originally Posted by Grit

I am FOR the legalization of marijuana and think it's for the most part a harmless drug, especially when compared to alcohol or prescription medication.

In what way did my anecdote demonize it? Please do not put words in my mouth.

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I didn't put anything into your mouth. Your whole story about your friend's paranoia because of the excessive weed he smoked strongly suggested that you were against it. Since you attributed his aberrant thoughts to the drug, by claiming that he was not in control of his physical and/or mental being (widely viewed as demonic qualities) you were essentially demonizing the drug. Usually when people want to support a position they cite reasons/personal accounts to support their argument; at they very least they are impartial. You didn't mention a single reason why you supported legalization. What else was I supposed to think?

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Originally Posted by Adolescent09

I didn't put anything into your mouth. Your whole story about your friend's paranoia because of the excessive weed he smoked strongly suggested that you were against it. Since you attributed his aberrant thoughts to the drug, by claiming that he was not in control of his physical and/or mental being (widely viewed as demonic qualities) you were essentially demonizing the drug. Usually when people want to support a position they cite reasons/personal accounts to support their argument; at they very least they are impartial. You didn't mention a single reason why you supported legalization. What else was I supposed to think?

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It was an anecdote like you said, not an argument. I didn't think I needed to clarify that a personal experience was not a universal statement, especially after saying that I know drugs effect everyone differently.

i smoked a joint last night and wrote some poetry. what it made me think about was that doesn't make you creative so much as it relaxes you enough to be able to express yourself more naturally.

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Originally Posted by hypatia_

creative ... to express yourself more naturally

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I have always been under the impression that being able to "express oneself more naturally" is the pure essence of creativity. How do you differentiate between them?

You can express yourself very naturally if you have literary diarrhoea too. That doesn't mean other people would necessarily want to read it.
Pop singers may express their ideas using cliches, which come naturally to some people. But usually it's more creative to want to subvert or avoid them.

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Originally Posted by hypatia_

i smoked a joint last night and wrote some poetry. what it made me think about was that doesn't make you creative so much as it relaxes you enough to be able to express yourself more naturally.

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the question here is about condition. will you able to do the same without the smoke?

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Originally Posted by Adolescent09

I have always been under the impression that being able to "express oneself more naturally" is the pure essence of creativity. How do you differentiate between them?

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What I mean is it doesn't make you creative, it allows you to tap into your natural creativeness. everyone is creative, but most are too tense to relax and use their minds in that way.

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Originally Posted by Silas Thorne

You can express yourself very naturally if you have literary diarrhoea too. That doesn't mean other people would necessarily want to read it.
Pop singers may express their ideas using cliches, which come naturally to some people. But usually it's more creative to want to subvert or avoid them.

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Well thinking your butt-gunk doesn't stink is well... I don't need to finish that sentence, now, do I? Personally, I would rather read a stylistically awful poem that is extremely personal to the poet (a teenage girl writing about the death of her first boyfriend) than some beautifully written nonsense that says nothing about nothing but swears to god it means something (98% of Shakespearean sonnets). I advocate that the attitude one expresses should reflect how they feel.

Get a grip of this: If one person feels they want to butcher someone and eat their heart after the fact (Dahmer claimed to love his victims so much he wanted them to be a part of him) or if another person wants to donate an organ to a cancer patient without ever telling the recipient or seeking credit for the deed (based on a true incident of an organ donor whose former bout with cancer made him love fellow sufferers) the perception of a word (in this case, love) is applicable to a UNIQUE individual. Oh... Is this too "politically INcorrect"? Sorry, but deep down inside we all know it's true. We shouldn't feel the need to model our behavior around hypocritical laws or societal 'duties', but we ALL do it ANYWAY.

Now I know that pretty much everyone on this forum, myself included, would LOVE to think we are so special and perfect because we know how to write a grammatically correct sentence, but there will come a point in time when we realize that the only thing brilliant writing and poetic garble does is inflate our ego. We need to feel relevant, we need to feel like someone actually gives a dam n about us, since in our real lives no one really does give a dam n about us, so we tack on artsy little avatars log onto computers and verbally spew whatever crap comes to our head on a dinky little website. I do it, you do it, we all do it, we are going to continue to do it till we reach our graves or until we develop carpel tunnel from years of typing (whichever comes first) and in the end we will accomplish something SPECTACU... Oh wait, I meant nothing. So, I will continue to be irrelevant and so will everyone else here.

Hm. Did I just type three paragraphs without misspelling more than 7 words??? Two more ego points for me! :D

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Originally Posted by hypatia_

What I mean is it doesn't make you creative, it allows you to tap into your natural creativeness. everyone is creative, but most are too tense to relax and use their minds in that way.

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There is a benefit to being able to relax. Having enough food so one isn't hungry should help creativity also. Overeating is bad for creativity as well.

I think you are correct in saying that drugs don't make one creative. Neither does food. Does anything actually make one more creative? Since we have brain scans today, and can probably point to areas in the brain that can be associated with creativity, and know the brain changes, we might be able to come up with some answers to that. I don't think it is entheogens, whatever other benefits they might have, but it could be some forms of meditation or breathing exercises.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

There is a benefit to being able to relax. Having enough food so one isn't hungry should help creativity also. Overeating is bad for creativity as well.

I think you are correct in saying that drugs don't make one creative. Neither does food. Does anything actually make one more creative? Since we have brain scans today, and can probably point to areas in the brain that can be associated with creativity, and know the brain changes, we might be able to come up with some answers to that. I don't think it is entheogens, whatever other benefits they might have, but it could be some forms of meditation or breathing exercises.

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Yup. meditation and breathing exercises are a way to relax your mind, to calm the hustle and bustle, allowing you to focus. creativity is partially based on focus, though another aspect of it is this interesting sort of "lack of thinking" that enables you to think. i'm sure there's a word for it.

Though i'll agree with most of the above people, who say that one is creative through natural means, I do not know if that is completely possible for all people. Everyone thinks and responds to different stimuli in many different ways. Every experience or emotion or thought or inflection can be deduced down to chemicals in the brain. All drugs, from caffeine to alcohol to LSD, simply serve as artificial neuroreceptors. I think it is most important to look at physical negatives that can come up when trying to use drugs to simulate things that could be established through meditation or other means, but I would agree that some drugs can lead to more creativity in certain cases.

Indeed, it is all within our minds, but different people choose different means for fishing things out of our minds. The choice of which method is best, is certainly up the person.

Myself, I habitually use caffeine as a means for being more creative, or at least a means for motivating myself to be more creative :arf:

EDIT: In terms of what the original poster said:

is drug usage justified as far as art and expressions are concerned?
is it ok to write or indulge arts under the influence if so why?
many claim to have had second comings enlightenement and better expressive powers when writing or visualising art.
one book that comes to mind is ''Clockwork Orange'' written under the influence of opium admittedly by its own author Anthony Burgess.

To answer your first question it is up for debate which particular drugs and uses are justified and I think that differs from person to person

Your second question is a continuation of the first question. Faulkner was a heavy binge drinker, though he often said he rarely drank when he wrote. I do not know of this completely true. Dostoevsky openly admitted to being rather drunk when he wrote the majority of his works, and he would even often edit and peer review his works while drunk. Ken Kesey (One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest) and Jack Kerouac admitted to using psychedelic drugs while writing their books. Certainly, this can also describe many musicians and painters, which pretty much answers your third question.

Again, it is up for debate which drugs are good and which drugs are bad, but I'd argue that a lot of drugs have "helped" many artists and writers in the past.

Any and every drug responds to any and every person differently. The brain is complex. Whether or not some of these terrible substances like alcohol should be illegal does not really have anything to do with the OP's original post. The artistic implications of any and all drugs are a moral decision first and foremost. The implied legality of any of those things will differ from country to country, and means nothing when it comes to whether it is morally "right" to use artificial chemicals like caffeine or alcohol or weed to ingest or create art.

Interesting how legality and morality rarely overlap.

I believe that taking a drug shrugs off the preconceptions, perimeters and restrictions that your own mind creates due to the status quo. Some great literary works which push the boundaries of thought and take you to a whole 'nother level probably would not have done so if they were not drug induced, though the greatest minds can reach that pedestal without taking the shortcut. I believe that when used once in a blue moon drug taking can release you and encourage your wilder side which will come out in any art you create. But taken regularly as a matter of course will cloud your mind to the articulated side of what you are trying to achieve and make it worthless, dulling your wits. Use, not abuse, all in the name of art.

It might be good — after several weeks — to clarify a few issues.

First of all, and unless one is on drugs continuously, dawn to dusk, the notion of writing under the influence is meaningless, trivial, and academic. You write something stoned and read it later. If it has promise you revise it, more likely than not while sober if for no other than mere statistical reasons — like being sober more than one is stoned.

And why must composing high versus straight be framed as a question of better or worse? Perhaps the essential thing is not whether one state or the other is better suited to creative activity, but whether seeing an aesthetic object from two different perspectives might be better than seeing it from one. Long familiarity with a work in progress can make it difficult to see what one is creating as an outsider might — that is, purely as an object of aesthetic contemplation. And sometimes this sort of external, estranged perspective is just what one needs to solve a problem or suggest a new direction. Some folks I have talked to report this "making strange" (as Schkolvsky, the Russian formalist, is sometimes translated) helpful.

And the issue of long term versus short term abuse is important too. The occasional altered state might be conducive to creativity in the short term while habitual abuse might lead to a degeneration of ones creative powers over time.

Okay, I'm bored. Think I'll go smoke a joint.