Cannabis and Creativity: Shyness, Meet Your Highness

Shyness can be both a curse and a blessing, which may explain the love-hate relationship introverts have with creativity.

On the one hand, introverts may be sensitive and inclined toward artistic expression; on the other, they may battle demons and fears, which can inhibit their creative expression.  They may choose to turn off the chatter from their right side of the brain and become habitual blockers of their imagination.

Cannabis in modest amounts can calm our anxieties and keep our critical voices at bay. It can unleash creativity streams that introverts might otherwise ignore.

Ssshing Your Critical Voice

According to the writer Jonah Lehrer, studies show that introverted students tend to exert more mental energy suppressing spontaneous associations, trying to quell the pesky voices inside their heads.

Despite this, being introverted is certainly not a curse — in fact, since it exists in profuse amounts in highly creative people like actors and artists, it may be a blessing.

Cannabis and Creativity: Court Chaos!

Court Chaos!

Do not be troubled by the loose associations and disjointed thoughts that occupy your mind while you’re high. Embrace them. A new order–a different perspective, a deeper understanding–will emerge from the chaos and reveal itself to you.

http://www.enchantedmind.com/html/science/creative_chaos.html

Cannabis & Creativity: Writers on Weed

Bayard Taylor was an American poet, literary critic–hold it right there! Bayard? Yeah, apparently that was his name. Back in the day, like the 19th century.

Besides his funky name, you gotta love the way they wrote back then. The words may be different from what we’re accustomed to, but the theme and message remain the same, a constant over time. Here he is describing an encounter with hashish:

My journey was that of a conqueror–not of a conqueror who subdues….either by Love or by Will, for I forget that Man existed—but one victorious over the grandest as well as the subtlest forces of Nature…Light, Color, Odor, Sound, and Motion were my slaves.

Cannabis & Creativity: “Society”

Society’s critical voice can destroy our creative potential. Sometimes we just need to get away from society. Christopher McCandless, whose heartbreaking story is told in the book/movie “Into the Wild,” was not alone in seeking to extricate himself from the boxes that bind. Can you relate to his desperate need to escape society’s petty and small-minded judgments? Here’s to the free spirits out there.

Cannabis & Creativity: “They get it, but do we?”

The Japanese–those left brain autoton conformists!–don’t have a creative bone in their body, or at least that’s the story portrayed in our popular culture. In fact, if this video is any indication, the Japanese are way ahead of the curve. This enlightened PSA does more than promote creativity in children; it places the responsibility where it should be — on the grownups, who are in a position to help liberate our creative impulse…or to destroy it.

Cannabis & Creativity: “A Friend with Weed is Better”

A friend in need is a friend indeed
A friend with weed is better.
A friend with breast and all the rest
A friend who’s dressed in leather.
A friend in need is a friend indeed
A friend who’ll tease is better.
Our thougts compressed which makes us blessed and makes for stormy weather.

Cannabis & Creativity: Increasing Your Idea Pool

 

On Hyperpriming…from Jonah Lehrer, one of the best at translating the science piece so that the non-scientists among us, like me, can readily understand.

“A new paper published in Psychiatry Research sheds some light on this phenomenon, or why smoking weed seems to unleash a stream of loose associations. The study looked at a phenomenon called semantic priming, in which the activation of one word allows us to react more quickly to related words.”

Read article in its entirety:

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/03/marijuana_and_divergent_thinki.php

Cannabis & Creativity: What’s This Passion For?

“My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery – always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?” Virginia Woolf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_woolf

Cannabis & Creativity: “Short and Sweet”

Ann Druyan, film maker, author, scientist, activist…and wife of the late Carl Sagan. Watch her nail it in 12 seconds flat!

Read More:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Druyan

Cannabis & Creativity: Inspiration from Pink Floyd

Teachers and employers will talk until they’re blue in the face about the importance of creativity and the need to “think outside the box.” They say all the right things, but do they mean it? Or do they fear what will happen if they unleash your creative powers? For the answer, we turn to Pink Floyd.