I'll have a prescription for creativity ......

.....with a side order of madness, please!

Picasso

     While I was having coffee and a "Stumble"   (stumbleupon.com), I came across this fascinating psychology article about the connection between creativity and madness. Have you ever heard that many of the most creative people also border on crazy? I have been working to unleash my creativity and thought maybe something in this article would inspire me. Shelly Carlson at Harvard has been testing her higher IQ students' creativity and comparing it to their ability to block out useless distractions such as sound and light. The reason is that too  much coming in can overload the mind and make your brain glitch! This blocking is called Latent Inhibition.

Van Gough

     The most interesting thing about it is that those with the weakest ability to block out distractions (or LI) are also the most creative and those low levels of blocking or low latent inhibition matches the levels of people with schizophrenia.

     Why do we care? Because they are working toward finding a way to control it.  She mentions that some artists drink or use other methods of taking something in  in order to set their creativity free. The downside is those methods can be harmful and addicting. So she's trying to come up with a non-addicting, side-effect free method of allowing your mind to let in more so you can free your creativity.

     Since most of us won't see this happen in our lifetime, those of us who love creativity but struggle to unleash it will just have to let loose and let the madness unfold.


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