How Marijuana Can Enhance Your Artistic Abilities
Cannabis consumers have investigated the link between the drug and creativity for millennia, according to historical records. It has served as both the muse for many songs and the subject of numerous writings. Amazingly, and perhaps even a little unexpectedly, academic scholars are now interested in the relationship between cannabis and artistic expression.
Perhaps only by using cannabis and observing will you be able to determine how much it impacts your ability to be creative. This is due to the fact that creative expression is frequently characterized and justified in terms of personal experience, and even the scientific methods for “measuring” creativity are ill-defined. Science falls short in its attempts to explain this phenomenon’s processes.
To describe how cannabis affects creativity and whether this is a morally righteous activity, even scientific writers frequently turn to academic philosophy. The breadth of this subject is enormous because there are countless subtleties to the human creative experience, according to both scientific literature and anecdotal proof.
For instance, a writer in his study will undoubtedly experience cannabis‘ effects on creativity very differently than a dancer would on stage or with a partner. They are various inventive processes that use various organs and areas of the brain. All of this can be impacted by different cannabis strains, dosages, and even individual personalities.
Cannabis of the sativa and Indica varieties has very distinct effects. Everybody has a different capacity for creativity. A dancer might find the effects of Indica to be lethargic, whereas a writer might find tiny doses to be creatively stimulating. Similar to how a mathematician might discover that sativa strains work better than Indica strains to spur innovation. Anyone who understands how to pick a strain and dose of cannabis has limitless potential for using it to foster creative expression.
Cannabis and creativity studies currently available
The impact of cannabis on the creative process has been the subject of numerous studies conducted in recent years, though the findings have not always been constant. Additionally, the findings of numerous studies into the specific brain processes that cannabis affects have provided us with some understanding of the vast and intricate process of human creativity.
A 2012 investigation into the connection between weed use, schizotypy, and divergent thought found a definite connection. Smoking acute cannabis improved verbal fluency in “low creatives” to the same level as that found in “high creatives” and schizotypy levels.
Cannabis users displayed more “rare-creative” responses than the control group, according to a 2009 research comparing creativity in (abstinent, formerly chronic) cannabis and MDMA users and a control group. This suggests more creative thought on your part. It’s interesting to note that despite the lack of supporting evidence in their answers, MDMA users rated themselves as more creative than controls. Contrarily, cannabis users were likelier to display creativity but did not perceive themselves as more creative than controls.
Cannabis and imagination
Surprisingly, there is little discussion of cannabis‘ effects on creativity. This may be due to the fact that psychoanalysis has largely supplanted imagination, leaving little space for extensive statistical data. Once more, the arts are not the only fields in which inventive imagination is used; brilliant minds also use it.
Author Agnati makes the suggestion that ‘exaltation’ may function as a potential mechanism of action by which mental imagery is generated in one psychological paper on the neurobiology of imagination. This is the method by which features or objects pick up uses that weren’t initially intended for them. This is comparable to the creative process in many ways—it involves giving something a trait it didn’t have before or recycling a “thing” for a different use, even if that “thing” is a thought.
This is significant because the author defines imagination as having the capacity to inspire exaltation rather than just mental images. Contrarily, in one study on cannabis use and mental imagery, participants were given explicit guidance on how to use imagery to speed up learning. The subjects were told to characterize the images that were shown to them with imagery. Cannabis was found to reduce the evaluations of how vivid these imagery descriptions were.
Anyhow, the way that cannabis affects the mind is sometimes used to characterize the experience. The previously stated idea of hyper-priming makes reference to the idea of imagination that Agnati discusses in his article on the neurobiology of imagination. The power of the imagination can be seen in some cannabis users‘ apparent ease in drawing connections between apparently unrelated subjects.
Modern science is obviously unable to explain how or by what processes cannabis can have this effect, or why it has this effect for some people but not others, for example. It all comes down to the fact that not everyone possesses the ability of exaltation or hyper-priming, which has the potential to solve issues, much like Archimedes and his bathtub water shift.
Cannabis can benefit creatives like musicians and painters through a variety of cognitive changes that improve a wide range of cognitive functions. It’s unrealistic to anticipate this to be an easy partnership. The many cognitive changes that occur while under the influence of cannabis have varying effects on distinct creative processes.
Additionally, creative processes not only vary greatly from one another but also go through various stages. William Novak cites an essayist as saying the following in his book High Culture: Marijuana in the Lives of Americans:
“I just can’t write well on grass. My grammar and syntax get screwed up, and I can get caught in the details. I do some of my thinking stoned, and the more linear work is done straight.”
The statement implies that artists should consider their own creative processes and whether cannabis is helpful in them. As more seasoned marijuana users may be aware, this will also rely on the kind and strain of marijuana. Even in the absence of scientific evidence, the fact that cannabis affects individuals differently at the very least means that the subjective experience of cannabis cannot be discounted.
For instance, while some people may find that relaxation opens the path to creative expression, others may find that the same relaxation hinders creativity. Essayist Susan Sontag once said in an interview with HIGH TIMES Magazine that she liked a bit of speed occasionally because marijuana would make her too relaxed for writing. Others believe they can write flawlessly while high because they feel more focused and have greater writing flow.
The complexity of cannabis’ effects is typified by the fact that a single cannabis specimen can cause two different individuals to react in mutually exclusive ways. Finally, this complexity is exponentially increased by the wide variety of strains that are accessible. Cannabis can cause a variety of mental changes, which allows room for a wide range of interpretations and, eventually, output. What one cannabis user sees as a creative instrument, another sees as a barrier.
