How Does A Creative Brain Work?
Greetings to the next trip on ArtistHeat, the place where the dark and the bizarre mix with art! Our subject for today’s topic of discussion is one of man’s most enigmatic and complex organs – the brain, in particular, the creative one.
The Creative Mind: Not Your Average Operating System
To be quite realistic, genuine creative minds are not set up as those of the usual run of the mill population. They are similar to computers having unique operating systems that might freeze but create marvels that no regular model will ever be able to.
While the creative mind is known to join two points that others cannot see are even connected. It is always relating, recognizing connections, and creating contingencies as if they are conjured out of thin air. That is why one day I can be lying in bed staring at the ceiling and at 3 am get an inspiration to create a sculpture from used shopping carts and gummy bears. Plain and simple, do not copy that idea, I am still refining it.
Inside My Own Creative Chaos
Talking about bizarre heads, let me share with you information about my own one. There are days when ideas are buzzing in my head and I feel as I connected with the Source, energetically. Creativity flows easily, everything is interconnected, and how I want to create ten masterpieces before morning coffee.
There are the other days, however, that are not born for themselves, but which result from the other days and depend on them. The empty days. The days that in my head there is now nothing but abandoned halls, dusty and silent. Nowadays, simply waking up in the morning is as much of an artistic endeavor as a documentary would need.
This isn’t unique to me. This is the cycle that most artists know very well: accelerated productivity followed by vast desolation. The frustrating part? For one or the other we happen to seldom choose the time it arrives.
The Midnight Spark: When Creativity Strikes
Don’t you find it quite fascinating how inspiration decides to strike only when it is least expected? At no time during the day if you happen to be productive during your creative time but while falling asleep at around 2 am.
There’s actually science behind this. That is why, for instance, when we are tired, our minds may wander and focus on some unrelated information and diversions. This means that filtering is less rigorous, which is the core of creativity, as ideas juxtapose in a different manner. And that’s why there is a notebook on the bedside table: with one’s eyes closed, yes, one may write ideas that are a chimera when one fully opens one’s eyes and looks at the scribbles one made on the sheet with shaky hands and sleepy mind.
The Edge of Reality: Creative Thinking’s Dangerous Border
When people talk about creativity, the element of inspiration as well as the way the idea implements often seems to be based on reality, or to be flirting with it. It’s about a mind that challenges norms, seeks out possibilities, and wonders about the options and therefore it is often lost in space when occasionally it tries to get back to the world of consensus reality.
It’s often hard to understand whether a person has come up with the idea of true genius or has started to hallucinate. That is why creative people need to be sane, leveled, structured – through routine, friends, or whatever makes one remain a part of the world.
The Gifted Brain: Blessing, Curse, or Both?
There are reasonable evidences present which establish connections between outstanding creativity and certain neuropsychological disorders. Some of the greatest innovative creators in art, music, literature, and science of the past and the present can be deemed to have had bipolar disorder, ADHD, depression or other disorders, which concern the cognitive and emotional processing of the brain.
Alas, the list of great people that suffered from the mental health issues is rather vast and contains such names as Vincent van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Cobain and Sylvia Plath. This is not to glamorize mental illnesses because it is horrid and can be so destructive, it only means that being wired differently affords one with special abilities and burdens at the same time.
The Addiction Connection: Self-Medication or Creative Fuel?
Here is another unpleasant fact – the gifted person is the same as the addict person. The data of substance abuse that involve gifted and creative people are astounding. But why?
For some, it’s self-medication. Alcohol and drugs can help one to silence an excessively active mind that constantly race through idea generation, problem solving and imagining, and of course fearing scenarios. This helps to have time when one is relieved from having to think all the time at a faster pace.
For others substances are a means to get to other states of consciousness – to find something from another angle or to free themselves from the creative blockage. Coleridge was writing this poem when he was in an opium-induced state and it clearly shows. What the legendary performers including Charlie Parker did – creating a new musical era while being addicted to heroin?
But this path is treacherous. They are other stories such as brilliant artists who succumb to alcohol, substance or drug abuse and this robs the society great talents. To some extent, such brain that is capable of giving extraordinary talents and gifts, requires extraordinary care.
Finding Flow: The Creative Sweet Spot
So, not all forms of creativity mean the persona has to be destructive. I think that Psychologist coined the concept often termed as “flow” – that condition where one is focused on a certain creative activity to the extent that time becomes irrelevant or unmeasurable and the activity becomes intrinsically rewarding.
But it is very important to know that flow is too reflects a healthy and productive condition of our employed brains. That is what we moan when we imbibe the fourth cup of coffee or spend the night working on a particular assignment. The problem lies in having strategies that will enable the achievement of this state without causing burnout.
Nurturing the Creative Brain: Balance in Chaos
Hence, how do we keep such beautiful, messy creative minds? I am still working on that but it appears to look like this to a number of us:
In my opinion, structure and freedom should meet or coordinate with each other to complement each other. Having too much structure reduces the creative process by minimizing flexibility, at the same time, having little structure leads to ideas being created but never having a way to be executed. It is important to identify your own niche within the company as well as, more broadly, within your life.
Rest is non-negotiable. The innovative mind requires rest, as well as time for consolidation of the events that occurred. It is also an effective way to win its best ideas when they are conceived after achieving a certain detachment from the problem.
Community matters. It must be understood that isolation is essential to creativity as well as toxic for the creative person. The greatest thing to do is locate people that comprehend the circumstance that is distinct to creatives, people who can laugh at the triumphs but also offer consolation when the lows arrive.
The Ordinary Extraordinary: Creativity’s Paradox
The most intriguing aspect about creative brains is that they are a shortfall while at the same time, not a rarity. Creativity in essence lies in each individual but there are certain brain sets that allow for an exceptional creativity.
Creativity is a dynamic equilibrium between two opposing forces, and creativity implies constraint but also freedom between the ability to follow a pattern, or even to invent one, and the freedom to break it. In this fluid context, there is creation of new worlds.
Whether your creative mind is a source of delight or a place of pain or both as it is in most creative people , it is important for you to know that you are part of the human society that has visionaries who perceive and design the world in a unique way.
And sometimes that means lying awake in bed at three in the morning waiting for that inspiration idea which involves shopping cart and gummy bears. Such is the creative life.
