Posts tagged creativity

It’s tough to associate creativity with mental illness because obviously if you’re very ill, it gets in the way. … But one of the theories now is that the terrible swings of the mental illness – of bipolar depression – you get these manic highs, these euphorias, where the ideas just pour out of you. And you need to write them down. That’s followed by this dismal low period when maybe you’re a better editor. Maybe it’s easier for you to focus and refine those epiphanies into a perfect form. … The thinking is maybe the correlation exists because the swings of mental illness echo the natural swings of the creative process.

Jonah Lehrer, on the link between depression and creativity. [complete interview here] (via nprfreshair)

Ok, by “one of the theories now” I assume he means the one published back in 2006.  NYC Psychopharmacologist, Ronald Fieve, MD  specializes in depressive disorders, namely bipolar - and wrote all about enhancing the lows and highs in Bipolar II. Since the 70’s, many of his patients have been creative types: writers, directors, actors, fashion designers…etc. 

NPR

Memory is typically viewed as a process that is concerned with the past. One function of memory that has been largely overlooked until recently is its role in allowing individuals to imagine, envisage, or simulate possible future events. However, a rapidly growing number of recent studies show that imagining possible future events depends on much of the same cognitive and neural machinery as does remembering past events. The close linkage between remembering the past and imagining the future has potentially important implications for understanding the nature and function of memory…   - Professor Daniel Schacter [via]

Memory is typically viewed as a process that is concerned with the past. One function of memory that has been largely overlooked until recently is its role in allowing individuals to imagine, envisage, or simulate possible future events.

However, a rapidly growing number of recent studies show that imagining possible future events depends on much of the same cognitive and neural machinery as does remembering past events.

The close linkage between remembering the past and imagining the future has potentially important implications for understanding the nature and function of memory…  

- Professor Daniel Schacter [via]