Much of the abstract art work we see today is commonly associated with hallucinogenic drugs, but this may not be the case. Dreams can often lead/develop a persons creative abilities. Many artist and scientist claim that their dreams are what give them their inspiration. A surreal landscape in a dream inspiring a painting, practicing different shots for a movie's cinematography, or hearing song melodies, are all effects that various have claimed lead to their success.
This article tries to study these claims in a scientific manner, however, it shows that dream recall tends to be the most important factor for dreams' creative influence, though lucidity does help.Dreaming and Creativity
It is interesting that you would mention hallucinogenics, as that is one the ways that has been used by shamans and medicine men of past cultures to induce what are believed to be lucid dream like states in the past. This post on a modern day shamanism forum talks about the types of herbs that shamans use to induce lucid dreams (http://www.shamansgarden.com/c-25-dreaming-herbs.aspx). One of the interesting parts of this is the cross cultural aspect. It is possible to do a survey of different cultures across geography and time and find that many attribute mystical properties to these states of consciousness and that some even refer to them as a type of dreaming.
ReplyDeleteabout shamanism, creativity, and recall pertains to psilocybin mushrooms. I have... ...friends... ...that may or may not use hallucinogenic fungi occasionally, and many of these same affects are brought upon them: a new found confidence, a lingering since of creativity, and I have one friend that swears that they unleashed the secrets of calculus. Not that I am trying to advocate for this illegal drug use. However, a study has shown that this is a true outcome.
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I wonder if there is a potential link among these things based in neurobiology, or if there has been a study conducted on this.