What is the best way to stimulate creativity in adults?

Question

It seems as if some adults loose the abiltiy to be creative, they forget how to imagine. What causes this to happen to some people and not others? Is it a learned behavior or is it based upon chemical interactions of the brain? If you could take a pill that would make you more creative, would you do it? Do people see the ability to be creative as non valuable, childs play?

Details...the reason I ask is I am doing a personal study on creativity and this seems like an excellent place to start. I am a first time visitor so I guess I will see what comes of all this.

Answer 1

i think that adults get too involved in there daily routine of work and family responsibilities and just get too stressed out.......i think an ideal method is to allow the adult to remember childhood experiences so as to bring back the time in their life when they were the most creative.......watch cartoons,do a puzzel,go to the fun fair,build a sand castle............i think these activities will def stimulate the creative side of the brain.......good luck

Answer 2

Creativity and Imagination are just like the muscles in your body - if you don't use them they become atrophied and stale. As we grip on to logic, reason, critical thinking they naturally just take over - these are skills that we use every day.

Some people in this world read, write, play games, imagine, day dream. Others may do these things, but not as much. As another answerer posted... We are constantly stimulated, and thus don't allow time for such the above items.

My unprofessional and uneducated advice is this. If you want to stimulate creativity in adults:

Have them play with children - put them in the child's environment and have them "play".
Give them crayons and tell them to draw (find words with multiple meaning and have them draw the words)
Tell them they have to write a children's story and they have to spend a full 15 minutes writing - if they get stuck they have to continue writing no matter what (not an easy feat - try it).

Think of creativity as a muscle, find ways for them to exercise it.

Good Luck!

Answer 3

As a child, a person is yet to develop his analytical and logical skills. What is available is pristine imaginative skills , and it gets noticed due to the innocence it is coupled with !
When adulthood sets in , the logic and analysis creeps in big way (especially due to modern way of life, which evaluates everything in terms of monetary value !). Thus intuitional/imaginative skills take a back bench. In rare cases when this skill gets some importance and is even retained at child levels during adulthood, it appears to be 'genius' simply because an adult uses this skill with awareness, whereas when a child, the use is unawares or with lesser awareness !
How to stimulate, is a question that takes deeper understanding of mind, and this forum seems lacking in space for it !

Answer 4

I guess the 2 elements for creativity are confidence and motivation, I believe that if you put any adult in an environment where they're comfortable, and confident, then present them with an outlet, or a stimulant, then creativity will follow,

I don't think we grow out of it, we just become so worried about the rejection or ridicule from us expressing ourselves, we learn to suppress it, how often have you heard, "what if it's no good, what if people don't like it! "

Answer 5

This problem confronted the Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge. That is the reason why Wordsworth said 'Child is the father of man'. A child is capable of imagination which as he grows old loses. This faculty is compared with a sun, which as it rises in the morning glows in splendour and loses its glory as rises up and wanes in the west. Wordsworth consoles himself saying that man as grows is recompensed with varied experience for the loss of the faculty to imagine.

As to your question as to the best way to stimulate creativity, I suggest that you keep a man free from the worries of the past and anxiety about the future. In a relaxed environ, a man will be seen bubbling with imagination and the enthusiasm to embellish things. There will be a lot of 'leisure for fiction'. Secondly, keep him in the company of those with whom he feels at ease. That re-creates the energy to creativity in him. It is further observed that in war torn regions, a lot of creative writings come. A number of a very invigorating poetry and novels have been produced by the educated Tamil immigrants from Srilanka. The deep sense of loss of their land and kith and kin has been the subject matter of most of their writings.

Answer 6

The key to educating adults is to actively engage them in a task, and I believe you could stimulate creativity by doing the same thing. For example, break adults into groups of 3 or 4 and give them a problem to solve (e.g. global warming); allow them to brainstorm and write their answers; then listen to the results of all groups.

Answer 7

Boredom is the answer. People need to allow themselves to not be entertained for a time.

We've made ourselves a world where we can always find something to do, something to entertain us or otherwise keep us busy in a sense. I just posted on a gaming forum about this; how games like WoW and EQ don't stimulate creativity, and are actually too simple.

People need to learn how to shut off or occupy their conscious mind, and allow their unconscious to wander. Studies have shown that boredom seems to fulfill that evolutionary function.

I like to do simple busywork, like painting a fence or polishing my boots. It's like a meditation that allows the conscious mind to keep occupied and my unconscious to wander.

Staring at light reflecting on water or staring into a campfire are also stimulating; there's something hypnotic about it. It also seems very primal to me, so I find myself wondering about the evolutionary aspect of it again. :)

Answer 8

Drugs.

And in answr to your question, would I take a pill to highten my creativity? Yes. And I do.

Answer 9

exposure to the world