Do drugs make you more creative?

Question

I'm taking phentermine and it seems like I can create screenplays like nothing. I created alot of screenplays and at least one has to sell. So do drugs help people become creative?

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Answer 1

No, they don't. We use to tape our chronic sessions as we thought we were so much more enlighted. Can't stand listening to them as we were soooooo stupid. Video taped LSD, mushroom, and alcoholic parties and it was just stupid.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

The achieving of great creative action, is a very involved occurrence. Its seemingly outside of time elation, is also a delicious rush all on its own.

A sample of some of the many things that have to be happening all at once in this state are; a self induced OCD, an elimination of internal distractions, and/or a use of a manic inducing distraction, coupled with an almost direct wiring of the senses used in the act, and a “ghost body” separation from those senses not used in the act. When someone brings this combination together, and is enabled by their immediate environment, art happens. Sometimes great art.

By the time an expressive person is both able to acquire the enabling environment, and has the desire to express something of significance, they/we are also blessed/burdened with the very abundance of distractions that it took to get to that point. An artistic bent is a neurochemical organization that is of little use in most mundane, and complex (in normal ways), lives.

So called “natural highs” are created by inducing an intense organizational state, from within. These can often be utilized as a conduit to creative action. Arranging conflicting and complementary natural addictions is key to achieving that state. We are all born addicts. The addictions we are all born with, are the emotions, and then the chemical memories of those emotions. We change our addictions as we go through life. To say that any given kind of emotion is definitely good, bad, or ugly, is a total paradox as everyone and everything, and every time, is-was-will-be a different perception.

Emotion is addictive. Which emotions you are addicted to the most, is subjective.

Many people have an abundance of conflicting and contradictory self perpetuated emotional addictions, that stifle the creative focus. At a point of frustration, an artist may stumble upon, or intentionally use psychoactive drugs. If it happens that the right collection of brain cells are killed in this process, then a forced rewiring of the neurons will happen, as part of the brains own self defense, and with that more direct focus, a temporary pulse of creative action could happen.

Or you could die.

Psychoactive drugs act by stunning and/or killing neurons, and forcing others to go into chemical overdrive, endangering and shortening the lives of those overtaxed cells, thus creating future victims of the drug.

But wow, how alive and focused you felt. And maybe for a bit, you actually were. Maybe you only thought you were. No matter, BAM! You have a new addiction. And it came from outside of your mind/body. And if it happened once, it could happen again. And if you want it, all you have to do is go get it. Forget that you feel like you should have gotten the licence off of the Mack truck that just ran over you; let’s do that again!

Yes, for a while , drugs can work to make you FEEL more creative.,,,,, Maybe. But they will disrupt your body’s ability to balance neuropeptides, aging your entire cellular structure, very very rapidly, making you susceptible to damage that a heathy body would just shrug off.

As others have pointed out; it was you that did the creating, not the drugs. Artists can achieve much better results, actually surviving the urges of their creative drive, when using whatever type of meditation and mindfulness works best for them, learning to harness internal addictions, instead of destroying their talent, by an externally induced destruction.

Answer 4

Drugs don't make you creative, but they have often been used to help in the creative process, by breaking down various barriers to one's natural creativity.

There are so many different kinds of drug, ranging from caffeine (which the poet Goethe swore by as a creative stimulant) to the various opiates (as used by Coleridge, de Quincey, Burroughs etc) to psychedelics or entheogens like LSD, DMT and Salvia - so it's not possible to generalise about the effects of "drugs" - some will aid creativity, others may impede it. Of course some of the above-mentioned are currently illegal, but as you might expect, there's no direct correlation between what is legal and what assists your creativity.

The drug you mention, phentermine (generally sold as an appetite-suppressant) is a neural stimulant, so it's not surprising that it would have some effect on your writing process. However it is chemically related to methamphetamine - a drug which is pretty bad news - and while phentermine appears less dangerous than its amphetamine cousins, it is not recommended for medium-to-long-term use.

From personal experience I would say that drugs can act as useful pointers to how to improve your creative process, but they are not generally a great long-term tool. It's good to remember that your creativity is natural to you, and not something externally administered.

Answer 5

I can tell you from various experiences I have had that drugs do change your consciousness and alter your state of being. But whether or not it makes you either more or less creative is up to the person reading your screenplay or listening to your CD. A perfect example of this is our good friend and sweet guitar player John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. As you may or may not know, around the late nineties he left the Peppers to pursue a solo recording career while living in an apartment in Hollywood and heavily addicted to heroin. One album that he made was called Niandra La Des and Usually Just a T-Shirt and the presence of some kind of drug is extremely apparent in the music. But I challenge anyone who appreciates ambiguity and freedom in music to listen to this album and tell me it is void of any kind of creative force. Yes, John was an addict but his musical decisions were more interesting and not as predictable. And how similar have the last three RHCP singles been?

Answer 6

SOME CAN. Some can also have the oppoite effect. Several well known authors (I'm not going to leave myself open to a law suit here so I'll not name them) who suffer/ed from a bi-polar disorder found that their specific medication actually took away their creative abilities. The solution? Stop taking the medication and when the urge to write kicks in, get the book/play written. When it's done, start the medication again (much to the family's relief) and do the non-creative slogging that's always necessary. (Revisions of chapters, interminable checks for spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors, general tightening and quite a bit of deletion, etc. etc.) and for which no creative muse is needed.

Answer 7

They don't make you creative, but for those who have imagination and creative ability that they don't know how to use or release, some drugs can take away the inhibitions and walls, and allow you to be more open...thus those things can flow.

All many people need to do is learn how to tap into that creative area inside of them, without chemical help. That way they get the result, without the potential harm...esp when non-prescription or illegal drugs are involved.

Answer 8

It may seem like they do for awhile, but in the long run, they REALLY screw you up! If you're planning on doing this screenplay stuff for a long time, drugs should not be involved in any way. You should never start using them in the first place!

Answer 9

Some people may have that reaction, but the possible side effects are the concern. For me, it's not a good idea to even take aspirin because it's almost like opening a christmas present: nobody knows what the reaction will be.

Answer 10

No. It might seem as if a drug can make you more creative but what is really happening, is , the drug is changing your chemistry and once that happens, you are either better or worse when it comes to functioning. Therefore, if you are better then the drugs that you took had a positive impact in you but ultimately, the one that deserves the credit is you.

Answer 11

I'm anti-drug and I thought your question is absurd. But as I thought about it more, maybe drugs do reduce your inhibitions and allow you to take more risks. Maybe an unwillingness to take risks holds people back creatively. Maybe "cognitive therapy" would be better though than drugs for reducing fears/inhibitions.