Madness and Creativity

"Sanity is boring, and true genius can be born of mood swings, and mania" - Ian Murray.

Sandy is a brilliant writer who has won several awards both in her country and abroad. Every night she hosts an invisible dwarf, affectionately called 'Theodore'. Sandy also hears voices regularly. She has dubbed them 'angel', 'little boy' and 'demon' according to their timbre and tone. She keeps up brain-tickling conversations with Theodore and 'voices'. They provide Sandy with witty often bits and soon her write more than she plans to!

Attention to detail can be a benchmark for efficiency, but focuses on every footfall or dwelling on each syllable can create havoc in a person's mind that lead to compulsions of obsessive sort. It often interferes with an individual effort to live a normal life.

Mankind has survived all odds by ignoring what seems irrelevant to his immediate needs. This human characteristic, is called by psychologists as 'latent inhibition', is inextricably linked to survival instincts.

Cats, rats, mice, pigeons, and various other animals also exhibit latent inhibition. Humans, however, excellent at it. As the hallmark of success and sanity, latent inhibition has enabled man to go out into this bad, mad world. It is an indication of his adaptability, his ability to preserve what's good for him and ignore the rest. But unfortunately, this seems largely been discovered to stunt creativity.

Surprising Studies

A team of Harvard researchers, including Shelley Carson, a psychologist, has discovered that students who scored low latent inhibition have excellent creative skills compared to those who have failed to focus on minor details.

These low scoring students also had a high IQ, suggesting a link between intelligence and creativity.

Carson's research showed that a lower level of latent inhibition and extreme flexibility in their thinking abilities predispose some people with mental illness, while bestowing creative skills in others.

A low latent inhibition can be one of the biological basis for creativity. Carson argues that there are many more factors, including personality traits, social setup, family and education.

At Creative Trail

So why is it that some people go nuts when their brain is overloaded, while others use the same to be more productive?

An overwhelming barrage of new information may predispose some people with mental illness. But there must be some difference between Jack the Ripper and John Nash!

Creativity, according to Carson, comes in steps. The first step is to get an insight, when ideas take shape. These ideas could be further enhanced by a force independent stimuli.

The next step is evaluation and edition of the data used. This is absolutely the most crucial stage because it requires tremendous focus.

High intelligence, and a praisewaorthy work of memory can help a person to creatively juggle information and use it to serve a higher purpose. Carson and colleagues are trying to find out how creative people manage to adapt their attention filters in the different phases.