Drugs and creativity?

Deus Ex Machina

It's well known that a huge number of famous and successful artists of all types used a lot of drugs. Writers, musicians, actors, painters, so many of them were and are heavily involved with, if not addicted to, some type of drug.

So the question is, do you think that art/creativity can be enhanced by drug use? Or is it the case that the likes of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Stephen King, Charles Dickens, Van Gogh etc would have been just as creative and successful without ever using drugs?

MrStuffins

Ya know what else can be enhanced by drugs?

Dying with underwear full of your own feces!

Sky King

Trent Reznor's best stuff was produced when he was sober, and he has said in interviews that his addictions were hindering his progress as opposed to facilitating it.

MagicMarker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J10w3FuCwfQ

Doc Ruby

The question is did they get famous for being creative then start taking drugs, or did they start taking drugs then get famous?

minidazzler

Sky King wrote: »

Trent Reznor's best stuff was produced when he was sober, and he has said in interviews that his addictions were hindering his progress as opposed to facilitating it.

Yes, but Hemmingway, Hunter S Thompson, Allen Ginsberg, Jimi Hendrix, Charles Bukowski, Humphrey Bogart and John Lennon were rarely sober, and they are pretty much all better than Trent Reznor.

MrStuffins

minidazzler wrote: »

Yes, but Hemmingway, Hunter S Thompson, Allen Ginsberg, Jimi Hendrix, Charles Bukowski, Humphrey Bogart and John Lennon were rarely sober, and they are pretty much all better than Trent Reznor.

Naming people who were crative on drugs really doesn't prove anything. For every 1 person who was creative on drugs anyone can name 20 who weren't!

mackg

Doc Ruby wrote: »

The question is did they get famous for being creative then start taking drugs, or did they start taking drugs then get famous?

Look at the Beatles, when they started taking drugs their music changed too but it could be the case that the change in their musical style and their recreational drug use were both effects of a change in their overall attitude.

Tescosolvakia

I have much more respect for artists or musicians who can access their creativity without going thru a K-hole to get there.

I'm much more impressed with those who can express their talents soberly than some poetic pill-head.

earpiece

Always felt that David Bowie's only good work was when he was off his box?
And doesn't music and art always seem better when your stoned (so they tell me:cool:).

jimpump

william burroughs relied on opiates/heroin to write

same as kurt kobain and jimi hendrix and countless other musicians

R P McMurphy

Would really depend on the drug. Many famous people have admitted to gaining immense creativity and have enhanced the development of ideas while on extremely high doses of lsd

galwayrush

Aeopsmith went to ****e when they got out of rehab.

Sky King

The question is did they get famous for being creative then start taking drugs, or did they start taking drugs then get famous?

Indeed.

minidazzler wrote: »

Yes, but Hemmingway, Hunter S Thompson, Allen Ginsberg, Jimi Hendrix, Charles Bukowski, Humphrey Bogart and John Lennon were rarely sober, and they are pretty much all better than Trent Reznor.

How can you say a writer, actor and journalist are better than a musician? That makes....no sense.

Are you high?

leonidas83

Cocaine definitely works the creative sign of your brain as the IT development sector is well aware of im sure. Have met so many coke heads from that line of work its not funny, having taken it before myself I would agree. The pressure to come up with new ideas and concepts all the time takes it toll im sure.

I think Opium and Heroine are more of an Artists fortay although this could be bull****. Keats and many other poets were big users apparently.

minidazzler

MrStuffins wrote: »

Naming people who were crative on drugs really doesn't prove anything. For every 1 person who was creative on drugs anyone can name 20 who weren't!

It's actually the other way around, every great person you can name who was sober, there are another 20 who were on some sort of drug.

Latchy

Deus Ex Machina wrote: »

It's well known that a huge number of famous and successful artists of all types used a lot of drugs. Writers, musicians, actors, painters, so many of them were and are heavily involved with, if not addicted to, some type of drug.

So the question is, do you think that art/creativity can be enhanced by drug use? Or is it the case that the likes of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Stephen King, Charles Dickens, Van Gogh etc would have been just as creative and successful without ever using drugs?

In the case of the Beatles ,you only have to listen to their work from 1962-66 then listen to their later stuff 1967-70 to see that their drug influenced creativity took another turn which didn't affect their success at all and many other groups like the Doors ,Pink Floyd and the Stones all produced albums that were heavily influenced by drugs but there can be a price to pay for this over indulgence as has shown .

MrStuffins

minidazzler wrote: »

It's actually the other way around, every great person you can name who was sober, there are another 20 who were on some sort of drug.

If you believe that then you certainly must be one of them!

galwayrush

minidazzler wrote: »

It's actually the other way around, every great person you can name who was sober, there are another 20 who were on some sort of drug.

True, walking along the Quays in Dublin, you are walking among some amazingly talented/ creative skangers people.

minidazzler

MrStuffins wrote: »

If you believe that then you certainly must be one of them!

I'm a drinker, I generally don't do anything else though. But it's simply a fact. And since you said you could name 20 people for every 1 I did....go ahead.

galwayrush wrote: »

True, walking along the Quays in Dublin, you are walking among some amazingly talented/ creative skangers people.

I never said everyone who takes drugs is creative. Just that a hell of a lot of people who are creative happen to take a lot of drugs and it, in a lot of cases, enhances their creativity.

MrStuffins

galwayrush wrote: »

True, walking along the Quays in Dublin, you are walking among some amazingly talented/ creative skangers people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD_s1uPheEY

FloatingVoter

To each their own. Lennon was off his box on heroin and acid while a weed smoking McCartney put together Sgt.Pepper. Lennon also knocked out "A Day In The Life" about the same time.
Bowie can't remember most of the 70s. Thankfully he was in a recording studio for some of it.
Keith Richards would have fired the Stones in the late 60s if he didn't need them and the money to buy drugs.
Also - a lot of these guys were exaggerating their drug intake. It is possible Ozzy Osbourne didn't exaggerate anything but he's not an ad for a drug habit. He'd admit that himself.

RichieC

when you're young it is true... once you hit 25 or so drugs just start to sap your personality out of you.

MrStuffins

minidazzler wrote: »

I'm a drinker, I generally don't do anything else though. But it's simply a fact.

No it's not.

And since you said you could name 20 people for every 1 I did....go ahead.

I said anyone could name 20 people.

I never said I could be arsed!

jimpump

leonidas83 wrote: »

Cocaine definitely works the creative sign of your brain as the IT development sector is well aware of im sure. Have met so many coke heads from that line of work its not funny, having taken it before myself I would agree. The pressure to come up with new ideas and concepts all the time takes it toll im sure.

I think Opium and Heroine are more of an Artists fortay although this could be bull****. Keats and many other poets were big users apparently.

HA, what type of cocaine you boys in galway taking?! lol

minidazzler

MrStuffins wrote: »

No it's not.

I said anyone could name 20 people.

I never said I could be arsed!

Being anti-drugs is one thing and fair enough, but to deny the effect and influence drugs have had on artists, writers, musicians and scholars is simply stupid. Some of the greatest minds were off their tits a lot of the time.

I'd propose that drugs don't make you more creative but they do improve your ability to get your ideas out of your head (if you know what I mean). So while taking drugs might not have made them better artists, it stopped them overthinking things, helped them throw ideas out there, and changed their attitude/approach to producing their art/music/writing.

Like the way drinking doesn't make you smarter, or funnier, or a better person, but it does enhance your ability to make conversation because it helps you express the things in your head that you might not quite get out of your mouth sober. You're the same person drunk, but you seem more confident because you head eases up on telling you that the things you want to say are stupid.

Sky King

a hell of a lot of people who are creative happen to take a lot of drugs and it, in a lot of cases, enhances their creativity.

I don't have a problem with people doing drugs at all incidentally -I love dance music and drugs are most definitely the reason it became so popular.

People have this notion that getting jacked on something or other is 'cool' and it enhances creativity whereas most successful artists are creative people anyway.

A true test would be to take someone uncreative and give them a load of yokes and acid and heroin and see what they come up with.

It seems that the artist lifestyle and drugs seem to go hand in hand - you can't say that these artists wouldn't have produced the same output if they were clean and sober.

MrStuffins

minidazzler wrote: »

Being anti-drugs is one thing and fair enough, but to deny the effect and influence drugs have had on artists, writers, musicians and scholars is simply stupid. Some of the greatest minds were off their tits a lot of the time.

I'm not anti-drugs.

And I never denied the effect of musicians writers scholars etc.

Where are you getting this from? Have you ever been reading what i've been saying?

All I said was, for every 1 person you can name who was creative on drugs, anyone can nane 20 who weren't, It's simple!

minidazzler

Sky King wrote: »

It seems that the artist lifestyle and drugs seem to go hand in hand - you can't say that these artists wouldn't have produced the same output if they were clean and sober.

I can't remember right now who said it, but it may have been Jackie Gleeson. He said something to the effect of "I wish I had gone through those times sober so that I could remember them better, then again, if I had been sober it wouldn't have happened the same way"

These artists wouldn't have the same output sober, not the exact same anyway, that's not to say they wouldn't have stuff as good, but it's unlikely they would have been quite as free with their idea's.

MrStuffins wrote: »

All I said was, for every 1 person you can name who was creative on drugs, anyone can nane 20 who weren't, It's simple!

My apologies, when I read that first I thought it meant 20 people who were creative and weren't on drugs.

Dudess

Deus Ex Machina wrote: »

It's well known that a huge number of famous and successful artists of all types used a lot of drugs. Writers, musicians, actors, painters, so many of them were and are heavily involved with, if not addicted to, some type of drug.

So the question is, do you think that art/creativity can be enhanced by drug use?

Yes.

Catari Jaguar

Metallica and RHCP both suck after getting clean.

MrStuffins

cherub rock wrote: »

Metallica and RHCP both suck after getting clean.

RHCP sucked BEFORE getting clean dude.

parrai

Bass players and drummers are funky on junk
:cool:

MrStuffins

minidazzler wrote: »

My apologies, when I read that first I thought it meant 20 people who were creative and weren't on drugs.

Well that's what I meant.

Drugs could POSSIBLY help the creative process and a lot of famously creative minds were under the influence at the time of creating, i acknowledge this.

But at the end of the day, for every 1 person you could name who was under the influence of drugs when being creative there are 20 people who were also being creative but not on drugs.

minidazzler

MrStuffins wrote: »

Well that's what I meant.

Drugs could POSSIBLY help the creative process and a lot of famously creative minds were under the influence at the time of creating, i acknowledge this.

But at the end of the day, for every 1 person you could name who was under the influence of drugs when being creative there are 20 people who were also being creative but not on drugs.

Yeah, they weren't being creative, but were they being creative to the point of greatness? You could probably not even name a 1:1 for the last hundred years on that front.

MrStuffins

minidazzler wrote: »

Yeah, they weren't being creative, but were they being creative to the point of greatness? You could probably not even name a 1:1 for the last hundred years on that front.

Well when you're talking about art, it's all subjective anyway!

Snowie

I'm creative.

I can't spell for **** but when it comes to still or moving pictures I've a gift foresight for ideas that can and do work I was brought up in a creative house hold..


I wouldn't say drugs nesscerlly help you beome more creative they can certainly give you a different persecutive as well as a more I guess imaginative or locked down approach ill site at a computer for a week working on photoshop with out speaking to any body smoking waterfalls and just focussed on the task at hand no interest in anything else.. other then sleep being stoned and finishing what it is Im doing...

when Im out taking pictures i just like having music in my ears its how i work being stoned is nearly to much you need to be aware enough on the street when you shooting junkies and scumbags... But also traffic. I really think it depends on the medium i wasn't stoned taking this

I think drugs has its place with creativity but theres a point were things begin to get a bit messy and you become just a drooling mess of to much though and need some down time..

I think some people may understand what I mean bye that

Logical Fallacy

I used to quite enjoy taking a little bit of acid and sitting down and working on a track. Not a huge amount, just enough for a tingle. If anything i had some major breakthroughs in understand the elements of genre's like Garage (particularly the swing in the beats), DnB, Jungle and Funk and Jazz.

However , it would be foolish to put all the sudden realisations down to the fact that i was on acid at the time...there was countless hours of work already put in for each type of music...so it was really a combination of hard graft and the odd inspiration that can sometimes come from being on a drug.

It's also not something i was keen to do very often but in my personal experience from music, photography, painting etc while under the influence of something it can definitely enhance your work upon occasion.

Snowie

MrStuffins wrote: »

Well when you're talking about art, it's all subjective anyway!

Yep and lets not fogrt personal agenda :)

MrStuffins

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

Yep and lets not fogrt personal agenda :)

I prefered their early stuff!

Snowie

MrStuffins wrote: »

I prefered their early stuff!

some say the same thing about floyd mannnnnn:cool::pac:

Brain Stroking

MrStuffins wrote: »

Naming people who were crative on drugs really doesn't prove anything. For every 1 person who was creative on drugs anyone can name 20 who weren't!

Not necessarily. I amnt famous or rich but i find that drugs have made me think outside the box a little better and this has assisted me at various points in my job which has a high workload and requires a lot of decision making.

We are taught from early childhood to think inside the box so anything that takes you outside, however briefly, can only be good because lets face it, recreational drugs taken rarely or in moderation do not cause any more harm to our health than a weekly binge on alcohol.

I feel that the above comment has come from someone who hasnt taken drugs and, if they have, the drugs made them feel ill or basically didnt agree with them (this happens to some). The above poster's first comment on page 1 refers to being found dead in their own feces. This betrays an ignorance of drugs that is prevalent in Ireland. The OP isnt talking about heroin, crack cocaine or crystal meth which can end up in those tragedies. The OP is referring to marijuana, lsd etc which, for example, the Beatles took and helped transform them from a Westlife teen idol prototype to one of the most important groups musically of all time (my opinion).

A serious conversation needs to be had about drugs and drug awareness in this country. They are everywhere and all young people know about them. It seems that most adults in this country over the age of 40 wouldnt be able to differntiate between the effects of a spliff and a rock of crack. And it is the policy makers and those tasked with dealing with social problems that are in this (generally) ignorant demographic.

My two cents and obviously based on personal experience and things i have observed along the way.

MrStuffins

Brain Stroking wrote: »

Not necessarily. I amnt famous or rich but i find that drugs have made me think outside the box a little better and this has assisted me at various points in my job which has a high workload and requires a lot of decision making.

We are taught from early childhood to think inside the box so anything that takes you outside, however briefly, can only be good because lets face it, recreational drugs taken rarely or in moderation do not cause any more harm to our health than a weekly binge on alcohol.

I feel that the above comment has come from someone who hasnt taken drugs and, if they have, the drugs made them feel ill or basically didnt agree with them (this happens to some). The above poster's first comment on page 1 refers to being found dead in their own feces. This betrays an ignorance of drugs that is prevalent in Ireland. The OP isnt talking about heroin, crack cocaine or crystal meth which can end up in those tragedies. The OP is referring to marijuana, lsd etc which, for example, the Beatles took and helped transform them from a Westlife teen idol prototype to one of the most important groups musically of all time (my opinion).

A serious conversation needs to be had about drugs and drug awareness in this country. They are everywhere and all young people know about them. It seems that most adults in this country over the age of 40 wouldnt be able to differntiate between the effects of a spliff and a rock of crack. And it is the policy makers and those tasked with dealing with social problems that are in this (generally) ignorant demographic.

My two cents and obviously based on personal experience and things i have observed along the way.

You must've been at the Domestos when you typed this out?

You've said people can't name 20 people not on drugs because you took some drugs and because you've formed the notion that I am anti-drugs?

How is any of this relevant to there being a lot of people who were creative but not on drugs?

By the way, i'm not Anti-Drugs. But people HAVE been talking about the types of drugs like heroin, crack etc. One poster used 3 people as examples, Burroghs, Hendrix and Cobain. 2 of these people diedas a result of their addiction to hard drugs.

I can understand your point of view, but to tell me my opinions are based on an Anti-Drugs viewpoint is wrong.

It works both ways you see. Your Beatles comment is obviously a product of YOUR pro-drug stance. The Beatles late work was no better than their early work, it was just different. To call them "Westlife teen idol prototype" is not entirely true and I bet that you know that, but it didnt stop you trying to use it as part of your argument.

I think people are forgetting that the most highly regarded musicians, painters, poets, novelists etc were extraordinarily talented anyway.

They are not like 'normal' people, their brains work differently to 'normal' peoples. One poster said that some might use drugs to gain a different perspective and I totally agree with that. But the talent and creative foresight has always been there since birth.

board.eddy

Deus Ex Machina wrote: »

It's well known that a huge number of famous and successful artists of all types used a lot of drugs. Writers, musicians, actors, painters, so many of them were and are heavily involved with, if not addicted to, some type of drug.

So the question is, do you think that art/creativity can be enhanced by drug use? Or is it the case that the likes of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Stephen King, Charles Dickens, Van Gogh etc would have been just as creative and successful without ever using drugs?

Drugs are a massive hinderance to writing creatively imo, take a look at the stuff the beatles wrote when they were high, lucy in the sky, yellow submarine etc, not their best work at all.
i have often come up with guitar stuff when high, thought it was great then played it sober to realise its a whole heap of **** nothing

Logical Fallacy

board.eddy wrote: »

i have often come up with guitar stuff when high, thought it was great then played it sober to realise its a whole heap of **** nothing

This is very true...I imagine a lot of the greats, be they poets, writers or musicians had bundles and bundles of absolute dross that they produced while on drugs as well.

3ndahalfof6

there is nothing like a drop of V blood to open up he imagination,

Dudess

Great pix Snow monkey!

In college I always wrote better essays after a few drinks - I wasn't drunk or anything, but just two or three and the ideas and words would flow out.

Latchy

If you include alcohol into the mix then the stats will show that many artists ,actors ,writers ,poets were alcoholics and died as a result .

The influence of some drugs can and does sometimes bring out a side of you that may differ from what you are really all about and can equally destroy what talent you may already have .Some mind altering substances can induce an egotistical state which if not kept in check , can do some serious damage in which many famous artist lost touch with reality ...permanently . Syd Barret - Pink Floyd , Peter Green - Fleetwood Mac , Brian Jones - Rolling Stones and Brenden Behan would be ones who spring to mind who's over indulgence led to early death or some permanent paraniod state .

Snowie

board.eddy wrote: »

Drugs are a massive hinderance to writing creatively imo, take a look at the stuff the beatles wrote when they were high, lucy in the sky, yellow submarine etc, not their best work at all.
i have often come up with guitar stuff when high, thought it was great then played it sober to realise its a whole heap of **** nothing

I think the Beatles did something they had to do experiment they more or less proofed one thing that had to be done. USC has no boundaries and is only as great as it's creators....