Using Cannabis as a Creative Tool
Cannabis has long been associated with “creatives”. Musicians, artists, writers and many other ‘creative types’ have mentioned their relationship with weed over the years. Of course, there are many creative people who don’t smoke weed, but it’s hard to deny that cannabis has been a helper to many creative folks over the years.
But does cannabis actually help with creativity? According to some research, there is some correlation, however it’s not definitive. You can read more on the study here.
Nonetheless, people from all walks of life has claimed, “Cannabis helps with creativity”. While I’m not going to argue the scientific findings, I’m going to relate my personal experience with cannabis and how I use it to help me with creativity.
When to use and when not to use
Sometimes, cannabis can be a great assistant, at other times, it can be a great hindrance. It really comes down to ‘what I’m doing’. For instance, if I need to utilize my analytical processes within a paper I’m writing, I prefer to be sober.
Cannabis usually sends my mind into a whirlwind of ideas which is counterproductive when I’m trying to focus on a singular topic – especially when it’s technical. If I’m baked and writing one of these papers, I get caught up in semantics, try to understand individual words and my train of thought can get interrupted often.
However, when I’m writing a song, script or novel…I like to have a joint or a pipe loaded and next to me. I’m not constantly smoking when working on these creative papers, however, whenever I run into a “wall” or lose inspiration, a few puffs get me back on track.
The first thing I can say definitely is that you should know how you react to cannabis. If you can continue to concentrate on technical elements, perhaps you can smoke while working. Me…only on specific topics.
Know how much to use
There’s a difference between clearing a bong and taking a puff. I usually like to start small and scale up throughout the process. Granted, I sometimes sit down and write for twelve hour stretches.
Nonetheless, whenever I first start smoking weed (before working on something), I only smoke enough to “feel something”. I’m not high, my brain is just “tickled” with the weed.
This allows me to get in the right mindset and depending on the difficulty of the task, I decide when it’s time to smoke more or not.
For instance, if I were to smoke a half a blunt by myself before starting to work on anything, odds are that I’d much rather want to whip out my guitar and practice a few scales or make up new tunes. It’s very counter-productive to the “task” I wish to achieve.
I prefer to start small, and scale up.
Use it when you hit walls
No matter if I’m writing technical stuff, or creative stuff…eventually I’ll hit a wall. Maybe I’m tired, maybe I’ve been thinking way too much on one particular “thing”. In these cases, I step away from what I’m doing, roll myself a joint and smoke about half of it in one sitting.
I take about 30min to an hour to unwind and clear my mind. In these instances, there is no limit to “how high” I can go. The point is to disconnect and to give my mind some time to recover.
Nonetheless, if I’m still aiming on being productive and creative later on, I won’t eat edibles or anything that will make me “too stoned”. I still like to maintain a certain level of control during the “unwinding phase”.
Once enough time has gone by, I then resume working and by then my creative processes have been unblocked.
It doesn’t always work
Creativity is a weird thing. Sometimes you need inspiration, other times it just flows from you. Smoking weed, in most cases helps me reconnect with the inspiration that got me being creative in the first place. But it isn’t a magical bullet.
Sometimes, no matter how much I smoke…my mind simply says, “nope!”
In these cases, I try other things like meditation, going for a walk or punching the living shit out of a boxing bag. What I’m getting at is that you can’t solely rely on cannabis to help you with creativity. The way I see it is that it’s merely a tool.
Cannabis can help you connect to the creative elements in your life. Just don’t think it is the reason you’re creative. Your creativity comes from within; cannabis is just a tool that helps you access it more freely.
Perhaps it’s because you’re less stressed, more relaxed and give less of a shit about what the result. Just relaxing and having fun could be all you need to access your creativity. Cannabis, helps with doing just that.
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