How To Use Cannabis To Unlock Your Creativity

How To Use Cannabis as a Creative Aid

Cannabis Can Unlock Your Creative Side - Here is How to Do It! from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

Bill Hicks once said that if you’re so against the use of marijuana, “BURN ALL YOUR ALBUMS”, all of your favorite artists that wrote your favorite songs….were really fucking high.

It’s true, artistically inclined people are much more likely to utilize substances to enhance their creativity. Of course, not all artists use cannabis for inspiration, but you can’t deny that it does play a significant factor in all forms of entertainment, whether we’re talking about television, music, fine arts and so forth.

Now there’s been a large debate surrounding whether or not cannabis actually does make you more creative or not. If you’re looking it from the perspective of those who would like to see cannabis illegal, the argument points to a study where they tested people with low/high doses of pot doing Divergent Thinking Exercises.

Essentially, they would give you common objects and you’d have to think of “creative ways” to use the object.

However, anyone with an ounce of creativity would see that such a test places a boundary on the creative process. “You can only be creative in this area”.

That’s a different kind of creativity.

Artists pull ideas from the ether of existence. Their personal experience of life coupled with their personality and talents allows them to express non-existent thought and convert it into physical manifestations of the idea.

This cannot be limited to finding other uses for common objects. For a creative person, such an exercise is boring.

If you’re looking at the argument from a more neurological perspective, there have been studies that pointed out that a personality trait plays a more significant role in the creative process. People who are artsy [and smoked marijuana] and have an “openness to new experiences” personality trait, actually performed better than non-smokers in similar tests.

This means that the creative person is wired differently and just so happens to share a personality trait with many stoners.

This could be the reason why creative people tend to use cannabis more often than non-creative people.

How to Harness the Power of Cannabis for your Creativity

Depending on what you’re doing, cannabis can either be helpful or not. For instance, in my case, if I were to write an article like this for instance; I can’t be blazing. I would fumble my sentences and write out incoherent ideas.

However, when I’m writing a fictional story, getting high helps.

Cannabis is very good for the creation aspect of creativity. The time when you’re just connecting to the ether of existence and flowing within all things creative. That’s when you want to spark up.

However, when it comes to more menial tasks. Things that require analytical thought [at least for me personally] cannabis is an inhibitor.

Whenever I’m smoking, the first thing I want to do is pick up my guitar and play a few tasty tunes. I don’t want to sit down and analyze data and interpret it to write out an article.

However, dosage also is important.

In small doses, I can perform better with analytical tasks. Higher doses encourage me to submerge myself in the creative flow. Knowing what I’m doing allows me to dose properly to achieve the desired effects.

A Shift in Perception opens the Doors of Creativity

Another reason why cannabis is such a great creative aid is because it literally shifts your perception of reality. While prohibitionists would like you to think that an “altered perception of reality” is a bad thing, the truth of the matter is that within a “temporal altered perception of reality” you allow your mind to process information differently.

After all, creativity is just abnormal pattern recognition if you want to get all sciency about it. A song is merely a unique combination of notes [frequency] coupled with a unique combination of words [intention] that resonates with the listener.

Similarly, a painting is merely a unique combination of colors to express intention.

A shift in perceived reality allows your mind to interpret information from a ‘new angle’, creating abnormal conceptual associations and translating into a creative new way of doing things.

I think this is a very important element to being creative. Cannabis allows you to see the world in different lighting. It allows you to perhaps notice things you would normally not care about. A leaf dancing in the distant wind could inspire a new song and if you weren’t high, you would have walked past that leaf not giving a flying fuck about its meaningless existence.

For artists wanting to use cannabis as a creative aid, finding the right strain would be your first step. Secondly, you’ll want to figure out your optimal dosage. You want to be agile but not too stoned to not want to do anything.

Experimentation is key.