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[SD-Ness]

This was inspired by the "spider on acid thread."

Anyway, why is it that authors, artists, musicians, etc. create many of their best works while under the influence of alcohol or drugs?

Keep in mind...that I've never experienced drunkess or "high-ness" before...if my question is an ignorant one.

Is the brain more open and free thinking during this time?

Another thing that brought me to ask this question was:

(From some website)

Absinth is flavoured distilled liquor, emerald green in colour, turning to cloudy, opalescent white when mixed with water. It inspired many prominent artists, writers and poets. Just to name a few - Vincent Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Manet, Ernest Hemingway - in fact his masterpiece " For Whom The Bell Tolls " was written under the influence of "The Green Fairy". Absinthe was first produced commercially in 1797 by Henry-Louis Pernod, who purchased the formula from a French exile living in Switzerland.

I write a lot and it disturbs (maybe too strong of a word) me to see that a lot of the best works that I've come across were written under circumstances that I've never experienced and of a much better quality that I may never be able to reach.

Discuss.

 

[tt_deeb]

I sort of feel that artist that need drugs to create aren't really artists.

EDIT: Actually I take that back, maybe it does take something to be able to take an experience like that and make into art even if you do sort of force the experience on you. Though, I feel it's easy for me to create (some pretty weird and quirky stuff too) without it.

 

[speedpop]

I've never really bothered to do anything constructive whilst under the influence of alcohol or any other drug for that matter, but it does heighten the sense of music where it gets to the point of an over-flowing emotion that you can't stop.

However, I will add this.. I used to draw quite a lot a few years back and have now since stopped. The catch was though that I would only ever draw between the hours of 10pm till very early in the morning. Some of the stuff I would pump out was unbelievable even for my own art critical eyes, it's during this period where you've simply run out of steam or conciousness and the moves you pull out are unbelievable. A friend of mine is a successful local musician in the city I live at and he only ever writes songs late at night due to this..

Sure inhibitionistic drugs will always bring the best out of you at times, it does detract you quite a lot. Mention of point, don't try and do anything whilst on LSD You might end up hiding in the closet afraid that anytime you walk out, the poisonous gas will get to you.

 

[border]

It has produced just as much bullshit as it has brilliance....

 

[sc0la]

It has produced just as much bullshit as it has brilliance....

this post = fact

A lot of great stuff comes out of sober people as well.

edit: though that doesn't keep me from being curious about it, and asking questions to similar affect as you.

 

[White Man]

Anyway, why is it that authors, artists, musicians, etc. create many of their best works while under the influence of alcohol or drugs?

It's all about drawing inspiration from the world around you. I used to not get much inspiration unless drunk or on substances. It's settled down since then. I've grown more cautious about chemical usage, but I really miss being productive. I really, really want to go back to the way I was, but I'm aware how pathetic it would be. I miss being able to pull out material that even I thought was decent.

And Border is very right, as well. See: Sublime.

 

[J2 Cool]

I've never really bothered to do anything constructive whilst under the influence of alcohol or any other drug for that matter, but it does heighten the sense of music where it gets to the point of an over-flowing emotion that you can't stop.

However, I will add this.. I used to draw quite a lot a few years back and have now since stopped. The catch was though that I would only ever draw between the hours of 10pm till very early in the morning. Some of the stuff I would pump out was unbelievable even for my own art critical eyes, it's during this period where you've simply run out of steam or conciousness and the moves you pull out are unbelievable. A friend of mine is a successful local musician in the city I live at and he only ever writes songs late at night due to this..

Sure inhibitionistic drugs will always bring the best out of you at times, it does detract you quite a lot. Mention of point, don't try and do anything whilst on LSD You might end up hiding in the closet afraid that anytime you walk out, the poisonous gas will get to you.

The late night drawing is definetly true. Well, sometimes. There's been nights when I get tired I was drawing uninspired shit and didnt exactly like anything. I'd have to stop and just sleep. But another night everything I drew was gold imo which I never think of my own stuff. I kept getting ideas then right before I'd sleep and pump out something new until like 5 in the morning

 

[AeroGod]

Anyway, why is it that authors, artists, musicians, etc. create many of their best works while under the influence of alcohol or drugs?

Because they become dependant on them and put themselves in he mindset that without they cannot do anything creative. Its kinda sad and translates to alot of other areas in life.

 

[Warm Machine]

I think Clive Barker once said something like this massive paraphrase...

I'm scared of doing drugs because of a way it may change me and my mind. Besides, just look at young children playing and you'll see that we all have creativity and imagination without the use of drugs.

 

[Teddman]

There's no question that in the hands of some artists, drugs aided their ability to create inspired works. Look at greats like Jimi Hendrix, Edgar Allan Poe, Van Gogh, the many poets on opium, just about every rock musician at one point in their lives , Hunter S. Thompson, etc.

It's not like "you need drugs to be creative," but I do think the most original, most innovative figures in many disciplines also happened to be drug users. Maybe it has something to do with tapping the subconscious.

If you count alcohol as a drug, the list goes up tenfold or more...

 

[carpal]

I think Clive Barker once said something like this massive paraphrase...

I'm scared of doing drugs because of a way it may change me and my mind. Besides, just look at young children playing and you'll see that we all have creativity and imagination without the use of drugs.

Yeah but Clive Barker sucks.

 

[way more]

It has produced just as much bullshit as it has brilliance....

You see this a lot in Boulder, the art here is of the "acid trash," medium.

Why do artists do drugs? For the same reason other people do them. All the bullshit about opening the doors of perception acutally becomes true when you're loopy off your ass. People are always looking for ways to distort their perception, like little kids spinning untill they fall down.

As for Clive Barker saying we are creative without drugs, so what? We are creative with drugs.

 

[MrAngryFace]

My best writing in College was always done on the least amount of sleep.

 

[demon]

My best writing in College was always done on the least amount of sleep.

Same here. I always wondered why that is.

 

[White Man]

My best writing in College was always done on the least amount of sleep.

I wrote a series of stories for my college's literary mag called 'Sleep Deprivation Theatre.' It was pretty good stuff. Knowing my preferences at the time frame, there was probably tequila involved as well. I might still have the unused stories for that back in PA. I know I had maybe at least a half dozen pieces ready for it, but only 4 were used. My best stuff was invariably done when I was working with a theme while under a deadline. I like people telling me what to write. If told to write from an idea of my own, I get embarassed to easily and always scrap the results.

Argh, you chatty bitches are making me want to talk about writing. There's pad thai to be purchased and eaten.

 

[Belfast]

They aren't. They just think they do. And then other people like it because they're on the same drugs, as well. Not that the stuff they produce *can't* be enjoyable, but its a myth for artists only being able to produce good works when high. Besides, I think its sometimes accepted because its *is* almost considered the norm. Most artists probably do it at one point or another, whether just because or as part of their rebellious artist spirit.

Anyway, all its really doing is heightening your emotional response to things, both bad and good. This can be done pretty naturally whenever your body/mind is put through extreme circumstances anyway.

 

[Phoenix]

Same here. I always wondered why that is.

Left brain, right brain. One is the creative side, one is the analytical side. Certain drugs, mental conditions, and whether or not you are left/right handed determine which one you use more.

 

[MrAngryFace]

I tend to second guess myself less when im tired, I think that helps me put ideas to paper.

 

[demon]

Left brain, right brain. One is the creative side, one is the analytical side. Certain drugs, mental conditions, and whether or not you are left/right handed determine which one you use more.

I've read that being right/left-handed really doesn't have any effect on which side of the brain you use more.

 

[White Man]

They aren't. They just think they do.

I don't think one could make a definitive statement on whether drugs help make better art. Some artists produced their best work while on chemicals, and some produced garbage. Arthur Rimbaud's poetry before he started taking absinthe and opium is decent enough, but once he did enter the Parisian drug scene, he became a god among symbolists. Lou Reed on drugs == VU and his awesome 70s output. Lou Reed clean == his work from 1980 until today . With some artists, drug use doesn't seem to affect their output at all. Look at Bowie. He's had bouts of drug use all throughout his career with no correlation betwen chemical use and artistic peaks and lows.

Every artist is different. There's no hard and fast rule.

EDIT: Personally, I think confidence and lowered inhibitions have to do with any percieved change in an artist's output once they start drugs. Lowering one person's inhibitions may remove an internal editor that was keeping the lad from publicly displaying their best work. Lowering another's may make them think that anything they produce is gold, thus leading to some very poor output.

Me, I have a confidence problem. Nothing I ever do is good enough to meet my own standards. Also, I'm terrified that too much of myself will end up in a story, and the last thing I want is for people to be able to make accurate conjectures on what I'm like from my writing.

 

[Phoenix]

I've read that being right/left-handed really doesn't have any effect on which side of the brain you use more.

The left side of the brain controls the muscles on the right side of the body and vice versa.

Each hemisphere of the brain is dominant for other behaviors. For example, it appears that the right brain is dominant for spatial abilities, face recognition, visual imagery and music. The left brain may be more dominant for calculations, math and logical abilities. Of course, these are generalizations and in normal people, the two hemispheres work together, are connected, and share information through the corpus callosum. Much of what we know about the right and left hemispheres comes from studies in people who have had the corpus callosum split - this surgical operation isolates most of the right hemisphere from the left hemisphere. This type of surgery is performed in patients suffering from epilepsy. The corpus callosum is cut to prevent the spread of the "epileptic seizure" from one hemisphere to the other.

It continues to be postulated that sicne the brain is a muscle that gets excercised through activity that the regular use of the right hand provides more stimulation for the left side of the brain and it is thus more developed at an early age unless damaged or otherwise effected by the corpus callosum.

 

[Warm Machine]

Ridley Scott, on the Hannibal directors track says he doesn't do mind altering drugs. He said this in reference to Lecters character as probably being someone who does.

 

[Flynn]

Drugs cut inhibitions.

For most that's a bad thing, because they should keep their stupid ideas to themselves.

But for certain folks, drugs help tap into deeper areas, eg. wounds, unexplored thoughts, or even lessen the potential or percieved pain of creative failure and that can help bolster a creative work.

 

[Litigation Manuel]

Drugs don't always bring forth the most creative things while under the influence. For example, "Purple Haze" by Hendrix, what could be considered one of his most psychedelic and creative songs, wasn't done under the influence. It was done before he began using drugs, and was actually about a short science fiction story his manager Chas Chandler gave him as opposed to being about LSD. And if you look at his later work, when he was heavily using drugs, like the album "Electric Lady Land", a lot of it wasn't that creative, it was just general blues inspired rock.

 

[Dilbert]

I immensely dislike the work of most artists who created their work while under the influence. I don't think it's a coincidence.

 

[hooded pitohui]

The best work I've ever done for my writing workshop was a poem written while dead drunk. Something about regenerating pies or some shit, supposedly "skillfully done."

 

[Rlan]

I've always wondered whether Robert Rodreigez [?] did / does any drugs. They made a big point in the Dusk till Dawn DVD special features that all the crazyness came out without needing drugs, yet Quinten Tarantino is a big friend of his, and the guy who played Cheech is in every second movie of his.

I occasionally hear that people like Robin Williams or Christopher Walken are big into the sort of drugs, and although you can pretty much say "Yeah, now that I think of it, they could be", it also makes you feel a bit letdown, as it's not truly them doing all this crazy shit.

 

[Liono]

I know just from drinking coffee, a drug, that I'm usually a hell of a lot more inspired to do work (I'm an artist)-- though not necessarily be more creative. Drugs have ways of knocking down those walls we often confine ourselves to. I've never done a more serious drug than caffiene but it's hard for me to respect those who need to use drugs to tap into their creative side. It's the easy way out.

 

[Mario_Hugo]

I'm not much into drugs (and I've quit drinking like a fish), but I'd imagine sobriety is simply a matter of inhibition for a lot of artists. I feel this way consistently. My work is too tight. I'm too concerned with the output to experiment 75% of the time. If I do experiment, it's marginal at best. If I was as free-wheeling, amiable, and charming in sobriety as drunkeness, my work would be considerably better, imo. A couple vodka cranberrys and I'm really on top of my game...

 

[Tarazet]

I have a hard enough time coordinating the jumps, scale passages and blind octaves in the average Liszt etude as it is. I could not handle it if I was drugged. However, it's alleged that Liszt wrote a good deal of his music under the influence of hashish, so there's some kind of holy druggie harmony here.

Glazunov drank like a sailor, and he turned the premiere of a Rachmaninoff symphony into a disaster by being drunk at the podium...

John Field, inventor of the nocturne, was also a boozehound...

And then, of course, you have the tragic cases. Robert Schumann (composer of Traumerei) attempted suicide right after writing an ethereal, but deeply disturbing set of variations that he said were dictated to him by angels. He died two years later in a mental asylum, inspiring Brahms to write his first Piano Concerto, one of the greatest ever written...

Tchaikovsky (Swan Lake, Nutcracker) also committed suicide, and he was a closeted homosexual for his entire life.. so too, it is alleged, was Franz Schubert, who wrote the famous Marche Militaire. And it's hard to pick out even a single famous American composer who wasn't gay.

 

[speedpop]

Now that the topic has resurfaced I might actually look into this more deeply.. the fact that the brain becomes "untapped" in creativity. Reminds me the adrenaline people get during extreme danger situations that allow them to be super human during the entire scene.

The mind is a wonderful thing