This is a really wonderful post, though I always enjoy your entries! You speak of schizophrenia specifically, but I wonder if there would be similar findings for bipolar disorder since I have read that both conditions have some biological similarities.

Thanks for including the pdf of your study! I look forward to reading it.

Thanks Scott. Keep 'em coming.

Thanks Tina and KHP for your kind words!

Tina, you raise a really important and intriguing point.

I'll do a post in the future on the relation between mood variability and creativity. There are some extremely interesting studies looking at bipolar symptoms and creative output. I'll also try to touch on commonalities between bipolar and schizophrenia.

So stay tuned.

Scott

An interesting potential extension of this work would be a study of the relationship between latent inhibition and a propensity for psychosis following ingestion of substances impairing executive function (i.e., what's the LI in people who "freak out" from drugs?).

I have ADD a mild mental illness and for the most part an unchanging or unprogressive brain anomaly.I will have a lifetime of creativity while those with a more severe and symptomatically progressive mental illnesses with have a short art career. Unless medicine puts them back in their productive place. This is the new thought of the great thinkers these days. Sincerely,David

My gut instinct tells me that the difference between genius and schizophrenia lies in the determination to come back to a consenual reality that I assure you is insane. I will admit that it is very easy to get lost in an anesthesia consciousness especially when proprioception is whack.

When Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) wakes up from her dream with the ruby shoes did she really go to Oz?

Dissociation
A crisis whisked me to the Land of Oz
It is the land of dream with different laws

Disoriented and humble and afraid I stood
The brick road branched into a yellow wood

Which way do I go – to the left or the right?
Someone please save me from this plight!

But no one was there to hear my plea
No good witch or wizard could I see

Determined was I to find my way home
Into the underwood I did roam

There were lions, and tigers and bears oh my!
And treacherous witches so scared was I

I had to believe that I’d make it back
From a proprioception that was whack

Dorothy’s shoes dropped from the air
“This Too Will Pass” was written there

Faith grew stronger and fear was gone
I looked them over and put them on

Their magic gave me courage within
Compassion and love inside my skin

The good witch appeared; it was my time to go
“You have all that you came for don’t you know?”

The road less traveled made the difference for me
But had I strayed left I know where I’d be

Flying with Peter Pan and Tinker Bell
Forgetting about home caught in a spell

Somewhere over the rainbow and the first star to the right
There is an anesthesia consciousness just out of sight

It is the place where genius draws from the well
And schizophrenic lost ones escape their hell

I am an author, a poet and an artist. I have also for many years been diagnosed with schizophrenia, from which I am more or less recovered, though I still suffer from bouts of psychosis from time to time. I have found that when I am particularly psychotic and paranoid, I feel absolutely certain that my intuitions are accurate and spot-on, and act on that basis, much to the chagrin or dismay of others around me. It has ever astounded me, having made various accusations or even just statements regarding a person's emotional state of mind (my judgment of it from their facial expression and body language) to be told that they feel nothing of the sort or that they were not even thinking about whatever matter I assumed was on their mind...Herein lies the problem: I trust my intuition then, I trust it implicitly, and trust it even when I'm told I am wrong to do so. I simply do not trust that anyone is telling me the truth otherwise!

But at those time, so much else is going on that is haywire, that it is hard to either be or feel creative in any way...I may write up a storm, but it is largely to keep track of everything that is going on around me, to take notes, that is, in order to be able to report to the higher powers on so and so's behavior towards me, to keep tabs on what is happening, to remember from moment to moment what is "coming down.". I have never been able to write a decent poem or do a decent piece of artwork when hospitalized.

It is only once free from psychosis and in recovery that I regain those powers, it is only in retrospect, and in fact, it is only with distance and usually without reference directly to my psychotic experiences that I become my most creative.

Wonderful posting, keep fighting!- Sincerely,David

I don't know if this has been mentioned by anyone anywhere on a support page as I just signed up on this for the first time, as I am schitzophrenic and needed to get involved in some type of support group type thing. I just know that the only time I feel well enough to get things done is when I am listening to music either while relaxing or cleaning or whatever. Listening to music takes up most of my day, is there such thing as listening too much to it? Could this be a cause for a break from reality? I am musical and used to play piano very well but as I got older I would rather listen than play, as my concentration seems to wander from note reading and I get very tired afterwards. I love music but because of my illness due to injury I had to stop giving lessons as I couldn't concentrate enough to be very good at it. I did have several head injuries, including a concussion and fractures to my scull. I guess I have to live with it, but I am wondering if it healthy to listen to so much music? Sometimes certain types of music can make me almost high and or low. I do find listening to music very therapeutic, but have trouble breaking myself away from it and am almost a slave to it. This does not sound too good but it is the way my mind seems to work, and maybe it is just another way of being creative? I would love to hear from others if interested!!! Thanks, Katie

If I missed this point, I apologize, but do you suggest that training to place more faith in one's intuition (whether religion, therapy, hypnosis, etc) can increase one's access to intuition?

Do you suggest that stimulants can help those with schizophrenia? I am recently diagnosed with ADD and Bipolar II (although I'm not fully accepting of the diagnosis, give the potential for overlap), while my sister is diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder.

I am "supposed" by virtue of education and ability to be creative, but struggle greatly: the only time I have been creative that I can identify in retrospect have been times when I was probably manic, many decades ago). Stimulants have so far been ineffective at significantly improving creativity, although at times they help me with insight and organizing my thoughts.

I can attest that I have significant executive function issues, as well as short-term memory loss. I find the anxiety over this trumps any chance for creativity, which I suppose would correlate with your finding that belief in one's intuition, indeed in one's general sense of self-worth permits creativity.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Studs Terkel indicate that creativity arises out of the ability to remove or ignore distractions, which appears similar to your notion of being able to limit overload. And yet, I don't find that I'm creative when I'm depressed (I suppose because I am inwardly focused and ruminating, to the exclusion of external stimuli).

All of this suggests that stimulants would fix a lot, if they would only work for me. As for my sister, she was always more creative when young, but now her lowered self-image seems to be more of a problem than overload, but I haven't taken into account the cognitive loss that accompanies her meds.

In my opinion, low latent inhibition is the product of hypervigilence. Hypervigilence comes from a belief that "One's world is not safe." That belief happens to be learned by experience and perpetuated by more experience.

According to Wikipedia, "hypervigilance is an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect threats. Hypervigilance is also accompanied by a state of increased anxiety which can cause exhaustion. Other symptoms include: abnormally increased arousal, a high responsiveness to stimuli and a constant scanning of the environment for threats. Hypervigilance is a symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder."

Low latent inhibition is the information gathering gift for "early threat detection" at the price of "extreme exhaustion" with the overload switch of "isolation."

Psychosis is the extreme form of isolation. That's where "forever feels like home sitting all alone inside your head - Stone Sour lyrics"

It was the safest place I've ever known. Who would want to come back from a place like that?

I (Michele) am late coming to this post, but I find it very intriguing -- and I do have a question. Have you looked into whether or not a healthy person interested in enhancing creativity can learn to let down their inhibition and access intuition purposefully -- much like purposefully embracing an associational or learned synesthesia in the absence of the clinical kind? If so, how? Ramping up the meditation, the daydreaming, the night dreaming, drugs, or other? Is this what these behaviors are all about, circumventing executive function!

I was diagnosed as 'mildly psychotic' at 19. I'm not mildly psychotic - I'm hugely with a bit in reserve. But now I understand I can watch myself. When having an episode a very small part of me stays in reality and that is the small part that feels the most fear. If I can just keep telling that part of myself to keep calm that it will pass, I know I will be ok. It's intense paranoia I suffer with and usually work related or to do with my husbands family. The post about 'detecting threats' was way to familiar to me!

When I'm not having an episode life is the best and I thrive on creativity and confidence. I can write so much when I'm inspired.

I want to be formally diagnosed but I cannot risk it. My son is 2 and I worry they will take him away from me or get social services involved, which will make things worse. He is NEVER at risk. He is my one precious thing and I function, even at my lowest, for him....which is something I could never do before he was here.