Psychedelic Creativity and Seeing the Cinnamon Sun

It is fun to write about using psychedelics. Tripping comes with all sorts of exciting things. Flowing and colorful visuals manifest behind closed eyes. Walls breath, objects melt, and the stars dance in the sky. Strange and new thoughts make themselves known to the user and meaningful revelations are born out of them. The things one carries back from his or her psychedelic journey may not have the romanticism attached to them as all those other parts of psychedelic culture but they are equally as important as the trip itself. These treasures of the psychedelic world are far more lasting and have a constant impact on day to day life. Of these enduring prizes one claims through tripping, the expansion of creative thinking stands among the most useful. New associations are generated during a psychedelic experience. Things that would normally be completely unconnected seem to have natural relationships. Colors may have personality traits. Concepts and objects may begin to seem representative of one another. After the trip, these new connections remain in the users mind and this has a profoundly positive effect on creativity and novel problem solving.

I have often described tripping as feeling like being a child again and this is, in part, because it "liquefies" the normally "solid" associations one holds in his or her mind. When a person is a young child, concepts have not had a chance to be become rigid and they are not yet closely associated with other ideas. As the child grows and learns, certain thoughts become connected. Maybe the child is given a red ball and, as a result, whenever he or she imagines a ball, it is always red. Time goes on and this connection between red and ball becomes solid. This same sort of passive conditioning exists in everything we think about and it is helpful in our lives. We associate a growl with an angry dog and we know we shouldn't try to pet the growling dog. We associate fire with heat and as result, we do not touch things that are on fire. Psychedelics seem to temporarily "melt" our solidified associations which leaves them more fluid, as they would be for a young child.

This "melting" effect of psychedelic drugs allows for new connections to form in addition to the ones that we already have. After tripping, the now adult individual who always thought of ball when he or she saw red may connect red and ball to two other separate concepts. Red still means ball but it also comes mean cinnamon. Likewise, ball, which always meant red, now also means sun. A complex ecosystem of ideas begins to take shape. These new relationships allow formerly unconnected concepts to interact in ways that they never would have before using the drug. New connections made in relation to "red" and "ball" create a bridge between cinnamon and sun but it does not end with that one degree of separation. Everything associated with cinnamon (let's say roll) and sun (let's burn) have also gained a connection to red and ball. A new web of thought comes into existence and becomes intertwined with the old one. In short, a new way of thinking in born within the user's mind.

Now, try to imagine how this changes the creative and problem solving processes. Let's say that the person who thinks of red and ball is a poet who needs to use symbols to represent ideas. He or she now has two sets of symbols to work with. Before having a psychedelic experience, he or she would never have thought to describe a red ball as a cinnamon sun because there was no connection between cinnamon and sun. As a direct result of the use of psychedelics, this individual's creative potential is greatly increased. This is a hypothetical example, of course, but a significant number of people have credited psychedelics for allowing them to come up with novel solutions to creative problems. Imagine what effect this aspect of psychedelic usage might have on a on a mathematician who ponders the nature of infinity. What could these new connections do for someone who argues for change in society. Regardless of what field one works in, or what media he or she uses to create, or what problems he or she approaches, having a new and extremely complex web of associations will improve his or her ability to do whatever it is that he or she aims to do.

Many psychedelic advocates like myself, enjoy talking about how these substances can make the world a better place and that is often a bit hyperbolic but, in this instance, I truly believe that the use of these drugs can have a profoundly positive effect on society and the cultural advancement of our species. I do not think that force feeding some horrible dictator a bunch of acid or mushrooms will ever make that dictator stop being horrible. Some things are beyond the abilities of these drugs. However, when creatives are more creative, we are all enriched by their creations. When people who solve problems are better at solving problems, fewer people suffer as a result of those problems. When a psychonaut learns how to think differently, he or she can teach others how to think differently too (or at least teach them how to learn to think differently)and everyone gains a new piece of wisdom which can be applied to their lives. When it comes to increasing creativity, psychedelics can indeed make the world better than it is.

Peace.

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com