I really hate the sentiment that you must be under the influence of something to reach a certain level of creativity. Some artists have found success with this and that's fine, but it is not a requirement. Not even for the most surreal and otherworldly art.
I noticed the same, when tired my brain take shortcuts and is far better at fast solving, but I lack the long view in this state. Brains are amazingly interesting.
I write my best when I’m depressed. I’m okay with finding alternative routes for that, though weed isn’t one of them. I find weed helps me when I’m doing visual art, but when writing? Weed practically renders me incapable.
I now understand why writers’ usual substances of choice are alcohol and caffeine.
also shakespeare is incredibly specific. the example I like to use is the famous
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your ears!"
Which takes place in a crowded marketplace.
Count the syllables: 1 (friends), 2, (romans), 3 (countrymen), 4 (lend me your ears)
it's a line in which the meter matches the intent - attracting attention in a big group.
Bill will also often add an eleventh unstressed syllable to his dialogue lines if he wants a character to seem vulnerable or weak, indicating they have fallen off meter because of their inner thoughts
very occasionally he does an eleventh STRESSED syllable when a character is being especially dominating and murderous.
The other famous examples is when a peasant or very low status character speaks, it won't be in verse at all, but plain prose.
Dépend, if you are ADHD canabis is an amazing way to increase the symptom and trigger an hyperfocus while going at 200% on all directions, great for a créativity boost. Whole reducing canabis and increasing active plant like caféine help reduce the symptom and make it easy to speak to neuro-typical.
May be he had ADD or ADHD and used this to trigger what was called creative transe.
My bad I missed the no requirement part.
Yeah I join you on the sentiments, but I am not convinced artist need drug to create, like you are.
THC reacts strangely with my ADHD, It triggers some sort of dysphoria where I end up frustrated and angry that my brain/body isnt acting the way I want it to respond .
I have had different experiences with smoking (which I dropped entirely) vs gummies. Gummies (any edible really) tend to take effect very slowly over the course of an hour and the high is much more calm than any joint I ever smoked. It lends itself well to creative sessions : as long as I'm able to get started, I don't stop easily.
Marijuana flower is just too potent these days. I miss mid grade weed where I could smoke a joint and not feel like my heart is about to pop from beating so fast.
Delta 8 has been nice because for me it does what CBD claims to do, and I have to try to get really stoned on it.
Interesting that the effects are so different for each brain. When smoking I am not able to filter as well, I dunno of the filtering part slow or the idea part of my brain go faster. It make me have pint of vue different of mine on subjects. Which is interesting.
For me it opens up possibilities that my sober brain doesn't consider because my sober brain filters and edits things based on assumptions. So i sometimes miss details when sober because my subconscious brain dismissed those details as unimportant. Most of the time, that filtering process is a positive part of decision-making. I should be ignoring certain variables because knowledge and experience identified those details as a waste of time. However, on weed, i consider things i wouldn't have considered because that filtering process is lessened. So most of my stoned thoughts are worthless, but every once in a while i realize something that i was missing because my brain was ignoring that important detail when sober. It's great when I haven't been able to figure out that day's Wordle....or i realize why someone was pissed at me.
That's interesting, is it an active though process or does it came to you like an flash ? For me it have two mode of working. Active, I am hyper focusing on a subject and keep reanalysing things or passive, I can't focus well for a time period and I feel something is amiss then one day illumination and I got the answer of a tricky problem/sytuation, some time I didn't even knew I had an issue ? I noticed that feeding informations seemly random on and around the subject is speeding the process. Some time I fell like a part isn't contrôlable so I work to influence it. (This skill help me at work)
It's a passive part of my active thought process. Sometimes it results from something I'm doing in the moment while stoned (i.e. listening to a conversation), other times it is just me pondering something that happened to me previously. My brain identifies new potential reasons and motivations for what I'm witnessing or thinking about. Most of the time i can dismiss an observation because logically it doesn't matter or make sense... Presumably that's what my subconscious is doing behind the scenes when I'm sober, filtering out the illogical. But every once in a while i consider something my subconscious would have ignored that seems logical. It's particularly helpful in understanding the motivations or assumptions of others. I think i am better at reading people and understanding their point of view because of it.
That funny how close and far our ADHD are, I often suggest that ADHD have some kind of frequency and sometime you are closer to the frequency of some adhders than others.
That fascinating to get a glimpse of other peoples inner working :D
That's actually somewhat similar to the piece that gives me dysphoria!
It's like THC makes my body and brain operate at different speeds which I find incredibly frustrating.
so you're saying i should stop drinking coffee when I wake up and instead just smoke a bowl? I feel like I'm not as creative as I used to be, and my drug of choice has been coffee for the past 15 years...
Prior to transitioning I always said the two substances by brain required to function were cannabis and either caffeine or adderal, stimulant+weed kept me functioning tolerably even when I really didn't feel like it. Now estradiol is on the list too lol
It does mean that though, even low potency stuff like the plants they grow specifically to make rope still have varying levels of cannabinoids in them including THC, also that's literally the only reason to bother smoking it, might as well pack a bowl with hay otherwise
I always hated Shakespeare, mostly because of how it’s taught.
Imagine reading about Quinten Tarantino in the future, they study his methods, his dialogue and cinematography, but they hand you his screenplays and ask you to analyze them. Not once actually showing you one of his movies.
In high school they tried to make me read all that nonsense and I had no idea what any of it meant.
As an adult i saw a play as it was meant, and it gave me much more context and visual understanding. I still don’t get why he wrote like that, I prefer clear language over poetry, but I at least appreciated it way more than i did as a kid being forced to read
Yeah before people in America made a big stink about it and said it'lll turn you crazy or into a mexican, or whatever racist unscientific garbage excuse they made to start a moral panic to make it illegal, people smoked or otherwise consumed cannabis. It was just normal. The same way people consume drugs like coffee today, yes coffee is a drug.
Contamination may actually be a concern here since AFAIK no independent analysis of the clay pipe fragments or the bones has been done yet, but it'd have to be 2 coked up pothead lab techs since the clay pipe fragments were tested in a police narcotics lab in South Africa while the bones were tested at the excavation site in Milan.
Drugs were always very common through all the history, Cannabis was used until the 20th century as "tobaco for the poor", apart of Cannabis also funghi and other psycho active plants known in Europe in the middle age and before, eg by artists as inspiration.
It was, because tobacco was very expensive in europe (being a colonial good), and cannabis was widely available (as a byproduct of the fabric and rope industry).
Once smoking became fashionable, people looked for ways to smoke even if they couldn't afford tobacco. Cannabis was a popular replacement.
i'm not what you'd call a poet, i handle the instruments, but i have this thing where for example the word for cat gets stuck between your brain and your tongue so you say claws cuddler or something like that (sorry, coffee is brewing you don't get a good one yet) and when a good one pops out you get good poetry. i blame the drugs.
Pot isn't like opium. Most people can use pot occasionally and be sober most of the time, it's probably less common for someone to become a pothead than for a drinker to become dependant on booze
Many people in all walks of life and all social statuses enjoy getting stoned occasionally
How many millions of brilliant people have been executed over the drug war? Depending on how you classify "drug war" (like the wars over opium, or chocolate for that matter), they have been murdering people over this for centuries (whether to push or pull).
... and they still do today. It's an abomination, our modern version of the witch hunt.
Maybe I'm confused about the current state of things, but I thought we weren't 100% sure Will Shakespeare was even a real guy, or a single guy, but now we're testing residue off the inside of a clay pipe we know was his and attributing plays to that?
71 Comments
anyhow2503@lemmy.world · 64 pts · 116d
I really hate the sentiment that you must be under the influence of something to reach a certain level of creativity. Some artists have found success with this and that's fine, but it is not a requirement. Not even for the most surreal and otherworldly art.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 116d
Also there are other ways to poke that side of brain. Most of the good abstract art I write was under sleep derivation.
Then again, I mainly write code, but it was still up to interpretation what that snippet is supposed to do.
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 4 pts · 116d
I noticed the same, when tired my brain take shortcuts and is far better at fast solving, but I lack the long view in this state. Brains are amazingly interesting.
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 116d
I write my best when I’m depressed. I’m okay with finding alternative routes for that, though weed isn’t one of them. I find weed helps me when I’m doing visual art, but when writing? Weed practically renders me incapable.
I now understand why writers’ usual substances of choice are alcohol and caffeine.
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 4 pts · 116d
Redbull and vodka for devs XD.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 115d
Except alcohol, that doesn't make pretty code.
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 3 pts · 115d
There is a short time when you are drunk enough to be direct and witouth inhibition and boosted enough I guess. Have to live on the edge.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 115d
Relevant xkcd.
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works · 14 pts · 116d
also shakespeare is incredibly specific. the example I like to use is the famous
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your ears!"
Which takes place in a crowded marketplace.
Count the syllables: 1 (friends), 2, (romans), 3 (countrymen), 4 (lend me your ears)
it's a line in which the meter matches the intent - attracting attention in a big group.
Bill will also often add an eleventh unstressed syllable to his dialogue lines if he wants a character to seem vulnerable or weak, indicating they have fallen off meter because of their inner thoughts
very occasionally he does an eleventh STRESSED syllable when a character is being especially dominating and murderous.
The other famous examples is when a peasant or very low status character speaks, it won't be in verse at all, but plain prose.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 115d
dammit i'm low on coffee and i'm thinking Bill? Bill who? Watterson? Why are we talking calvin and hobbes?
i'm going to go put a sticky note on my screen that says SHAKESBEEF and make some coffee brb
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 10 pts · 116d
Dépend, if you are ADHD canabis is an amazing way to increase the symptom and trigger an hyperfocus while going at 200% on all directions, great for a créativity boost. Whole reducing canabis and increasing active plant like caféine help reduce the symptom and make it easy to speak to neuro-typical. May be he had ADD or ADHD and used this to trigger what was called creative transe. My bad I missed the no requirement part. Yeah I join you on the sentiments, but I am not convinced artist need drug to create, like you are.
neograymatter@fedinsfw.app · 8 pts · 116d
THC reacts strangely with my ADHD, It triggers some sort of dysphoria where I end up frustrated and angry that my brain/body isnt acting the way I want it to respond .
Hadriscus@jlai.lu · 4 pts · 116d
I have had different experiences with smoking (which I dropped entirely) vs gummies. Gummies (any edible really) tend to take effect very slowly over the course of an hour and the high is much more calm than any joint I ever smoked. It lends itself well to creative sessions : as long as I'm able to get started, I don't stop easily.
village604@adultswim.fan · 2 pts · 115d
Marijuana flower is just too potent these days. I miss mid grade weed where I could smoke a joint and not feel like my heart is about to pop from beating so fast.
Delta 8 has been nice because for me it does what CBD claims to do, and I have to try to get really stoned on it.
Hadriscus@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 115d
oh I don't know delta 8. My gummies are thc delta 9. Are they notably different ?
village604@adultswim.fan · 2 pts · 115d
D8 is much less potent than D9
Hadriscus@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 115d
Alright, so probably closer to CBD indeed... there is so much to discover
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 3 pts · 116d
Interesting that the effects are so different for each brain. When smoking I am not able to filter as well, I dunno of the filtering part slow or the idea part of my brain go faster. It make me have pint of vue different of mine on subjects. Which is interesting.
MJKee9@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 116d
For me it opens up possibilities that my sober brain doesn't consider because my sober brain filters and edits things based on assumptions. So i sometimes miss details when sober because my subconscious brain dismissed those details as unimportant. Most of the time, that filtering process is a positive part of decision-making. I should be ignoring certain variables because knowledge and experience identified those details as a waste of time. However, on weed, i consider things i wouldn't have considered because that filtering process is lessened. So most of my stoned thoughts are worthless, but every once in a while i realize something that i was missing because my brain was ignoring that important detail when sober. It's great when I haven't been able to figure out that day's Wordle....or i realize why someone was pissed at me.
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 115d
That's interesting, is it an active though process or does it came to you like an flash ? For me it have two mode of working. Active, I am hyper focusing on a subject and keep reanalysing things or passive, I can't focus well for a time period and I feel something is amiss then one day illumination and I got the answer of a tricky problem/sytuation, some time I didn't even knew I had an issue ? I noticed that feeding informations seemly random on and around the subject is speeding the process. Some time I fell like a part isn't contrôlable so I work to influence it. (This skill help me at work)
MJKee9@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 115d
It's a passive part of my active thought process. Sometimes it results from something I'm doing in the moment while stoned (i.e. listening to a conversation), other times it is just me pondering something that happened to me previously. My brain identifies new potential reasons and motivations for what I'm witnessing or thinking about. Most of the time i can dismiss an observation because logically it doesn't matter or make sense... Presumably that's what my subconscious is doing behind the scenes when I'm sober, filtering out the illogical. But every once in a while i consider something my subconscious would have ignored that seems logical. It's particularly helpful in understanding the motivations or assumptions of others. I think i am better at reading people and understanding their point of view because of it.
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 115d
That funny how close and far our ADHD are, I often suggest that ADHD have some kind of frequency and sometime you are closer to the frequency of some adhders than others. That fascinating to get a glimpse of other peoples inner working :D
neograymatter@fedinsfw.app · 2 pts · 116d
That's actually somewhat similar to the piece that gives me dysphoria! It's like THC makes my body and brain operate at different speeds which I find incredibly frustrating.
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 114d
Funny, I like the fact that since I can't control it I just let it run wild.
thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 116d
so you're saying i should stop drinking coffee when I wake up and instead just smoke a bowl? I feel like I'm not as creative as I used to be, and my drug of choice has been coffee for the past 15 years...
Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 116d
Prior to transitioning I always said the two substances by brain required to function were cannabis and either caffeine or adderal, stimulant+weed kept me functioning tolerably even when I really didn't feel like it. Now estradiol is on the list too lol
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 116d
I dunno, I am no expert, it work for me. I usually smoke the day I remote work and take coffee the days I work in the office. Do what work for you ;)
ptu@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 116d
Do you work in the band named Pink Floyd?
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 115d
I whish, I got a really bad sense of rythm.
village604@adultswim.fan · 1 pts · 115d
Weed can also kill creativity. I basically stopped playing music when I started using it for pain relief (pain that didn't effect my playing)
quips@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 116d
Lemming6969@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 115d
This is wrong. You cannot imagine what you cannot imagine. Psychedelics definitely allow you to imagine what you previously could not.
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 38 pts · 116d
Hemp was very common back then for many uses. Cannabis does not automatically mean THC.
Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 116d
It does mean that though, even low potency stuff like the plants they grow specifically to make rope still have varying levels of cannabinoids in them including THC, also that's literally the only reason to bother smoking it, might as well pack a bowl with hay otherwise
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 116d
Well, in the context of a clay pipe, the evidence suggest mary Jane, not hemp cloth.
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 115d
Ohhh pipe not plumbing pipe
oeuf@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 116d
So he was smoking hemp?
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 116d
It was in a pipe though?
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 115d
Sorry, I read it as plumbing pipe for some reason.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 115d
I always hated Shakespeare, mostly because of how it’s taught.
Imagine reading about Quinten Tarantino in the future, they study his methods, his dialogue and cinematography, but they hand you his screenplays and ask you to analyze them. Not once actually showing you one of his movies.
In high school they tried to make me read all that nonsense and I had no idea what any of it meant. As an adult i saw a play as it was meant, and it gave me much more context and visual understanding. I still don’t get why he wrote like that, I prefer clear language over poetry, but I at least appreciated it way more than i did as a kid being forced to read
groucho@retrolemmy.com · 13 pts · 115d
Reading Shakespeare is torture. That is why we make actors do it for us.
Forester@pawb.social · 7 pts · 115d
It was written in prose so it could be memorized and to hide injendos and jokes.
Zetta@mander.xyz · 3 pts · 115d
Do you think the future teachers will have a section dedicated to feet in Tarantino movies??? 🤨
DisgruntledGorillaGang@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 115d
Tarantino screenplays are good fun to read though
remotedev@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 115d
*zoom in to her feet*
Draconic_NEO@mander.xyz · 21 pts · 115d
Yeah before people in America made a big stink about it and said it'lll turn you crazy or into a mexican, or whatever racist unscientific garbage excuse they made to start a moral panic to make it illegal, people smoked or otherwise consumed cannabis. It was just normal. The same way people consume drugs like coffee today, yes coffee is a drug.
DioramaOfShit@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 115d
It was the blacks getting the white women high that did it
Yosmonkol@piefed.social · 19 pts · 116d
Here's the paper for anyone interested. TLDR: In 2001 cocain residue was found alongside tobacco and hemp residue. There were also refrences to drugs in art and poems that the author supposes are cocain and cannabis. Fastwarward to 2023 when traces of cocain THC & CBD were found in bones from Milan. Today the author of the 2001 study is using the 2023 results to support his findings. As far as I can tell no one else has tried to test the pipe fragments.
GhostedIC@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 115d
Wait, how can that be right? Shakespeare had access to coca leaves and was smoking them? I know it's not literally impossible but it seems unlikely...
Yosmonkol@piefed.social · 9 pts · 115d
Francis Thackeray, in his 2025 article, suggests Sir Francis Drake could have acquired it when sailing in the area. Since traces of it were also discovered in 1600s Milan its possible that the spanish were circulating it. This 2024 study discusses how the Spanish at least knew of it as early as 1499.
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 114d
Imagine it was all tested in the same lab, contaminated by the same coked up pothead lab tech.
Yosmonkol@piefed.social · 1 pts · 114d
Contamination may actually be a concern here since AFAIK no independent analysis of the clay pipe fragments or the bones has been done yet, but it'd have to be 2 coked up pothead lab techs since the clay pipe fragments were tested in a police narcotics lab in South Africa while the bones were tested at the excavation site in Milan.
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 17 pts · 116d
Drugs were always very common through all the history, Cannabis was used until the 20th century as "tobaco for the poor", apart of Cannabis also funghi and other psycho active plants known in Europe in the middle age and before, eg by artists as inspiration.
Rothe@piefed.social · 6 pts · 116d
No, it wasn't.
Zerush@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 115d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cannabis
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 116d
sure it was! it left all the pure Columbian cocaine for the Tudors.
myotheraccount@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 116d
It was, because tobacco was very expensive in europe (being a colonial good), and cannabis was widely available (as a byproduct of the fabric and rope industry). Once smoking became fashionable, people looked for ways to smoke even if they couldn't afford tobacco. Cannabis was a popular replacement.
Axiochus@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 116d
Can we get a source?
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 116d
According to this article, we have no idea. It does not support OPs claim tho. (At least this article doesn't). Other sources might.
https://www.veriheal.com/blog/how-our-founding-fathers-used-cannabis-in-colonial-america/
FosterMolasses@leminal.space · 2 pts · 116d
TIL!
myotheraccount@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 116d
I don't have one unfortunately, I read about it at the hemp museum in Amsterdam
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 114d
We talking weed here or hemp?
Rivermoonwolf@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 116d
As a former poet, this is 10000% accurate
JennaR8r@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 115d
Weed ---> iambic pentameter
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 115d
i'm not what you'd call a poet, i handle the instruments, but i have this thing where for example the word for cat gets stuck between your brain and your tongue so you say claws cuddler or something like that (sorry, coffee is brewing you don't get a good one yet) and when a good one pops out you get good poetry. i blame the drugs.
psud@aussie.zone · 9 pts · 115d
Pot isn't like opium. Most people can use pot occasionally and be sober most of the time, it's probably less common for someone to become a pothead than for a drinker to become dependant on booze
Many people in all walks of life and all social statuses enjoy getting stoned occasionally
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 115d
How many millions of brilliant people have been executed over the drug war? Depending on how you classify "drug war" (like the wars over opium, or chocolate for that matter), they have been murdering people over this for centuries (whether to push or pull).
... and they still do today. It's an abomination, our modern version of the witch hunt.
Jaimesmith@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 114d
Suddenly a lot of those metaphors make a lot more sense 😭
psycotica0@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 113d
Maybe I'm confused about the current state of things, but I thought we weren't 100% sure Will Shakespeare was even a real guy, or a single guy, but now we're testing residue off the inside of a clay pipe we know was his and attributing plays to that?