7 Myths About Cannabis and Creativity You Still Believe – And Why They’re Wrong

Cannabis and creativity have been closely linked for decades, with countless artists, writers, and musicians such as William Butler Yeats, Walter Benjamin, Frida Kahlo, Maya Angelou, John Lennon, Allen Ginsberg, Hunter S. Thompson, and many others attributing their inspiration to the plant. However, this relationship is often misunderstood, leading to myths and misconceptions. In this article, we’ll explore seven common myths about cannabis and creativity.

Myth 1: Creativity is Just Divergent Thinking

When writing about cannabis and creativity, many experts assume that creativity can be equated with divergent thinking – associative, out-of-the-box thinking. Your abilities for divergent thinking can be tested in various kinds of psychological assessments like Guilford’s Alternative Uses Test (AUT) or the Remote Associates Test (RAT). For instance, those assessment may ask you to give unusual uses for an object, like a brick. “Building a wall” would be a bad answer here, whereas “Paint the brick gold, make it smell like strawberry, then display it in a museum of modern art” would get you a better score.

Yet, while divergent thinking is certainly a component of creativity, it’s not the whole story.

Modern scientific accounts of creativity, like psychologist Bernard Hommel’s Metacontrol Model, offer a more nuanced perspective. Creativity requires both flexibility and persistence. Flexibility allows the mind to explore different ideas, while persistence enables deep focus and refinement of those ideas. Effective creativity is about shifting between these states rather than simply “thinking outside the box.”

Take the example of a jazz musician experimenting with a new melody. A moment of inspiration may arise from free-flowing improvisation (flexibility), but refining that melody into a full composition requires discipline and persistence. Successful creative activities, in general, involve not only moments or phases of divergent thinking but also other thinking processes in which creatives need to be persistent, accurate, and focused.

Myth 2: Creative Ideas Come in One Leap

Another common misunderstanding of many authors writing about cannabis and creativity is that creative ideas come in a single, uniform thought process.

About a century ago, social psychologist Graham Wallas built on insights from Hermann von Helmholtz and Henri Poincaré to propose a four-stage model of the creative process, still widely referenced today:

1. Preparation – Gathering information, discussing the problem, and exploring ideas, which may take minutes or years.
2. Incubation – A period of unconscious processing, where stepping back and relaxing can foster progress.
3. Illumination – The sudden “Aha!” moment when a solution appears, often without clear awareness of how it emerged.
4. Verification – A more conscious phase of refining, evaluating, and improving the idea.

Wallas was well aware of the fact that many creative activities such as writing a novel may need many reiterations of those phases.

Only if we understand that successful creative thinking and activities go through various phases can we understand how a psychoactive substance like cannabis can affect the outcome – negatively or positively.

Novelist Jack Kerouac famously wrote with the help of cannabis, claiming it helped his stream-of-consciousness writing style. Others may feel, though, that a high may help them to focus better on details, which may help in the editing or verification phase.

Myth 3: All Creative Activities Rely on Similar Mental Abilities

When columnists or even scientists engage in discussion about creativity and cannabis, they seem to presuppose that all creative activities are basically the same, relying on a certain mechanism that can be boosted or hindered. But this is obviously a very impoverished view of how different creative activities actually are.

Think about a poet who sits for days in the Brazilian rainforest to come up with a poem, as opposed to a guitar player who wants to come up with a solo while playing on stage with his band. The poet, for instance, needs language processing, memory retrieval, self-editing and refinement, and the ability to construct metaphors. Motor control activities like beautiful handwriting will not play a big role, and the poet has time. The guitar player, for instance, needs hand-eye coordination, emotional translation of emotions into music (not words), and needs to maintain timing and rhythm.

So, as to Bernard Hommel’s Metacontrol state theory, I’d suggest we broaden this perspective into a Multi-Activity Metacontrol Model; creative activities demand metacontrol and an integration of diverse cognitive, perceptual, and often motor control activities.

Myth 4: Cannabis Affects Only a Few Mental Abilities

Often, scientists and content writers underestimate what I have called the multidimensional cannabis high. Cannabis containing THC definitely affects a whole spectrum of mental perceptual and mental functions as well as motor control abilities, such as attention, acuity in perception, perception of time, associative thinking, episodic memory, imagination, pattern recognition, empathic understanding, and introspection, to name a few.

Clearly, we need to look at how cannabis typically changes this spectrum of mental functions and how this change could affect us in various phases of various creative processes.

Myth 5: A Cannabis High Automatically Boosts or Hinders Creativity

We know from myriad scientific investigations about psychoactive substances like cannabis that their effects on the human mind depend on various factors, including dose, the method of administration, the (mind)set including your attitude, beliefs, personality and current mood, and the setting (in which you take the substance, include other people present). Clearly, if we want to understand how cannabis can enhance or negatively impact creative activities, we have to take a look how those using cannabis are able to control these factors.

Myth 6: Cannabis is Cannabis

Cannabis is not just THC; different varieties of cannabis produce distinct effects due to the unique combinations of compounds found in each strain, primarily cannabinoids and terpenes. Cannabinoids such as THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol) interact with the body’s endocannabinoid system and with many other receptors to influence mood, perception, and cognition. Terpenes, flavonoids, and many other substances like alkaloids can also play a role by contributing to the effects of a certain variety — some varieties, for instance, are energizing, while others promote relaxation and may be even heavily sedative, which can of course interfere with creative processes.

Myth 7: We are Basically All the Same

Cannabis affects everyone differently due to factors like brain chemistry, cognitive skills, character, tolerance levels, and mindset. We are not all the same, especially not when it comes to our ability to think creatively. What works for one person may not work for another.

A very creative writer may feel that a certain cannabis variety that helps others in the writing process may speed up his associative thinking too much, making her unable to follow the rapid stream of thoughts and to write down her ideas. On the other hand, she may then use other cannabis varieties to focus and to slow down in the editing process. As individuals, we obviously have to go through a process of informed, mindful experimentation to find a cannabis variety and to control various factors like dose, set and setting in order to help us for a certain creative activity.

It is important to understand that much of what cannabis companies today claim about their varieties may be more marketing than anything else. Do not rely too much on claims about how much a certain cannabis variety will make you creative and pay more attention to how a certain variety (and dose, and method of application) affects you.

Final Thoughts on Cannabis and Creativity

Let’s assume you are a basketball player and you have a few more seconds on the clock before the game ends; you have to invent a new trick move to get around your defender. Let’s assume, furthermore, you are high on cannabis and you actually succeed in coming up with a great move – yet, your perception of time is distorted because of the high, and you come up with the move way too late.

In my book “Elevated: Cannabis as Tool for Mind Enhancement” I have called this a “cancellation effect”: the cannabis high may actually help with making you generate ideas, but then it may cancel the success of your creative activity by altering other cognitive or motor abilities.

The author and poet Charles Baudelaire, who experimented a lot with hashish, once wrote “Hashish gives with one hand and takes with the other.” I’d argue that this may often be the case. A high from a sedative variety may help you to daydream and to come up with a great new visual image for a painting, yet it may also couchlock you and hinder you to draw. If you later forget the idea, it will have a negative impact on your creative output. You will have to learn, then, how to avoid cancellation effects. Here, you could for instance use a variety that does not make you tired, or use a notebook besides your bed to take notes of ideas, which you may later remember.

Based on my research I have argued that a cannabis high can indeed positively affect creative activities; but users have to learn how to mindfully use cannabis as a tool, just like a surfer needs to learn how to ride a surfboard in the waves. The relationship between cannabis and creativity is complex and highly individual.

By debunking myths like the ones above about creativity itself and about cannabis, we gain a clearer understanding of how cannabis can and cannot influence creative processes. We also understand better how to scientifically investigate the subject and how to set up studies. Psychological assessments about diverget thinking during a high will not really give us a sufficient answer to whether cannabis can positively or negatively affect creative activities.

Those using cannabis for creativity benefit from an informed and mindful approach, taking into account that:

• Knowledge and skills are key – we need to approach cannabis use mindfully, which also means learning how various varieties and doses affect us, individually, in certain phases of certain activities.
• Experimentation is necessary – Different varieties and doses have different effects.
• Creativity is multifaceted – Cannabis may help some in some phases of certain activities, while being detrimental in others.

If you’re considering using cannabis for creativity, approach it with curiosity, awareness, and a willingness to experiment responsibly.

(This article is based on Chapter III Cannabis, Creativity, and Cognitive Liberty of my book “Elevated. Cannabis as a Tool for Mind Enhancement”, published 2023 by Hilaritas Press, the publishing house of Robert Anton Wilson’s daughter Christina.)

Sources:

• Hommel, B. (2017). Meditation and metacontrol: How mental training can influence cognitive flexibility. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 4(1), 21-39. https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000107
• Jung, S., & Hommel, B. (2020). The neurocognitive mechanisms of convergent and divergent thinking: How metacontrol modulates creativity. Psychological Research, 84(3), 521-535. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01274-4
• Marincolo, S. (2023). Elevated: Cannabis as a Tool for Mind Enhancement. Hilaritas Press, Grand Junction, Colorado
• Marincolo, S. (2022). The Art of the High: Your Guide to Using Cannabis for an Outstanding life. tredition Hamburg, 2022
• Marincolo, S. (2015) What hashish did to Walter Benjamin. Mind Altering Essays on Marijuana. Khargala Press, Stuttgart
• Wallas, G. (1926). The Art of Thought. Harcourt Brace.