Grim Singmuf 
Willy's Weed
Cannabis and Creativity
To many humans, the consumption of cannabis inspires creativity. To some, it inspires relaxation. Is it the brain or the strain? I’d say either or both. In my opinion, it begins with feeling and intention. If you intend to relax and watch films, you may enhance your experience with some bong rips. To the non-creative mind, this is a relaxing time. A creative like myself would not only be relaxing in this scenario, but I’d be picking up on the score of the film or inspired to write lyrics. However, this happens to me whether or not I’m stoned. As a creative, I feel cannabis does enhance my creative drive, but it is by no means the root of my creativity. The root of my creative drive resides within myself and cannabis is a tool that appears often in my creative process.
Let me walk you through an average “Day in the life” scenario. I am an early bird, a curse no matter where I happen to be. So I wake up to get my hygiene in order and start the day. Afterwards, I head to my laptop plug in a midi controller and power up my DAW. Whats everything is connected and powered up I twist a joint or pack a bowl. At this point, I take a couple of tokes in between searching for or manipulating sounds. I don’t get super stoned, I just get right. Eventually, I’m in the zone making a beat and getting stoned. The joint or bowl I’m smoking is nursed until it is forgotten, not necessarily finished.
This goes on for a while and the high is not completely comparable to that of just a “cannabis high”. I dive deep into my art until I become a part of it. All my channels are open to receiving streams of creativity. I feel as if with or without cannabinoids I enjoy everything about making music. The cannabis helps guide me to other levels and allows me to become fully absorbed in each project.
Artistic Block
Artists in the wide spectrum of the world of creatives are aware of a phenomenon called “Artistic Block” or some variation of this. For me life experience, as well as cannabis and psychedelics, help me to break free of this. Having an overall openness to experience new things, in general, is a huge help. I seek new experiences in life while conceptualizing my projects and find my creativity expanding as a result. There are times when this creativity evaporates into a “brainstorm cloud”, and when I’m back in the lab with my buds, the cannabis helps it rain down on me.
Psilocybin mushrooms have a similar effect, especially in the linguistic part of my brain, it’s like I can not help but break down the etymology of words or find connections of certain phrases. They also allow me to feel and understand frequencies in a very different manner than I do without the help of fungus. Psilocibes present entirely new perspectives no matter how much I age, they still inspire my creative process.Â
Escape from the mundane
Daily life can be stressful and as a result, those stressors clog or mind and block creativity. Cannabis can help the mind move away from these thoughts, allowing the body to relax taking away bodily stress as well as mental stress. This leaves the creative doors open with less focus on anxieties and more focus on passion and creation. Everyday life can cause many to push passion to the side, opting out for what they are told is “just the way life works”.
More humans today consume rather than create. Work, eat, sleep, repeat, continuing the cycles perpetuated in the mundane world. Creativity is an escape, cannabis can be a key to unlocking that door. Even our endocannabinoid system is more active in the frontal lobe of creative types regardless of cannabis use. It just goes to show that cannabis is creativities friend even in straight edge artists!
Who’s holding?
From musicians to painters, sculptors to comedians, and even architects creative types around the world will admit to fellow herb consumers and connoisseurs that smoking bud helps their creativity in one way or another. It is only now that many are coming out as avid smokers, mostly because of the “dumb lazy stoner” stereotypes that plague mainstream media, but also because of legality. There are so many stigmas attached to the plant and its users. Alongside the overwhelming amount of experiential evidence, there is some scientific reasoning behind the influence of cannabis on art and artists. Cannabis has an inherent neurological relationship with both art and creativity. I say don’t be afraid, let the world know miss Mary Jane had a helping hand in your creativity!Â
What is your experience with cannabis? Let us know in the comments below!
Cannabis made me the man I am today… well that, and a no-quit attitude!
blaze up
With respect to the title, I’d have to say kinda both. The brain I believe is what conceives the idea, but if you’re like Spaulding (Kinda scatterbrained) then the ganj helps clear the brilliant mind in the process of the creation. That’s why I personally prefer the Sativa. Good head high that often times helps boost creativity! Personally my favorite in the studio as well as in the writing process. (Although while I’m producing tracks I tend to prefer the Indica) BLAZE UP FAMILY!!!!!!!