This insistence on artistic integrity and quality typically necessitates an inclusion of a sober perspective even when the artwork was produced under the influence. “Even for me, whenever I occasionally write while I drink, it still takes me being sober to go through and edit and do revisions,” Wymer says. “It’s not that every time I drink and write it’s going to be fantastic.”
Indeed, many acknowledge that the work they create while drunk or high may not consistently be of the greatest quality. “Sometimes it’s shit,” he continues. “Sometimes it’s not.”
DIFFERENT STRAINS
The times that it’s not, however, do not necessarily indicate the magical effects of drug-induced, or drug-dependent, brilliance. From dissolving the inhibitions of artists to temporarily rearranging their worlds, drugs themselves play something of a placebo role in revealing creative insights.
“Although there is no reason to believe that marijuana enhances creativity, there is evidence that marijuana makes people feel more creative,” UC Davis Dean Keith Simonton says. “That seems to be because self-critical judgment gets turned off. Only later, when they’re no longer high, and they look at what they produced, do they realize that they were nowhere as creative as they thought at the time. The same holds for many other altered states of consciousness. We might have a particularly wonderful dream some night, but find that it bores our friends silly when we try to recount it.”
Yet the research that does exist has hypothesized that artists tend to be more open to and garner greater benefits from experimenting with drugs, even if these effects remain in the mind without translating onto paper or canvas. Researchers prospose that the magnitude of a substance’s psychological effects differs according to one’s genetic makeup. In her research review, “Creativity and Psychopathology: A Shared-Vulnerability Model,” Carson argues that creative individuals tend to respond more positively to the high that drugs induce, since their naturally less inhibited state is more conducive to artistic production. “Genetic vulnerability factors... may predispose certain individuals to experience altered mental states that provide access to—and interest in—associational material typically filtered out of conscious awareness during normal waking states,” Carson explained. “They are smoking because of that openness,” Simonton reiterates, “not open because they’re smoking.”
But the danger associated with substance abuse is always a lurking threat. Considering that the fine line between occasional use and dependence isn’t always so easy to maintain, Simonton warns that consistent drug use can quickly devolve into a harmful and unproductive habit. “The minimal research that has been conducted suggests that marijuana does not enhance creativity. In fact, it seems to depress creativity, especially when the use is chronic,” he writes in an email.
But these studies are not definitive because of the legal difficulties that the scientific community faces in attempting to validate the benefits of drug use oft cited by artists.
“The reason is simple: you can’t really conduct research in the laboratory,” Simonton writes in an email. “As a consequence, almost all investigations on the topic are questionnaire-survey type studies in which students are asked about their use of marijuana and then tested on measures associate with creativity. Because the studies are correlation rather than experimental, it’s hard to discern the causal relations.”
Hallucinogens, on the other hand, have been proven to play a more pivotal role in dictating the direction of an artist’s work. For example, LSD was commonly given to interested test subjects to gauge the drug’s effects and was found to disinhibit normal sensory perceptions, launching the artist into a potentially productive psychedelic experience. These more psychoactive drugs can actually become a type of muse that influence the content of the art, the most famous example of these acid trips being “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”
Still, as one poet emphasizes, “If you want [your art] to be accessible to a lot of people, [drug use] is unlikely to be a regular thing.”
Owing to their awareness of the dangers of approaching their art from a drugged-out perspective, Harvard students continue to smoke and drink before, during, and after working, but only occasionally. These artists pull their art from a core of genuine creativity.
“I think that creativity that someone has is already inside the person,” Wymer says. “So the only thing that drugs do is release.”
—Staff writer Noel D. Barlow can be reached at nbarlow@fas.harvard.edu
—Staff writer Eunice Y. Kim can be reached at kim30@fas.harvard.edu.
CLARIFICATION
The Nov. 13 arts article "High Art" took a quote about drug use in art from Extension School instructor John McMillian out of context. In addition to saying that many artistic greats used drugs during their most creative periods, McMillan said that he does not advocate drug use and that some of the artists suffered mightily from the negative side effects of drugs.