How cannabis boosts creativity and unleashes new ideas

Have you ever wondered why rappers smoke a lot of marijuana on a regular basis? It may come as a surprise, but cannabis encourages creativity and allows the brain to generate new ideas.

We’ve all seen popular artists like Tupac, Snoop Dogg, and Wiz Khalifa take a real interest in smoking cannabis.

To the average person, it may seem like they only like cannabis for fun or to have a good time.

And while that may be one of the reasons they smoke cannabis, there’s more to it than meets the eye when it comes to cannabis use by artists. For many artists, a crucial part of their creative flow is when it comes to their writing.

Convergent Thinking VS Divergent Thinking

To understand how this creative flow works, we need to understand what convergent thinking and divergent thinking are. These are two methods of thought processing that we engage in.

Convergent thinking is when we think about what the best solution to a given problem is. That’s when we look at a fork and automatically think, “This is going to be used for eating.” In other words, convergent thinking is logic-based thinking based on what we already know.

Divergent thinking is when we think of many possibilities about a given topic. That’s when we look at a fork and think, “We can use this fork as a weapon, like a shovel, to scratch our backs, to open boxes, to open envelopes, as a hammer…” Divergent thinking allows us, to be flexible with our thoughts.

Essentially, convergent thinking limits our ability to be creative and open-minded. While divergent thinking allows us to free our minds for many new ideas and thoughts that we may have been reluctant to think about. In a world of stress and anxiety, where everything has to be right, we have learned to think convergent rather than divergent.

Over time, many of us lose our sense of openness.

How Cannabis Helps Creative Flow Break “Writer’s Block”.

Well, when it comes to creative flow, many of us get into something of a “writer’s block.” This is the lack of ability to form new ideas or when our thought processes falter.

It’s usually because we’re thinking too much or we’re stressed.

We plan too much, worry about what others will think, strive for perfectionism and look for the best solution. Essentially, our brain gets stuck in convergent thinking. Which prevents us from developing new ideas.

Photo by Soundtrap

This is where cannabis comes in. Cannabis activates our divergent thinking and breaks writer’s block so our ideas can flow freely.

You have that moment sometimes where you’re smoking marijuana or having edibles with some good people, and all of a sudden you’re just talking about a whole lot of philosophy, like, “Why is the sky blue, is it the reflection of the ocean? , or something bigger?” “Why are people so mean because they are sad?” “Why are we so lonely when there are so many of us?” “What is the meaning of life if we live so long?”

This is cannabis that amplifies our deviant mode of thinking. It’s a natural feeling because we’re supposed to be curious.

For this reason, artists and writers use cannabis when writing lyrics, screenplays, novels and music. Cannabis encourages creativity by allowing us to move from convergent to divergent thinking. It allows us to flow with new ideas and new possibilities.

Artists, writers and creative minds who have used cannabis

So think of all the most popular celebrities who use cannabis on a regular basis. These are some of the best thinkers of our time.

Tupac Shakur, one of the brightest minds in hip-hop history, smoked blunts on a regular basis. Tupac was one of the hardest working musicians. He is said to have written as many as 700-900 tracks in his short five year career. He wrote tracks endlessly, and after writing and recording one music track, he immediately went to work on the next track.

Mike Tyson credits cannabis with changing his life. Some would say that he has become a very wise philosophical man as he gets older. Listen to his ideas and the seemingly endless amount of wisdom he pours out. He smokes blunts quite often and is very chatty on his podcast Hotboxing with Mike Tyson.

Carl Sagan, everyone’s favorite astronomer, smoked cannabis and was a big advocate of cannabis’ creative and cognition-enhancing abilities. Carl Sagan is known to have said that marijuana helped him understand things like social issues and art on a deeper level.

Stephen King, author of 55 published novels including The Shining, It and The Green Mile. King admits to being a former heavy cannabis user and you could look at his terrible ideas reading his novels and realize that Stephen definitely had some creative improvements in his life.

The list of creative minds that have used cannabis for imagination, ideas and deeper understanding goes on. Cannabis unleashes the brain’s divergent thinking mode, allowing you to bypass the writer’s block we all dread.

So if you’re ever stuck and need some inspiration, consider using cannabis to get your creative juices flowing again.

Do you struggle with writer’s block? Are you struggling with new ideas? Who are some of your favorite celebrities and creative minds who have used cannabis? Let us know in the comments below. follow us @cannalifenet for more cannabis information.