What Do We Know About The Workings Of The Creative Brain?

Not all of us are creative people, and some of us are a lot more creative than others. It’s also known that you can’t teach creativity to people who are not inclined to be creative. It’s akin to asking a goldfish to climb a tree. It’s just not going to be able to do it, no matter how many times you explain it. Understanding the theory is one thing but putting it into practice requires a particular type of mind that enables this ability. So, what is going on in the brain that means one person can think creatively and another person cannot? And why are some people so creative that asking them to do things that require none is like a prison for them? What do we know? 
 
Unfortunately, most of the research done on the brain is instigated because of illness. This is because curing people is a lot more important than finding out how healthy people do what they do. With a subject like neurobiology, the expertise and funding are limited. It’s understandable that priorities mean the sick get the first attention. However, we also know that creative people often have mental health problems. This means it has coincided that creative people have been studied in detail because of their illness. Not all creative people get ill, so we can’t say that we know the entire story, but both creativity and mental illness come from the same system, so we know they are linked in some way. How close the link is will be the basis of further study.  
 
Why do creative people have a higher predetermination for mental illness? It’s more likely for them, so there must be something in the brain that makes the path to problematic thinking more viable. Why do non-creative people tend to not struggle so much with mental health? What is protecting them from the turmoil of an out-of-control mental state? The clear difference between sane and non-sane thought can put a barrier between individuals and when a person is unable to empathise with the unexplainable thoughts, it can be hard to help someone in this state. With compassion and tolerance, we can work together and find the right way to move forward. Accepting what they say as true for them and what they experience as a valid one can mean making tough choices about what a person is capable of or not. Only with acceptance and compassion can we find solutions that help people to be their best self in a setting prepared to handle their illness.  
 
But what about people who are not mentally unwell but are creative? What do they do that is analogous to madness and mood disorders? The key is in the ability to perceive things in new ways. The term ‘thinking outside the box’ is put into its best use when talking about creativity. By seeing pathways to ideas and strategies from the available resources that have not yet been identified, we are applying our creative mind. In a mood disorder or a madness, the novel ideas are wrong. In a creative person, they are right. Being able to distinguish between the two is the fundamental difference between creativity and madness. Creative people might have crazy ideas, usually called blue sky thinking, but they know when it needs work. They also have the usual mental blocks that prevent harmful and hurtful thought. It is when these subconscious safeguarding systems go wrong that the mind slips from creativity to insanity. That’s where the acceptance becomes important, denying it will only put a spanner in the works. 
 
It’s not only art where creativity is integral to the work involved. Art is often an expression of pure creativity with only a formal veneer of technique and method to make it viable for one style or another. Academic subjects also require creativity. Every invention, new idea, technique, personal plan, and more requires a set of mental processes that are completely unique. When a mathematician solves a complex formula or writes down a new one, they are using their creative brain to find the result. You need to apply the sense of process and trial and error with associated ideas based on intuition. That’s how creative ideas are nurtured.  
 
What motivates creative people? Why are they prepared to go into new realms of thought when there is so much out there already? Surely, it’s a lot of effort and with people thinking you might be mad, is it worth it? It does seem that creative people have a sense of social magnanimity. A selfless desire to make things better one way or another is what separates a creative person from say a poser or a mad person. When you care about society and other people as individuals and are motivated to assist with creative ideas, even if they don’t work, you carry an altruistic sense of service that some of us simply don’t have. By nurturing this sense of service by self-managing your ventures and enterprises, you can find sustainable and viable ways to apply your creative mind.  
 
Another motivation for creativity is as a cure for a sad mood. Sometimes if we are unhappy or emotional in uncomfortable ways then we choose creative methods to help. Painting, writing, making sculpture, or planning a brilliant idea might be just the ticket to getting out of one frame of mind and into another. Because creative people are more likely to have problems with low mood, it’s often the case that the desire to create is both motivated by a self-actualisation and a selfless sense of purpose. This duality can be hard to manage when a lot of what creative people do is rejected and mocked by the undiscerning public. It’s only when something becomes successful and well-known that most people begin to pay attention. Reaching the people that matter means taking risks and trusting your instincts of association.  
 
People who choose creativity as a lifestyle either in a job or as a serious hobby are often more tolerant to risk factors. To do something novel and unvalidated by trusted authority is a brave demonstration of individual merit. Putting your faith in the opinion of untrained and unprepared minds means putting your faith in your own idea. If it fails it can be a real blow, especially if it’s your livelihood on the line. To people who are highly creative, this doesn’t matter as much. Some of us would rather sit quietly and follow instructions to get everything as it ought to be. The idea of failure or major mistakes on their record is too much. To be able to bypass this sense of anticipated dread creative people can disassociate with the temporary opinions and bubbles of emotion that follow them. Look at politicians, they have practically half their home nation undermining their every move. Do they let it stop them? They just get on with the job. Having a blind spot for the antisocial effects of poor opinion is a skill that requires confidence in your own ability to make good judgements. 
 
The downside to the creative mindset is that because of the poor opinions of others and the judgements of their ideas being associated with their character, many people find it difficult to tolerate and accept them. As soon as a person is known for doing something that is not yet validated by social consensus, a lot of people are not prepared to accept or identify with those who create them. This leads to isolation and social exclusion, which can be a cruel and lonely place to find yourself in. When you make it as a creative person, and you have proven yourself with a viable and sustainable idea, some people still find it difficult to accept because of wariness. Because they can’t understand the journey to where they are, they imagine boundaries and fiery swords that make a difference. They don’t exist.  
 
What do we know about the difference between creative people and non-creative people when carrying out mental tasks? The brain has been studied in various ways with different tasks being conducted with scanners. This gives a physical representation of the biomechanical process that represents the individual’s thoughts. When people think creatively, the mind either has ordered thinking or chaotic thinking. Those of us who can apply ordered thought when applying novel and juxtapositioned ideas are more likely to find the solution from the given information. Those of us who think chaotically when assessing the information are less likely to find creative solutions. This is something that can’t often be helped, as the subconscious mind is the governor of this method. Because we are not conscious of this process, we have no direct control over it.  
 
In fact, creative mental processing has been shown to be genetic in origin. In the same way that mood disorders and sanity disorders can run in families, the traits that lead to creative thinking can also be traced in this way. The subconscious mind is the source of all our ideas, and it is in our conscious processing that we sift through the information and find the correct thought or response. Usually, the subconscious offers something we understand and know from experience.  Creative people can take abstract associations and imaginative uses for things that they have already learned. This is the boundary that gets broken for something to be new. The application of something known to something else known but so far unconnected is how inventions begin. For our subconscious mind to offer these strange connections, it must be able to communicate from the non-linear side of its process and have a conscious non-linear process that can meet it.  
 
To be able to directly link the conscious with the subconscious mind, the conscious mind needs to be relatively quiet. In the rest state, the subconscious mind is given the energy it needs to begin administrating the information it has received and linking it to everything it already knows. This happens all at once with no sense of hierarchy. That means the non-linear amalgam of processing can be confusing to the stable and linear process. This is why some people find it chaotic and hard to work with. To be able to remain stable in conscious processing and accept the subconscious prompts at a metered rate, the creative mind can access this chaotic and inspirational resource.  
 
This means the creative process can’t just take place automatically. The mind must be fully stocked with the resources it needs to build something new. Like playing Minecraft, you can’t craft until you have mined. This means that we must learn about the things we want to create for.  Even a painter must learn about their technique and style, finger painting included. To make something of value that appeals to the people it is designed for, we must learn a lot of skills and gain a lot of experience in the field before we can begin. It is in the creative combination of every skill we have learned and every association we have gathered that we can plot unique and fitting lines between them that leave people feeling rewarded and not confused.  
 
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