Blog Oct 28th

The first thing that caught my eye in the reading was the mentioning of Freud. I am interested in psychology and he is a name that comes up quite often. He ultimately hypothesized the separation between the conscious and unconscious mind. He notes that the conscious process may simulate conflict into creative art (149). Later it is notes in the test that consciousness is now seen as more of an operation. It affects certain areas of the brain in response to stimuli. I combined the two ideas and came up with the thought that the “conflict” Freud talks about can be considered as a form of stimuli. Therefore, as result consciousness would respond. If conflict can be simulated into creative art, then it’s possible that creativity lies in the consciousness. Am I making sense?
Today my group is holding the class discussion. I chose to focus on diseases that enhance creativity. Like I said, I am interested in psychology, so I rather enjoyed researching a few common mental illnesses that increase creativity. I focused on frontotemporal deterioration, because it was mentioned in the test. Also, I chose bipolar disorder and depression, because they are such common diseases. I found it interesting that such diseases could result in promoting creativity. If one part of the brain fails, another part of the brain could catalyze activity in another; possibly the creative part of the brain.
William Blake was an incredibly creative man. The test notes that he held the imagination to be the spark of the godliness in humanity (153). Imagination and creativity pretty much go hand-in-hand. I’ve seen several of Blake’s paintings and they are unbelievable. The man has a fascinating and marvelous imagination. The first time I saw one of his paintings was in the movie The Red Dragon, adapted from Thomas Harris’s book of the same name. I believe the painting is titled “The Lady and the Red Dragon” or something of that nature. It was beautiful. His art is seemingly from another world, in this case, a darker world. I suggest checking it out.