Darold Treffert, M.D., one of the foremost experts on savantism, cites examples of “acquired savants” – defined as “previously non-disabled persons who after some injury or disease begin to demonstrate some, until then, dormant savant characteristics and capacities.”

A new Atlantic magazine article gives examples such as British photographer Eadweard Muybridge who created images like this one, “The Human Figure in Motion.”

A famous 1880s series of his photographs of a horse in midstride proved there was a point when all four feet were off the ground.

Do you use music for creative work? Do you get distracted by noise?

In one of my interviews with psychologist and author Susan Perry, PhD, she commented that a writer she knew chose a fresh CD for each novel she wrote.

“A few people told me things like that,” Perry remarked.

“They’ll choose particular music for a particular project, and by putting that music on, they put themselves into — it’s not hypnotic exactly, but into where their brain gets used to moving from hearing that music, to working on that particular project.

“That’s the purpose of many of the rituals that creative people use. They’re not just superstitious fetishes: ‘I have to this particular pen.’ They serve a very real purpose in both loosening and focusing.”

An article in Fast Company magazine notes the advice by consultants to “think outside the box” is “about as cliched as it gets,” according to Jesse Sheidlower, editor-at-large of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The origin of the ubiquitous phrase, the article says, “is generally attributed to consultants in the 1970s and 1980s who tried to make clients feel inadequate by drawing nine dots on a piece of paper and asking them to connect the dots without lifting their pen, using only four lines.

“(Hint: You have to think outside the — oh, you know.)”

From “Outside the Box”: The Inside Story, by Martin Kihn | June 1, 2005, Fast Company.

Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Tina Seelig, PhD also teaches courses on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

In her post Seeing Your World in TechniColor in her blog CreativityRulz, she writes about one way to enhance creativity: Paying more careful attention to our environment, which, she notes, “actually takes some effort.”

“Most people see the world in black and white, missing most of the opportunities in their midst.

“They travel down the same routes day after day. The path is so familiar that they can practically navigate it in their sleep.

“But, there are some people who see the world in Technicolor.

“I don’t believe that when you get into a creative place, you’re giving up thinking. You’re super-thinking – better and with more parts of your mind than you do normally.”

That is a comment by social psychologist, teacher and author Susan K. Perry, PhD from our interview.

She added that there is a ‘busy mind’ aspect of our thinking, which “means you’re fragmented, you’re unfocused, distracted, too many things on your mind.

“You want to get to a place which is both loose, relaxed, and focused.

“What I found in my studies of flow are that two things you need to do to get to this place where time stops and you can be most creative, are to loosen up, and focus in. It’s a paradox, obviously, to be loose and focused at the same time. And they overlap, and one may come before the other.”

“When I don’t build in cushions of time between activities for reflection and creative synthesis, my writing suffers, my mood suffers, everything suffers.”

Those are comments by writer Lisa Rivero, who continues, “Without this imaginative life, we might still be productive, but at what cost?

“I know that when I give in to the temptation to pack every spare hour or moment with tasks…I may still write as much, just not as well.”

From my post Developing Creativity by Staring Out the Window – quoting from her post If you don’t value your imaginative life, no one else will.

[One of her books: "A Parent's Guide to Gifted Teens: Living with Intense and Creative Adolescents."]

Packing “every spare hour or moment with tasks” as Rivero puts it, is something I more or less constantly feel pressured to do. But, as she points out, at what cost? Stress and overwork and other challenges are among the consequences for me, and probably many writers.

What is the potential value of not always doing?

A new post by Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D. describes research indicating that creative people tend to daydream more, even while concentrating on tasks.

This image is from a series of Mercedes Benz ads. The text reads:

Left brain: I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. A master of words and language. Realistic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.

Right brain: I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feet. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.

[Image and text from post: Left Brain/Right Brain: Gorgeously Illustrated Mercedes Benz Ads.]

Having two “brains” with different functions is valid neuroscience. But how true is the idea of the right hemisphere being the “creative” one?

As popular and appealing as that concept is, it can also be a misleading oversimplification. A number of writers and neuroscientists encourage an integration of thinking, using both sides of our brain/mind.

“What would be truly surprising would be to find that sound could not suggest colour, that colours could not evoke the idea of a melody, and that sound and colour were unsuitable for the translation of ideas, seeing that things have always found their expression through a system of reciprocal analogy.” Charles Baudelaire

A simple definition of synesthesia is that it is a “crosstalking” or overlapping of sensory experiences that for most people remain separate.

Researchers find a higher proportion of creative people are synesthetes.

The image is from the book “The Hidden Sense: Synesthesia in Art and Science.”

The publisher explains that synesthesia occurs “when two or more senses cooperate in perception. Once dismissed as imagination or delusion, metaphor or drug-induced hallucination, the experience of synesthesia has now been documented by scans of synesthetes’ brains…”

“Using your imagination is always a fine thing for an actor to do.”
Michelle Williams

“Great acting comes from a well-developed imagination.”
Acting teacher Jason Bennett

Imagination is central to creative expression.

Psychologist Carl Jung talked about using imagination as a means to access our unconscious, one of the main sources of creative ideas and energies.

He developed the concept of Active Imagination as a “meditation technique wherein the contents of one’s unconscious are translated into images, narrative or personified as separate entities.

“It can serve as a bridge between the conscious ‘ego’ and the unconscious and includes working with dreams and the creative self via imagination or fantasy.”  [Wikipedia]

So Yong Kim is a director, producer and writer. Her latest movie is “For Ellen,” starring Paul Dano and Jena Malone.

In an interview, she talks about a number of aspects of developing her script and shooting the film – aspects of creative expression that impact other artists as well.

Like many creative and talented people, she purposely seeks challenge and difficulty:

“I think it’s surprising for people because I did two Korean language films, and suddenly I’m doing this film with actors and cast that are white and named. But the decision was because I felt, I can do a film in Korean, I want to do a film in English.

“I speak English, why not? And it’s so much fun and freeing somehow. As an independent filmmaker, I think if I made another Korean language film it’s like ‘yeah, of course she can do that.’ It’s like challenging for me to use different colors in the pallet.”