When do you have the best thoughts or ideas come to you? Is it doing a certain activity that brings it out of you, or do you just have to be 'someplace' mentally (or physically) to bring it out in you. Or does it just hit you at random with no apparent rules?

Do you ignore it or write it down or record it in some way? Do you see these thoughts and ideas as valuable or worthless, unable to be used/exploited/understood by anyone but you - or possibly not even you?

Generally in the middle of the night by myself.

That's the time when there's the least amount of influence and distraction.

At night, when I'm listening 2 Psytrance thru headphones with a bass booster and I'm stoned.

That's where I come up with web designs (seriously), think about some art stuff i cud do the next day, or just think myself 2 sleep. it works!

IAmTheTouch said:

I'm sure you're pretty creative when it comes to mixing drinks.

There's no particular time. Things just come to me out of the blue.

Like the idea of having a thread where people describe their knees.

Haystack said:

my niece is a lovely girl. 15 and ever so creative. she works on a youth radio show in Germany right now, and her ... oh, you meant KNEES! my bad...

my knees are ok. fabulous legs, but average knees... go figure!

When I'm just waking up from a good sleep or when I'm dreaming.

sinisterpentatonic said:

come on over, i'll hook ya up!

i make a fantastic screwdriver, and an amazing Altbierbowle...

Erm, well I'm most creative when I'm sexualy gratified. ie. getting some regular and very good. Otherwise, I do have trouble really focusing on the task in hand. Feeling horny seems to really block my flow.

No wonder I work so slowly (6 years to write a novella! Good job I don't do it for a living!)

When I'm designing clothes or drawing, I'm usually inspired when I'm feeling happy and calm, but as for writing, it usually comes to me when I'm very depressed or just laying in bed at night alone.

on angel dust

TRON said:

I know, pref at an hour when you know that 98% of all the
people in a 25 mile radius are asleep.

That's when I feel most creative and productive. I could
refurbish the house, do yoga, take the dog on a 5 mile
walk, do the dishes, write some poetry and a short story
drink a gallon of coffee, re-arrange my books by author
or alphabet or by theme, surf the internet and look for
weird stuff, write some more, listen to some music, open
up the windows and drink some more coffee whilst the dog
sleeps in my bed grrr

Think about stuff that drives me nuts, go and read to try
and forget it again, make some food, write some stuff in
a notebook for later use, finally stroll to my bedroom,
lift the dog out of bed, put him in his own basket and go
to sleep.

Then, in the morning I feel like shit and just go through
the motions all day long. Finally, when I start to feel
alive again at about 00:30 AM, I read the stuff I wrote a
few nights ago and am in awe of my own genius.

Best of all, there's no one awake to contradict it

When i'm hurt emotionally-i just start sayin all this stuff and at least 4 out of 6 things r good ideas.

well,
its right after ive taken ah BIG drag' off a blunt! i'll look for ah pen and paper!!!

silverjean said:

It just hits me and when that happens, watch out, that's when the start flowin.

When I'm in love

Paisley said:

When are we likly to see some results?

Paisley said:

Me too. U cant pin point it.

When i'm sleep. I can envision all kinds of shit.

althom said:

:LOL:

For those orgers who don't already know, I'm clinically Bipolar II (And that's NOT the Dr. Jeckyl/Mr. Hyde-type like Drew Barrymore's character in the movie "Runaway Love.") /

As is classic with Bipolar sufferers, when I'm at the cusp of cycling from a "normal" mood to either a depression or a low-level mania (the hypomanic state), my creativity, thoughts, productiveness, learning and communicative capacity, and sensitivity to even the smallest forms of inspiration are wonderfully amplified. It's EXTREMELY cool! Unfortunately, further cycling into depression often snatches the levity to exploit that clarity; or a cycling into mania (which is much rarer for me) amps me up so high that I simply can't focus on one whim long enough to carry it out. It hurts: A tide of extraordinarily beautiful things flow through my head... then ultimately wash away. I've even been hired and fired from jobs because of it.

I don't do constant meds (due mostly to price), but they have helped stabilize my cycle at some of my worst times, and learning to recognize when I'm at a certain stage has given me better awareness to capture my creative rush before it goes away.
[This message was edited Sun Dec 21 22:20:57 PST 2003 by Lammastide]

Late at night

Things that will trigger creativity for me:
- being alone and given time to think, not worrying about having to please or 'perform' for outside people or having them judge me
- the kitchen! Preparing or eating food. When inspired, I'm often walking around and spinning about the place while eating.
- walks. Seeing different things give me good triggers of inspiration. I often get melodies, words and just general insight come out from the simplest or oddest things, often no apparent thing at all - just being there.
- dreams. I have recently received some surprisingly good stuff from dreams; stuff that I felt somebody wrote it for me.
- music. Especially music I haven't heard before, or haven't heard for a while, or that is turned up loud.

Things that tend to promote creativity for me:
Mostly I like it when I have my space...alone, just thinking alone. Late at night is always good too. I have got to have quiet. Happy and sad feelings equally encourage outbursts of creativity, as do just general observations - the trick is keeping myself open enough for the good stuff to hang around.

I have to switch everything off when I get in a creativity mood, which is a blessing just as much as it is a curse; If I'm doing something else that needs to be done, forget it - it's off. I have to totally block off the outside world too - without explanation - which means people who are trying to reach me won't get an answer. Sorry, everything's off! So I'm 'unreliable' because of this - I have gone off into the void. Every now and then I just need long breaks from the outside world too, just for myself to recharge. Good stuff usually comes out at those times.

I have made it a habit to write or record most of the stuff recently, since I just hate losing anything. I often go back to those little snippets and build on them - I know exactly how I felt at that time by reading and/or hearing it again.

Creativity mostly comes in spurts to me, very rarely long sessions. If I try to force it, it runs out. It only flows when I've just blanked all superfluous thought from my head and replaced it with feeling (for want of a better word).

I find it interesting that so many orgers have said they're most creative during depressive or melancholy periods.

One of the things I've read from researching my mood problems is that the parts of the brain that govern creativity are very closely linked to the parts that govern depression and, especially, anger.

...It sort of makes sense. Think about all the colorful ways you have imagined revenge!

Also, look back on Prince's career, for example. He's done the best work when he's been brokenhearted or pissed at the entire world.

Lammastide said:

I know my moods can swing very quickly, if that means anything. The smallest thing can trigger it up or down. Most of the creative stuff happens when it's in that process of change from one state to another, to me.

~Alone~

I've always been a night owl.

Supernova said:

And a lurker!