There seems to be some variance in how deprivation affects creativity. I have a friend who will start hallucinating if she stares long enough at a white wall alone. Most people probably won’t though, and would just experience some dull mind-wandering.
There’s something going on with social deprivation and creativity. Monastic orders like Benedictine Christians and Zen Buddhists encourage long periods of silence, along with sensory deprivation like fasting, and it seems to work for them. If you have some kind of psychological discipline (innate or trained) to maintain your focus, you may enter a deep, undistracted flow state. But if you don’t have that discipline, it’s probably better to have some social stimulation so that you don’t feel strained and uninspired from the lack of new social input.
There seems to be some variance in how deprivation affects creativity. I have a friend who will start hallucinating if she stares long enough at a white wall alone. Most people probably won’t though, and would just experience some dull mind-wandering.
There’s something going on with social deprivation and creativity. Monastic orders like Benedictine Christians and Zen Buddhists encourage long periods of silence, along with sensory deprivation like fasting, and it seems to work for them. If you have some kind of psychological discipline (innate or trained) to maintain your focus, you may enter a deep, undistracted flow state. But if you don’t have that discipline, it’s probably better to have some social stimulation so that you don’t feel strained and uninspired from the lack of new social input.