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This unconscious is the part that creative people can ‘access’… and it’s the part that ‘overwhelms’ people with mental illness

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This reminds me of a conversation, perhaps anecdotal, reported to have occurred between James Joyce and Carl Jung, where Joyce is trying to convince himself that his daughter is not schizophrenic:

Joyce: “After all, I do the same sorts of things with language myself.”

Jung: “You are diving, but she is sinking.”

As Anton Wilson comments on this, “all of us who write anything that goes below the surface of naturalism can understand Joyce’s scepticism. We never know for sure whether we’re diving or just sinking.”

Interesting blog and follow-on comments.

Here’s the study abstract.
http://tinyurl.com/yjojsu3

There are, by definition, conscious and unconscious parts of our psyche. The unconscious part, again by definition, is beyond the control of consciousness. This unconscious is the part that creative people can ‘access’… and it’s the part that ‘overwhelms’ people with mental illness.

“the people who stay are just crazy enough to feel like they’re home” …WRONG… these are the people who do not dare to mix reality and fiction for fear they might lose themselves….these are the people who play Farmville, not SL.

To be able to ‘play’ roles within your RL or SL, you have to be fairly comfortable with who you are (i.e. relatively stable).Those who are slightly disturbed would much rather hang on to Real Life with both hands.

In other words, the symptomology has zero to do with a “split” or “dual” personality, though, it can involve being “split off from reality” in as much as the sufferer may experience something more akin to seeing a “different world” than that which those who are not afflicted with that particular disorder might perceive.

But yes, the research has long shown a significant correlation between “creativity” and “mental illness.” Where “mental illness” is not only defined but sometimes, even constructed, by the very society in which we live. And it is about as fluid as fiction… and faddish, too… a la the dx du jour.

For example, in the 1980s, it was eating disorders, in 90s, ADHD, and presently, autism seems to be all the rage. We, as a society, love labeling people who do not fit our world view.

That being said, I leave you with a quote from the book, “Mad Travelers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illness” by Ian Hacking:

“The most important contribution here is the metaphor of an ecological niche within which mental illnesses thrive. Such niches require a number of vectors. I emphasize four. One, inevitably, is medical. The illness should fit into a larger framework of diagnosis: a taxonomy of illness. The most interesting vector is cultural polarity: the illness should be situated between two elements of contemporary culture, one romantic and virtuous, the other vicious and tending to crime. What counts as crime or as virtue is itself a characteristic of the larger society, and the virtues are not fixed for all time: prudence, a virtue for the Protestant bourgeoisie of early modern Europe, had been a mere weakness in the feudal era. Then we need a vector of observability; that the disorder should be visible as a disorder, as suffering, as something to escape. Finally something more familiar: the illness, despite the pain it produces, should also provide some release that is not available elsewhere in the culture in which it thrives.

The lectures are rich in historical anecdote and curious details. But they are not mere stories. They lay out, by an example, the power of the concept of an ecological niche for a transient mental illness. I take for granted that mental illness — something that counts as madness within a society — requires both victims and experts. We call these patients and clinicians”

And guess what? I’m the creative director at an interactive media company in my first life. I love my job and I wouldn’t change who I am.