THE MOLECULE OF MOREDopaminergic drugs can do the same thing. Although some patients
who take dopaminergic drugs for Parkinson’s disease develop devastat-
ing compulsions, others experience enhanced creativity. One patient
who came from a family of poets had never done any creative writing.
After starting dopamine-boosting drugs for his Parkinson’s disease, he
wrote a poem that won the annual contest of the International Asso-
ciation of Poets. Painters treated with Parkinson’s medication often
increase their use of vivid color. One patient who developed a new
style after being treated said, “The new style is less precise but more
vibrant. I have a need to express myself more. I just let myself go.” Just
like Winnie-the-Pooh: “It is the best way to write poetry, letting things
come.”DREAMS: WHERE CREATIVITY
AND MADNESS MINGLEFew of us are geniuses or madmen, but we have all experienced the
midpoint on this continuum: dreams. Dreams are similar to abstract
thought in that they work with material taken from the external world,
but they arrange the material in ways that are unconstrained by phys-
ical reality. Dreams often contain the theme of up, such as flying or
falling from a great height. Dreams often involve future themes, too,
sometimes in the form of the pursuit of some intensely desired goal
that’s always just out of reach. Abstract, detached from the real world
of the senses, dreams are dopaminergic.
Freud named the mental activity that takes place in dreams “pri-
mary process,” which is unorganized, illogical, created without regard
to the limitations of reality, and driven by primitive desires. Primary
process has also been used to describe the thought process seen in peo-
ple with schizophrenia. As the German philosopher Arthur Schopen-
hauer wrote, “Dreams are brief madness and madness a long dream.”
Dopamine is unleashed during dreaming, freed from the restrain-
ing influence of the reality-focused H&N neurotransmitters. Activity in
the H&N circuits is suppressed because sensory input from the outside