Creativity is the deliberate attempt to transform "what is" into "what should be." To do so, we must perceive what is and envision something better. Mental imagery is a key step in the creative process, and many would equate creativity itself with mental imagery. Consider the following quotation and whether you feel it is creative:
At 3:00 he will fall the pink dragon will eat him all hell walk through the corridor of the hall and watch the buzzards pick his bones this is so because he took me from my home
at 3:00 peace will be everlasting on earth the child has been baptized into her birth no sacrifice is made this lamb is saved
Personally, I find it beautiful. The punctuation omissions are intentional, by the way, although I am not sure why that was, and at least on first reading it seems very creative. This quote represents the mental imagery of a young woman and, in this case, the author was a patient with schizophrenia. She wrote me this note during her hospitalization at a time when she was actively and vividly psychotic. She was not trying to be creative but instead was sharing her visions from the previous night with me on rounds one morning. From that perspective, they are truly frightening, and not at all an attempt to transform something that exists into something else. Rather she was trying to escape this nightmare. Mental imagery can sometimes become excessive and disturbing, forcing its way into our consciousness.
Patients with schizophrenia vacillate between heaven and hell, literally experiencing angels and demons, God and Satan. Delusions (false beliefs held with great conviction) and hallucinations (false perceptions) are very real to the schizophrenic patient, believed with the same conviction that we hold perceptual reality. Schizophrenia is a severe, but surprisingly common, illness, affecting roughly 2% of adults. Why schizophrenia is so common is not clear, but it has been suggested that the underlying basis for schizophrenia may serve, or may have served, some adaptive purpose in human evolution.
Consider that the fundamental problem in schizophrenia is a belief in something that is not there or cannot be perceived, and this has parallels in normal life. Creativity requires a vision of what should be. What should be, by definition, does not yet exist. Such vision, and the belief in its realization, is fundamental to the discovery process that underlies all science, art, and industry. Religion requires healthy people to have faith in something that cannot be perceived with the physical senses. It may be that similar neurobiological principles that make us vulnerable to schizophrenia also allow us to think creatively, find cures for diseases, and believe in God.
If paranoid delusions and hallucinations represent an excess of mental imagery, there also exists deficiencies. Creativity begins with an idea – an image of what should be – and continues with a plan to achieve it. When a writer cannot envision what should be, what needs to be said, or how to say it, we call that "writer’s block." Painting, musical composition, scientific inquiry, business ventures, and all activities that depend upon the discovery and expression of new ideas can suffer a similar fate, "creative block."
Writer’s block is painful. Author Ayn Rand described writer’s block as "... an inner agony. It is the worst experience, psychologically, that I know of" ("The Art of Nonfiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers" [New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2001). Rand attributed writer’s block to a subconscious struggle with the complexity of the material and an unresolved plan for managing it.