The neuroscience of Bob Dylan’s genius
8 April 2012What’s that? Science and Dylan together? Yum.
This Guardian article cleverly draws a line from what the right brain does, to the dark before the creative dawn, to Bob Dylan giving up music in the ’60s only to find a new voice.
Every creative journey begins with a problem. It starts with a feeling of frustration, the dull ache of not being able to find the answer …Tales of insight all share a few essential features that scientists use to define the “insight experience”. The first stage is the impasse. If we’re lucky, however, that hopelessness eventually gives way to a revelation.
During those frantic first minutes of writing ["Like A Rolling Stone", Dylan's] right hemisphere found a way to make something new out of a incongruous list of influences, drawing them together into a catchy song. He didn’t yet know what he was doing – the ghost was still in control – but he felt the excitement of an insight, the subliminal thrill of something new.
The story of “Like A Rolling Stone” is a story of creative insight. It took only a few seconds before a mental block became a work of art.
When will science devise a way to stop Bob Dylan’s reign of musical terror?
You are dead to me.
I am surprised it took this long, frankly.
In other news I remembered this track other day – thank oyu for sending it my way! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijE5xkJyOQw