Response to Research Ideas

          I enjoyed reading and hearing about everyone’s final research paper topics. From the assessing the validity of the anti-GMO movement to the analyzing cultural differences in the prevalence of plastic surgery, our comprehensive book of essays is sure to be an interesting read.

GMOs? | Source: http://www.consumerthai.org/images/food/gmo/GMOs.gif

          Jennifer’s project about altered mental states and the creative benefits of mental illnesses, mainly depression, particularly stood out to me. Since taking Music History 5: History of Rock and Roll with Professor Fink, I’ve been fascinated by the psychedelic rock movement of the 1970s. The history of infamous Grateful Dead community performances and The Beatles’ groundbreaking concept album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, serve as undeniable evidence of the artistic ingenuity of the psychedelic rock era.

Album Cover for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band | Source: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-etO1p25p1DU/T8PgMupMYpI/AAAAAAAADic/XCI9XigFmfc/s1600/beatles+5.jpg%3Cbr%3E

          As Jennifer stated, hallucinogenic drugs, like LSD, were a major cultural aspect of the period. Grateful Dead concerts were typically structured so as to unify the crowd in one extensive trip with the live music reflecting the listeners’ emotional transformation. The audience would collectively consume hallucinogens at the beginning of the show, during which time the band played relatively conservative songs with slow rhythms. As the spectators experienced gradual intensification of the drugs, the band followed suit through a sonic buildup of volume and clamor until both parties reached their peak states – listeners supposedly reaching a cognitive epiphany and band members representing that enlightenment through complete cacophony. Finally, musicians and audience members slowly come down from their mental and musical highs, signaling reentry into the real world from some higher state of being. I found this rising and falling climatic dance between producers and consumers of psychedelic music incredibly fascinating, and it is this ritual that inspired brilliant song writing like tracks from Sgt. Pepper.

Image from a Grateful Dead Concert | Source: http://www.tubefilter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Grateful-Dead-Concerts-YouTube-Broadcasts.jpg

          In relation to mental health, I have limited education experience beyond taking an Abnormal Psychology course, but comparing the fluctuating mental functioning of psychedelic drug users to that of individuals with depression strikes me as both intriguing and concerning. Although many famous painters and authors suffered from mental illness, I hesitate to characterize mental illness as a source creativity for fear of romanticizing the associated suffering. One study examined roughly sixty individuals and found “limited scientific evidence to associate creativity with mental illness” (Waddell, 166). Granted, this study was conducted in 1998, so more recent research and literature may offer opposing evidence. I still fear, however, that “we may do more harm than good to the cause of alleviating mental illness if we romanticize mental illness and trivialize its impact by associating it with creativity” (Waddell, 171).

 

References:

McNally, Dennis (). A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead.

Pearson, Anthony (1987). The Grateful Dead Phenomenon: An Ethnomethodological Approach. Youth & Society 18(4) 418-432. Retrieved from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0044118X87018004007

Rodriguez, Marko A. (15 July 2008). A Grateful Dead Analysis: The Relationship Between Concert and Listening Behavior. First Monday 14(1). Retrieved from: https://arxiv.org/abs/0807.2466

Waddell, Charlotte (1 March 1998). Creativity and Mental Illness: Is There a Link? Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Retrieved from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/070674379804300206