On the mind blog

On the mind blog2018-08-21T13:41:58+00:00

A blog about creativity and parapsychology… including latest academic research and survey results on women writers’ creative processes, plus individual paranormal experiences.

This is where I don my psychologist’s hat and talk about creativity – what it is, how it works, ways of helping it along. And about parapsychology, that fascinating scientific backwater that explores phenomena, such as precognition and reincarnation, that are not currently explicable via standard models of perception.

Photo credit: Flickr/Alev Adil

Mental ‘warm-ups’ improve creativity

Research by Wilma Koutstaal at the University of Minnesota suggests that people in creative occupations benefit from mental ‘warm-up’ activities just as much as athletes do from a physical warm-up. [...]

Atheists have fewer paranormal experiences

When the 2,524 people who took part in my survey of paranormal experiences were questioned about their belief in a deity associated with an organised religion, the fell into three [...]

Bolshy women are more creative

A team of psychologists in Poland has been looking at what personality traits are associated with creativity in men and women. The results of several large-scale investigations reported in the [...]

The defiance theory of creativity

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Creative Behaviour, one of a very few academic journals publishing reputable peer-reviewed research into creativity in all its many forms. [...]

Colouring in combats anxiety

Recent research from a team led by Jayde Flett at Otago University in New Zealand suggests that an enjoyable and inexpensive way of practising mindfulness and combatting anxiety and depression [...]

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