Drawar

Wow, this is a great topic. I would believe that loosing ones sense of sight all of a sudden could have drastic effects on the way you process information coming in from the others.

It's basically a need to understand or comprehend the signs your body is used to receiving and having them obtained through other means. I'd guess this would spur your imagination in so many different ways, and thus making you feel and maybe even become more creative!

As for famous cases, I can't think of any at the moment.

Novelty is an inherent quality of creativity. Inevitably, losing your sight severely impacts your everyday routine — the break of routine constitutes a series of novel behavior and way of thinking (compared to your regular experiences), which is tightly related to our perception of creativity.

So it's not surprising that you experienced this :) I envy you in a way for having lost your sight. It's not something I'd whish for as a birthday present, but like you describe, it had many interesting side effects.

Later in his life -- during the time when he composed Paradise Lost -- Milton was blind. And, of course, rumour has it that Homer was blind. Not being able to see doesn't hinder a poet, not an epic poet anyway -- maybe because the drive to recreate the world in words is very strong.

And then there is Beethoven's deafness to consider.

I also think it is true that people who work creatively need less outside stimulation when they are working, precisely because there is so much going on in their interior lives.

Thanks for the ideas, folks. I knew the perceptual change had something to do with my increased (or at least different) creative thoughts but couldn't quite figure out why. The notion of novelty is a nice way to explain it. Routine is the enemy of art.

I wonder how a sudden (or slow) change in perception changes the art one makes. Has there been any exploration how the the work of Beethoven, Milton, Homer, and others changed? Suffering a permanent loss of vision or hearing has to devastating but somehow artists persevere. There have got to be some fascinating stories in there somewhere.

On a related note, I heard an interesting interview with Sarah Polley today on her new film Away from Her, which deals with the onset of Alzheimer's and how it changes a husband/wife relationship in both good and bad ways. Somewhat tangential, but I wonder about the effects of memory loss on artists as well...

Most artists actually have a routine, at least most visual artists and musicians I know do. Routine is necessary for most art I think. I am sure there are various ways in which a given form of art
was conceived when an artist's perception was altered.

Possibly the the shifting of information which has to occur with the loss of one sense - the shifting or processing of that information differently via another sense would cause a perceptive change.

Really interesting. It's as if the same amount of gathering the intangible information around us is suddenly limited to fewer senses than we have been accustomed to, really honing what does work is a means of survival.

I know that Beethoven would feel the vibrations from the piano through his wooden floor to tell the intonations of the notes in order to differentiate them from each other. Also to tell the change from one note to the next, obviously. Like he still put his ear close to the piano in order to get as close to the vibration as possible...

People who would know about this (not neurological type theory but very practical) are artists who become or are disabled. Mostly I think of art being visual but music and maybe even ballet or tai chai is a form of art in different ways. I also wonder if the person's age at disability (ie accummulated life experience) effects either the senses or the form of art. Example: if you've never really seen a sunset or color, what would you represent it as? This sounds corney, I know, but preschoolers express themselves through art and do not have the life experience behind it. I figure the written word can be a form of art also...