Accounts of alcohol and drug use to stimulate creativity are apocryphal and anecdotal. For example, Samuel Taylor Coleridge reportedly composed much of his unfinished poem Kubla Khan while in an opium dream. In ancient Greece, however, the Pythian priestesses of the oracle at Delphi inhaled medicinal fumes to facilitate revelatory trances—as did the priests and peoples of most ancient societies. The institutionalized twentieth-century Native American Church continues to use the PEYOTE of their ancestors to promote profound religious experiences.

Psychedelic drugs, such as LYSERGIC ACID DI-ETHYLAMIDE (LSD), MESCALINE, PSILOCYBIN, and methylene dioxyamphetamine (MDA) have been used—both legally and illicitly—to increase aesthetic appreciation, improve artistic techniques, and enhance creativity. MARIJUANA has been used to heighten the sense of meaning, foster creativity, and heighten perceptions (also both legally and illicitly); and ALCOHOL has been employed by countless people worldwide to relieve inhibitions, increase...