The novelist and journalist Hilde Østby discusses her recent book The Key to Creativity: The Science Behind Ideas and How Daydreaming Can Change the World (Greystone Books, 2023), with Joseph Planta.

The Key to Creativity: The Science Behind Ideas and How Daydreaming Can Change the World by Hilde Østby (Greystone Books, 2023). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Key to Creativity

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Hilde Østby joins me again. She recently published The Key to Creativity: The Science Behind Ideas and How Daydreaming Can Change the World. It’s a fascinating look at how we get ideas, and how human creativity works. The book begins with Hilde involved in a serious cycling crash. She finds herself though bursting with creative energy. It gets her wondering why, and she examines how physical trauma can affect levels of dopamine in our brains. She looks at memory, as well as daydreaming. Boredom also comes into focus, as she investigates its usefulness just as we’re less and less bored thanks to technology. I’ll ask her about grief, and whether the myths that mental illness or intoxication contribute to creativity. Hilde Østby is a novelist and journalist. She first appeared on the program in 2018, when the book she coauthored with her sister Ylva Østby, Adventures in Memory: The Science and Secrets of Remembering and Forgetting was published. That book, like this new one is from Greystone Books. She joined me from Oslo, Norway, where she lives, in this conversation that was taped in early June 2023. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Hilde Østby; Ms. Østby, good morning.

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