A study by Drexel University’s Creativity Research Lab demonstrates that achieving a creative flow state, or “being in the zone,” depends on having extensive experience in a domain and the ability to release control, allowing the brain to operate with minimal conscious oversight. This was evidenced by neuroimaging of jazz musicians improvising, revealing that high levels of experience and reduced executive control activity in the brain are key to entering flow states.
Inner views of the left and right sides of the brain showing areas of reduced brain activity when the high-experience musicians were in a high-flow state . These areas include key nodes of the brain’s default-mode network. Credit: Image provided by John Kounios, PhD, of Drexel University A related theory based on recent research on the neuroscience of creativity is that flow occurs when the brain’s “default-mode network,” a collection of brain areas that work together when a person daydreams or introspects, generates ideas under the supervision of the “executive control network” in the brain’s frontal lobes, which directs the kinds of ideas the default-mode network produces. Kounios likened it to the analogy of a person “supervising” a TV by picking the movie it streams.
The high-experience musicians experienced flow more often and more intensely than the low-experience musicians. This shows that expertise enables flow. However, expertise is not the only factor contributing to creative flow.