I've enjoyed this thread and will, therefore, post more on meds and creativity below.-Ron Price, Australia
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Mania varies in intensity, from mild mania (hypomania) to full mania with extreme energy, racing thoughts, and forced speech. Standardized tools such as the Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale and the Young Mania Rating Scale can be used to measure severity of manic episodes. Because mania and hypomania have also been associated with creativity and artistic talent, it is not always the case that the clearly manic bipolar person needs or wants medical help; such persons often either retain sufficient self-control to function normally or are unaware that they have "gone manic" severely enough to be committed or to commit themselves. Manic persons often can be mistaken for being on drugs or other mind-altering substances.
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Some are now attacking the increasing use of bipolarity as a lifestyle term: a cultural shift from the fad for depression of the 1980s to a more recent fascination with mood swings and the "creativity" of mania, as evoked by Claire Danes in Homeland, or Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook. Some are now blaming the forces of pop culture and pharmaceutical marketing for turning a categorical psychiatric concept into a dimension of symptoms: a mood spectrum wide enough to encompass almost anyone who experiences highs and lows.
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The idea that psychosis, inspiration and revelation are closely related may be an old and recurrent one, but it is also a marginal one, and people with prominent psychotic symptoms are very likely to be stigmatized and isolated. By contrast, in many traditional societies these same people may be seen as visionaries and mystics and celebrated and sought out for their special insights and abilities. Owing to a lack of lateralization of function in the brain, people with schizophrenia and their non-schizophrenic relatives may gain in creativity from increased use of the right hemisphere, and consequently from increased communication between the right and left hemispheres. Interestingly, increased use of the right hemisphere also occurs in healthy people with high levels of paranormal and religious beliefs. In traditional societies people with psychosis or with high levels of paranormal and religious beliefs may project an aura of spirituality and religiosity and, as a result, may be conferred shamanic or shaman-like status. The term ‘shaman’ is generally used to refer to healers, medicine men, seers, sorcerers, and such like—important people whose role within a traditional society may include physical and psychological healing, but also divining the weather, following totemic animals, communing with the spirits, and placating the gods.