Not everyone accepts the premise that a stereotypical creative personality profile exists, since this premise seems to harbor some contradictions; however, most studies do agree on certain issues. In general, creative people are hard-working, persevering, relatively independent and non-conformist in their ideas, and are generally more flexible in their thinking. But in most respects they are quite diverse in personality, much like the rest of the population.⁴³...It has also been demonstrated that many creative people grow in their powers throughout adult life, and that creativity is not confined to youth.⁴⁴

A group of architects were studied because their occupation requires a great deal of creativity. Among them as a group, it was determined that creativity had virtually no correlation with IQ above a certain required minimum level. The more creative architects had many interests commonly classified as feminine. They were generally self-confident, uninhibited, outspoken, flexible, independent, strongly motivated, and they came from families showing greater cultural, artistic and intellectual interests. There was lack of an extreme emotional closeness to their parents.

It has been repeatedly determined that there is virtually no correlation between academic achievement and creative potential. In studies of physicists, biologists and psychology graduate students, it was determined that creativity in their professional achievement, as reflected in their attainment of patents, prizes, projects and the opinions of their professors and colleagues, was in no way predictable from their grades, aptitude tests or achievement scores. While their academic skills and IQ scores are usually higher than average, the most intelligent and scholastically accomplished were no more creative than the least.⁴⁵

Creative people are highly esthetic and thrive on the complex, the intricate, the asymmetrical and complicated. They appear to have the uncommon capacity to integrate the wealth of chaotic sensory experience into a higher order of mental synthesis. They are slow to label and screen out the irrelevant, and they perceive life rather than judge it. This facilitates heightened awareness of not only the outside world but of the inner self as well.⁴⁶...The more creative person tends to reveal an openness to his own feelings and emotions. They have a more childlike freedom of imagination.⁴⁷

Visual imagery would appear to be a very important component to the creative thought process. This ability appears to vary widely among different individuals. Nikola Tesla at one extreme reportedly could see visual images in great detail to such an extent that he could build complex inventions without drawings. Aldous Huxley, on the other hand, confessed to being a poor visualizer and indicated that words did not evoke pictures in his mind. It has been speculated that perhaps one reason Huxley indulged in drugs is that it allowed him to obtain a more visual perception of reality.⁴⁸

Einstein admitted to having a very visual mind and he apparently thought in terms of images. It has been conjectured that his most fundamental insights were derived from spatial models rather than from a purely mathematical line of reasoning. Even he himself stated that spoken and written words did not seem to play any role in his thought process.⁴⁹...In my own case, the visual imagery which occurred during my peak experience played a major role in the synthesis of all of the concepts presented in this book.

Creativity also appears to require a synchronization of the right and left brains working in harmony, and new ideas often emerge in drowsy or "twilight" states of consciousness.⁵⁰

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