New drugs enhance. If you can get your hands on a chemical that invokes an altered state no previous artist has experienced then you're in undiscovered country.

Ken Kesey was a guinea pig in the CIA's early experiments with LSD. He went on to be amongst LSDs earliest recreational users, and that led to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", which is a strikingly original and lucid novel.

I contend that John Berryman’s Dream Songs wouldn’t have come about without the poet’s alcoholism. The fractured syntax that makes it such a moving collection seems a reflection of a mind clouded by drinking, and a sober poet may have never stumbled upon that style.