ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies

by Edward M. Hallowell

When the DMN brings lovely images, it is our golden tool. But when it jumps track into the TPN and hijacks consciousness, then the DMN becomes the Demon, the seat of misery, the disease of the imagination. Trapped in the past or future in the DMN, you’re likely to abandon projects you once started with enthusiasm, make careless mistakes, or, worse, fall into a state of misery and despair, for no good reason whatsoever. All creative people can recognize only too well the phenomenon of being on a roll—creating—only to have a negative voice trying to interrupt the process. That’s the faulty “toggle switch” allowing the DMN to intrude on the TPN. Being trapped in it is painful; the term “tortured artist” fits. Indeed, many of our greatest scientists, inventors, performers, and writers have struggled with glitchy connections, vacillating between creating great works and languishing in despair, often seeking relief in drugs, alcohol, or self-destructive compulsive activity.