Irrespective of the actual reason behind the result, I found this, through personal experience, to be true. I spent the greater part of 2 years on several SSRIs, and went from a creative writer/clever programmer/poetry writing (clinically depressed) geek to a quiet, emotionless "normal" person riding an emotional flat line.
Perhaps being depressed makes me more creative. Perhaps the medication suppresses something inadvertantly, who knows (AFAIK, no one does, at least for now). But there was a definite correlation between the SSRI and my creative side.
I know plenty of others, including myself, who back up the anecdote with the same story. When does an anecdote stop becoming an anecdote and start becoming evidence? ;)
I think HN needs to have more discussion on this point. For instance, I used to listen to Art Bell: his callers gave numerous anecdotes about UFOs, but I wouldn't say those anecdotes added up to evidence of any sort. On the other hand, if you know 1000 people, and 20 of them have seen UFOs, that's definitely evidence, all else being equal. (The people you know don't exactly constitute an unbiased sample, but they aren't a meaninglessly biased sample either.)
