I have been reading up online various things about imagination. Most interestingly has been why people believe they have such a vivid imagination and why they do it.
I was reading on a forum where this man talks about how he, for the last 10 years, leaves the real world and 'plays' in his imaginary world in his mind. When sat in a chair he drifts off and plays out these imaginary peoples lives, he even goes so far to say that he knows everyones (30 people) eye colour and past relationships etc. He asks at the bottom if this is an alright thing to do and to why does he do it?
Some of the most interesting comments were as follows: It is a form of escapism, one that is quite obsessive. It is a way of projecting bad things that are happening to you right now onto your fictional characters to make it not seem so heavy on you. Or, it could act as a pick me up. If you are one of those characters in your head you can make just good things happen for them - making yourself feel better in the process. You can pretend these things aren't happening to you. This then led onto someone else commenting that they made these imaginary worlds too as a way of disconnecting from their life as they were suffering with depression. Someone who made a massive imaginary world and documented it heavily was Henry Darger.
I was then reading why children have such vidid imaginations and why they create imaginary friends. The main thing which came from this, was that they do it because it's a source of power. They want to be in control, but at their young age that is certainly something that wouldn't naturally happen. So they invent these worlds or people as they have total control over what happens, giving them the compensation for feeling helpless.
Then finally, i was looking at the imagination of characters. There is always a lure for immoral, bad characters. People become fixated on them, drawn to them. "why give up seducing married women or buckle to social pressure when we can simply kill husbands and set our own standards of living?...it's the vicarious thrill we get from entering their stories". And this is true. We live through these people in stories and imagination because we realistically wouldn't do this in our lives to other people. Yet, our imagination provides us with an outlet for darker thoughts.
I was reading on a forum where this man talks about how he, for the last 10 years, leaves the real world and 'plays' in his imaginary world in his mind. When sat in a chair he drifts off and plays out these imaginary peoples lives, he even goes so far to say that he knows everyones (30 people) eye colour and past relationships etc. He asks at the bottom if this is an alright thing to do and to why does he do it?
Some of the most interesting comments were as follows: It is a form of escapism, one that is quite obsessive. It is a way of projecting bad things that are happening to you right now onto your fictional characters to make it not seem so heavy on you. Or, it could act as a pick me up. If you are one of those characters in your head you can make just good things happen for them - making yourself feel better in the process. You can pretend these things aren't happening to you. This then led onto someone else commenting that they made these imaginary worlds too as a way of disconnecting from their life as they were suffering with depression. Someone who made a massive imaginary world and documented it heavily was Henry Darger.
I was then reading why children have such vidid imaginations and why they create imaginary friends. The main thing which came from this, was that they do it because it's a source of power. They want to be in control, but at their young age that is certainly something that wouldn't naturally happen. So they invent these worlds or people as they have total control over what happens, giving them the compensation for feeling helpless.
Then finally, i was looking at the imagination of characters. There is always a lure for immoral, bad characters. People become fixated on them, drawn to them. "why give up seducing married women or buckle to social pressure when we can simply kill husbands and set our own standards of living?...it's the vicarious thrill we get from entering their stories". And this is true. We live through these people in stories and imagination because we realistically wouldn't do this in our lives to other people. Yet, our imagination provides us with an outlet for darker thoughts.