Do you find it amusing, as I, that when you ask an intellectually abstract question...........................

Question

...for many, you will fall into either of two categories::
1) Insane.
2) On drugs.

That's a pretty limiting way of viewing things, don't you think? I mean, does that mean that ALL wild imaginations -ONLY- come from individuals who are insane or on drugs?


Let's take, for example, the imagination of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka: Lewis Carroll - author of "Alice in Wonderland").

The myth -- that Carroll was on drugs when he wrote the story -- was spread in the 60's by supporters of the then LSD craze. Yet, this is not the case. Carroll just had an amazing imagination, and loved to tell stories! Most of the Alice in Wonderland story was invented when he was on a boat trip with friends; the real Alice and her sisters.

But, maybe I'm wrong... Maybe the only way to have a vivid imagination is to do drugs and/or go insane...

What do you all think?

Answer 1

Cosmic the question is simple, there is an agenda which equates life to simply being mechanical and anything out of this perspective, or the group mindset has to be insane or on drugs, because obviously specific questions they don't understand and are out of their scope of thinking must mean something is wrong with the individual that thinks them. Those in the box will always have that type of perspective towards those who move outside of it. It is human nature.

We are programmed and conditioned from childhood what should be be the pattern of thinking, many never transcend this limitation forced upon them. The institutions of this world try to dictate what and how we should think, what we should experience and etc. The world is reflective my friend and people at best see everything in reversal to its true nature. Good things become bad and bad things become good. For instance, when I became a vegetarian I got so much ignorance from people like I was doing something horribly bad, to them it was good to devour flesh.

Answer 2

Many have been trained to shun imagination as being unrealistic, drugged, insane, or whatever other description used to encourage everyone to remain impassive and controlled.

Imagination is a freedom. Abstract thinking isn't about thought at all but using senses to bring about creative thought. It's interesting to me how many magical movies are coming out right now. Does my heart good, to see so much imagination getting airplay. Stoking it, in the collective mainstream entertainment.

So, yeah; I did notice the rather 'short-sighted' answers your questions received today. Mainly, it says to me that someone doesn't want to get off their duff and just try to reach into the meaning and see what they come up with.

Or not.

Funny thing about imagination. Once utilized it has enormous potential, because like anything else, it begs to be used. It's just a matter of getting your feet wet. And why is this important?

See my first sentence. It's a freedom, and a medium of expansion from within. A person without imagination is too susceptible to the deceptions of this worlds so call tangibles

Answer 3

Nope, if you write when you're on drugs all you'll get is utter bollocks. Especially drugs like LSD.

Coleridge was partly to blame for this when he explained the origins of his poem 'Kubla Khan'. ("In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure done decree..." That one.) He said he was having an opium dream and the whole poem came to him in that dream, many pages. Once his trip was over he went for the nearest pen and paper and started writing it down. He got the first little bit (the poem as we know it... about one page) but was interrupted by a knock on the door, a salesman from Porlock. Once he'd got rid of the guy he went back to his work, but had forgotten the rest of the poem.

This is generally held to be an unlikely tale as the work Coleridge produced when he was high was very incoherent and unstructured, nothing like the poem. (Douglas Adams made this story a plot point in his book 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency', btw.)

Ken Kesey, best known for the novel 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', also occasionally wrote when on drugs. His favourite was LSD and what little of his drugged-up writings survive are even worse than Coleridge's.

Insanity, though, certainly worked for some authors. Sylvia Plath, for example. But then, she's dead... Hunter S Thompson, who did NOT write when he was on drugs (contrary to what you will have heard), also recommended insanity as something that has always worked for him. But he's dead as well, of course.

Go insane by all means, then, but you gotta take the rough with the smooth...

Answer 4

I think you wandered from your point there. Are you on drugs? LOL

No, seriously; I know what you mean. If you say anything original or creative, you are either condemned as a lunatic or as a druggie. In fact, many of us get that kind of thing out of over-active imagination without needing to risk a run-in with either shrinks or cops. Lucky us.

Sometimes it's not even all that original, but something from the more esoteric aspects of your education, for example, or from an obscure branch of a religious tradition. If I start quoting Aleister Crowley . . .

Answer 5

The same people who will turn to the two categories also have no sense of humor and will turn on those who try to use dry humor to make a point or begin discussion of a topic through a less well traveled path. The real problem is the number of these people is large and they have much power to block or remove these imaginative and creative ones. Sigh.....they are hurting those of us who do like to think and are not clones of society like them.

Answer 6

There are all sorts of forms of knowledge in our realm....crossing the line of 'reality' into the universal can be done in many ways.

keys of this world (drugs,magic,religion,trance, meditation) all get you there and I look at them as catalysts in many ways.

Deep heart felt prayer is by far the purest form of attainment. There is unworldly power that comes from the Source above all.

Which ever way you get across the line of perception it all seems to hinge on your heart's intentions.

There are universal powers....we are spiritual beings......the laws work because they exist. For good or ill.

The more times you visit the 'other side' the more you grow in ways not accessible to the person who does not believe.

it is not child's play...but it is both more beneficial and fulfilling to 'go there' with the heart of a child...in awe and wonder.

Answer 7

Of course drugs aren't necessary for a vivid imagination. Under the influence of drugs, people aren't usually lucid enough to explain such imaginations in a comprehensible way.

My guess is, those who make such accusations are probably floundering to understand the abstract concepts... and they don't really think you are on drugs.

Answer 8

The abstract is the realm of the Left Hand.

The (R) hemisphere of the brain which deals with integration, wholeness, artistic appreciation, creativity, and Gestalt.

It's the proper home of R & S.

There's nothing wrong with you, friend / bro, it's the problem of the airheads who aren't evolved enough yet to understand you. :-)

(As was once, in turn, told me by a wise lady soothsayer).

One day, maybe years later, they'll remember - and be grateful. :-)

Until then, you've got to don your plate armour, and brave the hails of arrows...

Answer 9

'Sigh'

"And yet you incessantly stand on your head,
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

The animators who created Fantasia have been accused of being on drugs.

No, I have to say it doesn't amuse me, it gets right up my beak.
It shows a grey, drab poverty of mind which would seek to pull everybody down to its own lack-lustre level.

I wonder how many people under thirty have read, or had read to them, such books as 'Wind In The Willows', 'ALice' and the 'Just So Stories'.
It seems to me that many modern kids have such a poverty of language that much of such wonderful childrens' literature would pass them by.

Sorry, I'm ranting here. Put it down to a succession of sleepless nights.

EDIT,
For the first time ever I gave every single answer a thumbs up, and the questioner a star!

Answer 10

The problem, my dear (((Cosmic Chameleon))), is that your questions require and simultaneously inspire THOUGHT. That in and of itself makes you insane and drugged out to those who prefer to be dictated to, who choose to be controlled, dogmatized (?) automatons who prefer it when someone else does their thinking for them.

I used to do the drug thing (toking), but found I could not remember the really important stuff. Once I stopped, I started remembering ONLY the important stuff.

Ignore the children. It is almost their bedtime anyway.