The Need to Believe in Fantasy

Everyone lives a world where we have loneliness, crowds, pressure, stress, boredom, anxiety, pain, and angst among other things. Each of us needs a mini vacation at least once a day and sometimes much more often then that. For some that seems to come only when we sleep and dream but few of us can even remember that which we dream.

We need a place to go to escape to and at some level we need to believe that in some way that place is real. Something similar to what Stephen King calls suspension of disbelief in the course he teaches at the University of Maine in Orono. ( bet many of you didn't know he has worked as a professor for years and even wrote textbooks. As you may of guessed he teaches how to write horror. He has a book Danse Macabre which is a text for the course but also good reading ). Basically suspension of disbelief is the ability to turn off the knowing something is not real and pretend it is in order to enjoy it. This is especially true with horror films. However and I am sure the ladies know this it is also very true of Guy films. After all they don't really make automatic pistols that can fire nine hundred thousand rounds without reloading then run out of ammo just at the right time.

As I said some of us only go to such fantasy worlds in our dreams and it was a dream inspired this piece. Last night or rather as I woke this morning I was dreaming I was in a very large store shopping for a fantasy. Not the kind that gets printed in Men's Magazines. The Camelot, Gotham City, Sherwood Forest, King Solomon's Mines, James Bond kind of fantasy. A place we can go for adventure thrills love or what ever it is we are looking for. We each need a place or perhaps many such places. It is nice if we can close our eyes and take a trip to our own real life but imaginary movie where we are the main player. It can be anywhere, anytime and with anyone. However we need to in some small way believe that part of it is real. In a sense it is. Everything is created first in thought before our minds can tell us that it is in fact real. Also how we act and behave in these imaginary worlds can effect how we behave in real life to a great extent. So it is more important to save the world then rule it and fight for what is right then it is to be fought over.

So I encourage everyone to take these mini vacations when they can. These travels can ease loneliness. Give us a temporary respite from pain. Provide an outlet for frustrations and may have a million other uses I have not thought of.

So relax, daydream and fantasize just try to do it in what you know is a good way for you.