"When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." ~~White Queen, Alice in Wonderland

When I was maybe... three? Or four? I recall a vague conversation with my parents at a meal where I was relating an adventure about how my imaginary friend had gone down the bathtub drain. I was highly amused. My parents looked at me confused, and it was at that moment that I realized...oh. You don't talk about those kinds of things. Embarrassed, I never mentioned the worlds and people bouncing around in my head again to them or to much of anyone.
A few years later at six years old, during Christmas, I decided I did not want to be an adult because adults (my parents being the only example) didn't play anymore, they didn't imagine anymore. All they seemed to do was worry about money and taxes and chores. What a thing for a child to feel at that young an age. 

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I slowly grew into a world that I'd been taught to believe by adults (like teachers and people on television) was full of possibilities, and you could do whatever you wanted as long as you believed hard enough and worked hard enough for it. The trouble with that, was I'd been fed a fantasy about "reality", one that adults themselves didn't even really believe. What they failed to say was "so long as you pick the right career, have the right education, funds, opportunity and connections, you can do whatever you want."

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The reaction to a failure of such a belief is naturally disappointment, anger, feeling jaded and ultimately unfulfilled. I spent years feeling guilty and upset at myself for wanting and trying to be an artist, when it was clear I was never going to survive that way, and the one message that took precedence was that it was necessary to live and survive in this world above all else. How ironic also, that this fantasy notion was applied to the "real world" by adults in exactly the way that most people who are finger wagging about living in a fantasy world warn against. 

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It seemed that art and imagination were the realm of children, and you were supposed to outgrow these things to be a mature productive adult. "Productive", as if you were a machine meant for the benefit of others. Or if you *were* an artist it had to be for a purpose. You had to make a profit or be in a museum to count for anything. Otherwise, you were merely a pretender wasting your time and needed to just grow up.

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Sounds horrible? Yeah, felt that way too. 

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But despite all of this cultural and learned bullshit, I didn't give up on imagination and creativity.
I took a hard look at the world I felt so so constrained in, and started to see just where the cracks were.

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The objective shared reality we all move about in day to day is still one of survival and perpetuation of species, let's be plain. It can be beautiful and full of wonder, certainly, but it is unpredictable, ultimately indifferent to us as individuals and has a habit of being extremely cruel and unforgiving. And we more often than not make it even worse for ourselves by how we treat others as well as our own psyches.

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Every person has a subjective reality, a personal space that lacks the physical bounds and restrictions of the objective physical world, and it is here where thoughts, feelings, imagination and the like actually dwell. The funny thing is, we all think we're *living* in objective reality when we're merely fooling ourselves; we only ever see the "real world" through our own personal subjective window. This, of course can be its own mess, and often is. But that's another discussion entirely.

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We perceive objective reality as immediate and solid, and because we have an innate necessity to be mindful of it so we don't come to harm, the only reality that is of any importance. But herein lies the rub; that sort of thinking discredits entirely our subjective reality and all it contains. It belittles and diminishes a capacity that is also necessary for survival, and more importantly, a reason to survive.

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Subjective reality, the world of the mind, is just as immediate and harbors as much influence on a person's state of being as the physical reality, it's just much more subtle in its aspect and harder to perceive unless you know how to be aware of it. This is the space where we create meaning, where our reactions to the world beyond our skin take place, and where we can respond in almost fractal fashion to the myriad of thoughts and feelings and ideas that lurk about in there.

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It's terribly easy to discredit something that you cannot touch or measure or define. Yet we have concepts like love and justice which are fashioned within us, not by the environment we live in. We respect these concepts because we can agree on how these affect us and our responses in the arena of objective reality.

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Imagination is among those concepts and is revered by some, if not many, but also derided unless it is a means to an end. If you use your imagination to invent a piece of furniture, or solve a math problem, or figure out what to make for dinner, that's fine. If you imagine yourself as a disco cowboy with a talking sombrero riding a three headed giraffe made out of yogurt pretzels, well that's just pointless, or worse, crazy.

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So we have a double standard about imagination and creative powers. People use their imaginations all the time, it's impossible not to, but where the magic dies is where they impose limits on what has none to begin with. Objective and subjective realities always influence each other. We bring objective ideas into our personal space, and, if we're really being creative, can turn them on their heads to make something completely new. We can also bring subjective matter into the physical world, but parts of it will always be lost somewhat just due to limitations.

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My perturbation lies with the fact that we treat our imagination space with so little regard for what it actually is. We don't know how to accept it. We are so conditioned to "make use of" in such a concrete sense that we are completely missing the point of what seemingly frivolous, fantastical and outlandish thoughts actually do for us. They are as much as part of us an any other thought, and bring far more meaning and quality of life than the more simple, mechanical "solve problem by x" approach.

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If imagination and fantasy for their own sake were really such a waste of time and energy the way some might make them seem, then why is every culture so rife with stories? Why all the art? Why all the TV shows about vampires or zombies or mafiosos or medieval people that you get attached to just to have them all die at a wedding?

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Because we need fantasy realms. They exist in us already as part of the whole package, and they are an inherent part of our human expression. Quashing expression causes problems and emotional damage. It makes us devalue who are because we are not properly honoring or giving voice to the totality of ourselves. 

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Imaginative worlds also do the service of giving us a reprieve from, let's face it, the banal routine that every single one of us must face every day.  Also, since we're not being chased by predators anymore, our stress is now self perpetuated and so internal and  chronic that we cannot physically run or hide from it. So what do we do? We create safe spaces where we can go, even if only for a while. And these places are in books, on tv and in most importantly in our own heads.

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I cannot begin to broach how many times over the course of my life that I thought my creative urges and desire to just be in fantasy places other than "the real world" were things to feel guilty about or ashamed of because they don't "produce" anything or "mean" anything and are supposedly unhealthy.

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Even fairly recently I had found myself googling about the validity of fantasy as if I had some kind of disease that needed cured. I came across people on both sides of the coin of fantasy vs reality, which one is better, so and so on. The people who maintain that reality is better than fantasy say things such as reality contains greater surprise and fulfillment as it doesn't pander to your desires and is out of your control, that fantasy is a poor simulation of reality, that fantasy will ultimately disappoint you because it sets up false expectations, that it's better to live the reality than rely on an illusion, and that you need to restrict your fantasies with reality in order to be healthy. 

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First of all, I found these pro "reality" views to be very disparaging of fantasy as whole, and secondly the kind of things that people say when they haven't encountered nearly enough suffering in a reality that is not giving them space to breathe.

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As someone who for years had to live with immediate circumstances concerning my health (and mental health at that) just barely in any kind of control, I can tell you that living exclusively in that kind of physical reality is depressing, demoralizing, and dangerous. There are plenty of situations where reality *is* traumatic and painful, and there are few good choices that are even available to alleviate suffering. 

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Retreats to sections of my own subjective reality where I COULD control what was happening, and I could have a positive effect instead of floundering, and I could actually *feel* positivity and accomplishment even if only for a few precious minutes were the life raft that pulled me through storms that could have otherwise capsized me. Having a sense of at least some control, feeling fulfillment and having a safe space to feel comfort are basic human needs and sometimes, objective reality really doesn't have the tools to offer up.

Vanishing for a bit into imaginative places is like taking a much needed vacation when you can't get a physical one. It's also a built in coping mechanism that everyone has and one that can provide resilience. 

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I find now that the argument of "fantasy" vs "reality" is looking at it from a faulty one dimensional angle and asking an erroneous question. This is not a take sides black and white situation. Even labeling the above argument as I just have is a debasement of subjective reality and its powers.

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The assumption that the feelings and meaning derived from imagination are not "real" because they are not caused by external stimuli is fallacious. I learned the hard way that emotions are chemical impulses, and need no more cause than a thought or even an image to trigger them. If you are feeling something, it *is* real, just in a personal subjective sense. Does fantasy allow you to feel or experience something that benefits you? Does imagining give you breathing space and relieve stress? Do these internal adventures give you a sense of freedom and meaning that you are hard pressed to find otherwise and do they contribute to your well being? If the answer is yes, then the pursuit is worthwhile. 

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Now I know that there's some who are harrumphing and internally monologuing about the negativity of getting lost in fantasy worlds, not being able to distinguish "reality" and how daydreaming and fantasizing will lead to irresponsible behaviour. I acknowledge that this issue is actually problematic for some individuals, but this is not a reason to squelch an inherent mental process that has validity and should be ultimately cultivated. 

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It's about balance, all of this. And in terms of imagination and fantasy it's not about internal censorship, it's about observation, mindfulness and curiousity. What you fantasize about will tell you about yourself if you just listen. How does imagining a specific scenario make you feel? What is actually going on and what role do you play? What meaning does this carry for you? Observing and asking yourself these questions is just as important as getting lost in whatever you need to get lost in. And this is how fantasy can be a really, REALLY important tool, even if all you are doing is imagining yourself saddling up a giant pickle to race over a desert of flowered tea towels to get to the gnome banquet before the clock strikes chartreuse.

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Which brings me to my last point of why imagination is important. It makes all the survival worth it. Art for art's sake is one thing, but survival for survival's sake is mechanized and empty. It's a body hooked up with wires to keep a heart pumping that doesn't have a reason to beat. The most important component is that imagination should bring joy and quality of life.

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In my search for arguments about reality versus fantasy, I found some comments that were to the point that art cannot do reality justice, and it's never as beautiful as the actual thing and never will be. To this I say very cordially GO FUCK YOURSELF. You are missing the point entirely.

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Art and imagination are not about trying to reproduce the outside world in all its detail, it's about expressing a personal view of what we see, what we feel and experience. What we contain has significance, even if only to us. Objective reality cannot fully teach us what our actual truth is, it can only reflect ourselves back at us through our particular pane of glass. So do not ever seek to deny the realities within, whether they dwell in daydreams or stories or whatever comes out of the end of a crayon. They are yours, and they mean something.