An observation on reality

Alissa said:

reality is what you make it.

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EXACTLY, which is what the psychologist was trying to get across, but more simply put by Alissa. He did it through explanation, I guess too many details ruins the explanation? smiles. In any case, just wanted to say that was my point, better said by my sis.

And then there's the next question: is the 'common' reality really the same for all of us? Maybe what I call green for you actually what I call blue, but we were always told that it's green, and we both call it that way... There isn't a way to find out, I'm afraid...

OK, so lets say we're all happy to have our own realities, and are willing (being imaginative, creative and otherwise weird people) to let other people have theirs. This is good.

But don't you think madness lies this way as well? Who can tell if you still have a firm enough grasp on consensual reality? The character in Alissa's book is a good example, I think. If we are all content to have our own ideas about reality, and act according to our own perceptions, how do we stop ourselves from believing in it too much? When we shake our heads at the humourless who refuse to see fairies (or spirits, etc.) even where they are clearly at work, we may be true to our own reality, but from the outside point of view, we are pushing ourselves closer to insanity.

Insanity, I think, is believing in your own reality more than in consensual reality. Remember 'touched by the faeries' is a phrase that means 'insane'. These faery decks are wonderful, a source of enjoyment and inspiration, but are we safe?

Willie - as the devil's advocate

(ps: please respond, someone. The discussion on this board is really interesting, try and keep it alive, please.)

society's norm

Society created what a normal reality is by creating jobs so our communities that we have built can function, farmers, butchers, grocery stores, jewlery makers, seamstress, etc. If you can function enough to drive a car, hold down a job, and be a safe parent, teching your children the general right and wrongs (for ex. it's wrong to hit people, it's right to take turns going down the slide). As long as you can function in a every day lifestyle in the home and at a job, then anything outside of that doesn't (for the most part) matter. People may find you extremely odd talking about seeing faeries, reading cards, and talking about poltergiets, but it doesn't classify you so strange that you would be considered "insane" by the science of psychology (one of my favorite areas of study).

Psychologists have a certain set guide line, that pretty much falls into what i explained above. When something falls out of line, say for instance, you feel melancholy, and for no reason, but you can still "function" in your daily routines, your still considered "normal", but maybe you have some underlying issues that are surfacing that need to be brought into the concious so you can better deal with the underlying problem. No one likes to be upset in any way. We don't like to be sad, mad, angry, etc. We do (most of us) like to be happy, in love, laughing, and sharing good times with the people in our lives that we relate to. However, there's a difference between, loosing your job and being upset about it, vs. just waking up one day and your upset to the point where you feel like you can't handle going into work, so you call in. When you stop being able to function, or continue on in even what you consider normal for yourself, in your own routine, is when you may have a problem. To call it insanity, well, i think the term insanity is used way too loosely, but you have to be pretty extreme to be considered insane. Most people do have problems with their libido, or with depression, or maniac depressive, or don't know how to communicate with their spouse, but on much smaller scales, and usually manipulated by events that happen in our lives. I can continue on forever so i'm going to stop here and anyone else that would like to jump in on this, feel free.

OOOOOOooooooo Willie! NOW you're starting to think like I wanted my book's readers to think That makes me EXTREMELY happy!!!

Yes, exactly! When does an individual cross that line? At what point have they become "crazy"? Do they decide, or does society decide?

What sag says about the interference in normal life is a good point. I took my character to the brink (I had to, it was fiction, don't hate me) and she lost everything piece by piece due to her persistent delusions.

Eventually, her "disordered thinking" clashed too much with the commonly shared view of reality and she could no longer function and interact with it.

However, one major distinction to be made -- my character definitely had schizophrenia. The difference I played with, in her tale, was how long she was "normal" and how long before she was "crazy." The gray area here between what society deems normal, what an individual deems as normal is what most intrigued me.

Tolkien uses the phrase "fey mood has possessed him" when describing the old King of Gondor's (I'm forgetting names here sorry) intention to set himself a blaze on the pyre, and Pippin (?) must stop him. A terrible fit of madness, inspired by Sauron.

Not all faery influences are good. That's another point to remember.

And, here's one last point for the sake of talking about "reality" :
I have never ever seen infrared *or* ultraviolet light.

If someone told me about them, I could say, "You're nuts! There are no more colors to the spectrum than what the eyes see! What do you mean by talking about 'invisible colors' at extremely high and low frequencies that aren't detectable to the human eye? YOU'RE NuTs!!"

Or, I could suspend my disbelief to include the fact that there are more phenomena in this universe than can be perceived by the human senses.

It's just more of that old "more under heaven and earth"-Hamlet speech in action.

What about when you are to in tune with reality and what is considered socially normal? When you ignore or can not see the magical around you.

I would, sadly, put myself in this category. For the life of me, I cannot connect with the Faeries Oracle. Why? Because I cannot bring myself to believe that they actually exist. Yet, I believe in tarot. Maybe because I see tarot as a system, based on archetypes and symbolism developed throughout human history. I don't see the faeries that way. I see them as someone's imagination brought into our world, and I don't think I can accept that. I am Wiccan, and I believe in the Lord and Lady, but again as more of a symbol then actually beings.

So, how does one loosen their grip on the rational world, in legal ways of course? How do you open yourself up to believe?

Silver, it just means your holding on to thought patterns that giv you stability and comfort. THATS NOT BAD!

Letting go of certain thought patterns and making way for new ones takes one part experience and one part imagination, in my world.

A poor example, but the only one that 's jumping to mind ... yesterday, while outside in the mountains with the baby, I saw another crow fly over my head, heading due NW. I've seen crows flying over my head, heading due NW, for several weeks now. Again and again and again.

Now ... on a literal level ... these are nothing but CROWS who are FLYING around. Big freakin deal. What's so magic about that?

But ... when I see the same image again and again (one part reality) and it makes me begin to think/daydream/intuit what it could mean (one part imagination) ... I can come to an entirely differenct conclusion.

The repetition (often found in moments of synchronicity, when i am already thinking about the person that the crows remind me of) can be given meaning, if you *allow* it to mean anything beside the fact that crows fly around alot out here.

I've figured out what the crows were trying to tell me (and it's a personal message so I won't go into that), but what I'm trying to say is : I could either believe they are nothing but flying crows, or I can believe that the repetition of the crow image speaks to me from the spirit realm, and gives me a message on the spiritual level.

I dunno if I'm making any more sense today. I've written about 6 esoteric posts in a row now, I'm beginning to get swimmy about what I've said where (laughs heartily at herself).

One last example ... one day i drew Bodacious Bodach for my daily fae. Later, I saw a black streak jump down in front of me as I headed towards my back porch door. AH! There's Bodach, jumping around me, I thought.

Or it coulda been a trick of the eyes.

Therein lies the choice of perception.

(And I keep forgetting to add that I'm *so* glad this post was revived because it's one of my all time favorites in the Fae Oracle Forum).

WillieHewes said:

OK, so lets say we're all happy to have our own realities, and are willing (being imaginative, creative and otherwise weird people) to let other people have theirs. This is good.

But don't you think madness lies this way as well? Who can tell if you still have a firm enough grasp on consensual reality?

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When I spoke of reality myself, I was speaking not about what IS out in the experiential world, but what people decide is important out in that world. Of course there is a reality of concrete items that all can agree upon, after all, when you hit a brick wall, it is hard to deny it. What I am speaking about is the reality of what is important in this world and what it means and how it works. There is where interpretation lies.

Our brains have a necessary center called the Reticular Activating System. The role of this center is to help determine what is important to us, to filter the uncountable number of stimuli that comes through our senses and to determine how it all works together. It decides what should be paid attention to, and what should be filtered out. Through learning and conditioning, we are taught what cause and effect relationships are going on, what is "real" and must be noticed, and what is either superfluous or coincidental and can be ignored. We MUST do this, otherwise we will go mad or be unable to function in a world unpatterned, overwhelming and chaotic.

However, sometimes the relationships and cause and effect conclusions reached by our RAS are judgment calls, most likely taught by the biases of the culture. Being in an extremely scientific, logical society, we see cause and effect through scientific principles. Also, unless we see a scientific principle at work in a situation, we conclude that it is a simple coincidence, which is actually a scientific principle itself.

Since we have no photographs of faeries, have no faeries captured in a laboratory, or a verifiable video tape of a faery occurence, we cannot place faeries in a scientific reality. However, scientific reality is only one reality. Societies which told stories of faeries, catalogued faery names, types, behaviors, etc. had a reality of cause and effect which included the workings of faeries. The reality they carried was no less true than the reality of a scientifically minded person. Someone in a pro-faery society would "see" a faery as plainly as he would see a deer. However, it would be senseless to "prove" that reality using scientific criteria. It would be like trying to measure love with a ruler.

My point in my reality observation was not to prove or disprove faeries, but to show that realities exist on many levels, and just as it is wrong for scientists to discount faery reality because it doesn't meet their criteria, it is AS wrong to discount science's reality which does NOT include faerydom. In speaking of faeries, many talk as if it is undisputed reality, but to me, as faeryland itself is, it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Ohh, I really hope and made a point here... I hope I don't inspire another tirade about my long complex un-punctuated prose.

Khatruman said:

Ohh, I really hope and made a point here... I hope I don't inspire another tirade about my long complex un-punctuated prose.

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Oh you made a point, or two!, alright. And next time, don't stay away from the Fae so long, eh??? I've missed seeing you around these parts!

(Alissa sends a few Pixies Khat's way to tickle him and make him sneeze a lot today). That will teach you to ignore 'Em.