Self-induced Hallucinations

My favorite film this year has been "Finding Neverland". It inspired me to try and stretch my imagination. This has been especially important as I've been working on lots of creative projects. I want to use more imagination and Paris in the winter just kills my imagination. It can be very pretty in spring and summer, but in winter it feels so dull and it gets dark so early and it doesn't have much of the night-stimuli that keep an imagination going, like Tucson's trains or the rusting mills of small towns or the grinding subways of large cities. Paris in the winter is like a white crinoline veil that will lift in spring to reveal all kinds of colors. But right now, everything feels vanilla.

So I tried to induce inspiration and imagination on myself. I tried this morning as I was waking up. I was still in bed and I told myself to dreamily follow my imagination--to not say no to anything that might come along and whisk me somewhere. I didn't quite know what was going on, but while still awake, I heard music in my head, something that went along with a scene from my movie. I thought it was really cool. I was controlling the music. I could just think of what mood I wanted and the right accompanying music would appear, just like that. I could hear it so vividly I could have hummed along. At one point the imagination dwindled and I realized that I wasn't as clever as I thought. Stupid me didn't realize that I'd had my headphones on and was just listening to music, claiming authorship for myself. But then I did a doubletake because I wondered how could the music possibly be coming through the headphones when I WASN'T WEARING ANY HEADPHONES!!!

A cool way to freak yourself out in the morning. I recommend it. And since I did such a good job convincing myself of music that wasn't there, and then headphones that weren't there, I thought really, anything could happen today. It made me feel that despite the fact that I had nothing planned for the day, even in a vacuum of activity, I would find something interesting about the day. I looked out the window and there was at least three inches of snow.

I will try later to concentrate hard enough to see and hear things that aren't there. It's a really cool idea. Have you ever tried to provoke hallucinations in yourself? It's obviously easier when you're waking up or falling asleep, but I think that when I was a kid, the imagination was so strong that if I really believed that the sand under the playground was lava, I could momentarily see it red and smoke rising. I really thought that Finding Neverland was a reminder of that power. We forget we have it as adults. It doesn't serve us like it did as kids. But we should use it. Especially if you are an actor or writer. I think it's possible to rope imagination more forcefully into our dimension of reality. It doesn't have to be just thought and abstraction.

If your imagination becomes too real and you start talking to people (or dragons) that aren't there, people will call you crazy. And I guess that is why people avoid imagination. But I've seen a 2 year old boy pick up a toy and talk to it. That's what we call playing, but to him, it's probably just talking. He doesn't just think it can talk back. He hears it talk back.

Yesterday, I went to a funeral of the sister of a friend. I only met her once. She was the director of an art gallery and probably was no more than thirty. She died accidentally in Brazil. I don't even know how. After the funeral mass we exited the church and among her hundreds of friends that came, a few had musical instruments and played music. They led a procession from the church to the art gallery. It was so unbelievable to me that there was this happy trombone, tuba, percussion, and trumpet music playing in the middle of the gray Paris avenues. People didn't know what to think as they looked out from restaurant windows and walked along slimy sidewalks holding umbrellas to keep their heads out of the snow. A brass orchestra followed by two hundred mourners is not something you see in workaday Paris all the time. But I thought it was the perfect tribute to this girl who dedicated her life to art and beauty. It was unexpected and it was beautiful and it is what life should be about. We shouldn't save parades for holidays and funerals. I'd like to put up a parade right fucking now. Why not? Every day that I don't see a spontaneous parade, I feel sad. I should try harder to do things like that. I don't know what imaginative things I've done outside of my own head lately. It's either too cold or I don't have enough money or I'm worried I'll go to jail. The police hate imagination. I thought about doing something stupid in front of tourists at Notre Dame to earn money, but it's too cold and the police would probably stop me. But I'm going to think of something. I'll do something imaginative.

And if you do something imaginative, please report back to us on the Time and Space Lounge.