Are the ideas my imagination – or am I channeling another time/place?
There can be philosophy and psychology associated with fiction.
While most of us are pretty sure the worlds we envision – far-out places of fantasy, science fiction, and the like – come from within us – they may be out there. Somewhere.
Get real, you might say. King’s Landing and the world of George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire is fiction. So’s Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The planets of Star Wars are all made up.
I tend to agree with this. Hell, the worlds I’ve made up – be it The Vapor Rogue’s Amasheer, the Source Chronicles’ t’Thera, or the planets of the galaxy of the Void Incursion – come from my imagination. Right?
That’s my thought. But there is another, deeper question. Where does the idea come from? What spawns the imagination?
Now we’ve entered philosophy, psychology, and the metaphysical realm – applied to fiction.
I am not saying I believe this idea – but I still am going to put it out there. What if the fiction realms of my and other writers’ imaginations DO exist? What if we’re just channeling alternate realities into our own?
Less preposterous than you might think
Modern physics – particularly quantum physics and string theory – postulates the notion of a multiverse.
What in the hell is that? The notion that there are multiple, potentially infinite realities parallel to one another. Watch a Rick and Morty episode where they deal with the Citadel of Ricks – a place where thousands of iterations of the primary characters from alternative realities coexist together. Fictional, yes – but that’s the gist of the multiverse.
For a more realistic explanation – you stand waiting for a bus. At the last second, you don’t get on the bus and walk instead. In an alternate reality, you DO get on the bus – and the consequences of the choices vary based on what you did.
This is one of the issues with time travel. Rather than alter the timeline we’re on now – we instead create an alternative one. But this is why I am not a fan of most time travel tropes (save Dr. Who – which takes a very different approach to this overall).
Ergo, it’s possible – albeit may improbable – that the ideas of other worlds, aliens, mythical creatures, and the like created by writers into our world are being channeled. We have tapped into something greater than ourselves and gotten a glimpse of another reality.
Or even, for that matter, an alien life. The Universe is ginormous. The statistical odds of us being the only sentient life of this nature are slim to none. But until we can overcome the limitations of the speed of light in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity – this likely won’t be known anytime soon.
Crazy notion though, right? But let’s look at examples of fantastical ideas becoming reality.
Ideas for the future in the now
Books, movies, and TV shows have offered fantastical looks into the future. Star Trek in its many iterations is an excellent example of this.
Tablet computers, hyposprays, and communicators in various forms all exist for real. One of the best potential notions for faster-than-light travel isn’t so far removed from Star Trek’s warp drives.
In the Ender series by Orson Scott Card, he more-or-less described the modern internet in 1985 – when the real internet was in its infancy (the Web 1.0 that brought us where we are today originated in 1989). Hell, the delivery car with the built-in pizza oven that Domino’s advertises was described in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash in 1992. Also – his take on the way businesses run the world wasn’t so far from our current reality.
These are just a few examples of fictional ideas that are no longer fictional. I recognize that, yes, you can argue that these became real due to being inspired by fictional notions. That can become a which came first the chicken or the egg debate.
One more mindblowing argument that ideas could be channeled from alternate realities or the future: An episode of The Simpsons in 2001 predicted Donald Trump would be president.
There are at least a dozen other times The Simpsons predicted a future thing long before it happened. Coincidence, inspiration – or – channeling an alternative reality or the future?
Embracing the ideas -wherever they come from
Please note – I am in no way lessening the creations of all the writers out there. I’m a writer who has created many, many worlds along the way.
I like to think the bizarre names, unique places, and funky plots I see in my head are of my own invention. They’re my ideas, right?
The answer is – it doesn’t matter. Wherever the ideas come from – sharing them is what we do.
Creatives may be channeling something outside of themselves – but until that’s discovered (if it ever is) they are the ones with the ideas. Where they come from – whatever the source might be – isn’t important.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to examine and speculate about. However, it’s important in doing so not to lessen the creativity.
New ideas – fictional or nonfictional – drive the world. They help us to grow, change, evolve, explore, and become greater than we are. Even if they are channeled from somewhere else – they didn’t exist before they were shared in THIS reality.
To quote Einstein,
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
Thus, since all of us have an individual perception of reality as it is, new ideas changing the collective consciousness – from the ethers, channeled from elsewhere, or new inventions of creative minds – alter the world.
A hundred years ago, instantaneous global communications were naught but a dream. Food from around the globe available year-round in the supermarket – which we take for granted – wasn’t possible. The digital devices you read these words on were years away from being in our reality.
My overall point being that ideas – wherever they come from and whatever form they take – drive growth, change, and evolution. The potential and possibilities are endless.
Ergo – run with those ideas. Don’t be afraid to share them.
Thank you for being part of my ongoing journey, for joining me, and for inspiring me and my craft.
This is the one-hundred and fourth article exploring the ongoing creative process. Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published works, which can be found here.
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