Reflection: The Boy With the Overactive Imagination...

As a kid, I had an overactive imagination.

In fact, I still do.

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Of course, lots of parents will insist that all kids have overactive imaginations, and whereas that might be true — to an extent — we tend to grow out of such "nonsense..." or we have it beaten/shamed out of us.

The thing about my "overactive" imagination when I was little was that it wasn't rooted in anything I could possibly have seen or heard in this world.

I walked around, talking about things I'd "seen," like huge space stations, interstellar travel, something that resembled the Internet and cell phones... without ever having had exposure to anything that would put such ideas in my head. We didn't have TV, so it wasn't Star Trek. I didn't have comic books because my father thought they were for "depraved and brainless" people.

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And yet, I "fabricated" these things in both my waking mind, as well as in dreams.

As the years rolled by and I became a teenager, I didn't actually "grow out of it." In fact, I discovered science fiction novels and was delighted that other people were (somewhat accurately) describing all the imaginary landscapes that had been inside my head since I was little.

In spite of all this, I did not become a science fiction author, although I did write some short stories.

As part of my ongoing endeavor to clean out and sort what's in the old packing boxes in my workspace closet, I did come across some of my early "stories." I thought maybe I'd overly romanticized what I used to "see" inside my head back then... but I found a piece from when I was 14 (1974) in which I remarkably accurately described something very much like a smartphone that was connected to all the collective information through all of history, available publicly everywhere via a "net" connected 1,000's of tiny communications satellites.

Things that make you go hmmmmm....

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Over the years, my therapists (at three separate times over the past 30 years) have all been puzzled and baffled by the landscape of my dreams... because they are so seldom based in any kind of Earthly reality. The archetypal imagery may be the same as that of someone more Earthbound, but I seem to spend an awful lot of my dreamtime in space or on other planets.

When I look at it and read through my old dream journals, what is there feels almost like a visceral memory of something that actually happened, rather than just a passing dream.

I have now passed 60 years of age, and it doesn't look like I am likely to "grow out of it," and I have stopped worrying about such things as what is "normal" and what is not. The psyche is a very strange and wondrous place sometimes... and I doubt I will ever uncover where the strange imagery that frequently pops into my head actually comes from.

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Reading science fiction is strange, at times... because I will be reading some descriptive narrative and find myself thinking "Yeah, they got that MOSTLY right, but this, this and that detail are completely OFF!" like is am somehow "grading" someone else's school paper, written about my experience.

Yes, I'm crazy as frak... but don't worry about it! I'm pretty harmless!

Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!

(In a departure from my usual style, I decided to NOT use my own images for this post)

How about YOU? Did you have an "overactive imagination" as a kid? Did it go away, in time? Where do YOU think unlikely dreamscapes come from? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20210910 00:03 PDT

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