[tread softly...]
Feb. 25th, 2005 12:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaIt just struck me what's been bothering me about the idea behind the phrase "it's just fantasy" when referring to whatever fictional kink that we say we'd never consider in "real life".
Basically, the word 'fantasy' isn't something so flimsy and not real that I'd ever consider using the word 'just' about it. Then again, I'm the sort of person who'd say 'just' real life before I'd say 'just fantasy'. But even so... this illustrates the attitude that people have-- as if fantasy is completely divorced and separate from our daily selves and from who we really are-- which is what I find ridiculous and kind of scary if I think about it.
I mean, I'm not Freudian by disposition to say the least, but this is a major psychiatric movement of the past century and a half, all based around the idea that we are defined by our unconscious minds and urges-- by our dreams and fantasies. Jung focused more on the collective unconscious, and I admit I respond more to the symbology involved, but I do think Freud was on to something. We are what we dream, because the conscious mind is mostly a morass of rationalizations and white lies and avoidance and coping mechanisms of all sorts. I suppose you can judge a person in a legal sense by what they actually do in their waking life, but how can you use that to judge a person's real nature without being hopelessly incomplete?
Naturally, people overreact and use fantasies & dreams as a direct parallel to 'real life' (whatever -that- is... honestly), so someone who likes erotica featuring sexualized children is automatically somehow a child molester, for instance, which is just another way to degrade the idea of fantasy. The truth is, one's fantasies are neither entirely divorced nor tightly welded to one's everyday personality-- they come and go, they mean different things at different times, they function as stress relief and trigger and escape and many other different things. How many ways are there to dream? There are infinite ways; as many ways as there are dreamers.
My impulse is to be disturbed at fantasies that seem dark and twisted, fantasies about harm to others, and I feel that's a valid impulse-- not as in, it's an excuse for rash judgment but as in a reason to investigate further. If someone has continuous escapist fantasies of a violent and dark nature, sure, that doesn't mean they're repressing these same urges in themselves-- but it does mean something, and that something is most likely troubling them or will at some future point. How can it not? It is one mind that reasons and that dreams alike-- the barriers are flimsy and porous at best, and it is not a different person that comes out at night or in secret, when we let our guard down. The only difficulty is being able to believe that we do not know all that is ourselves, that we must contain many layers of self-identity we aren't fully aware of, and yet how can one believe anything else?
I know from my own experience that I don't have any fantasies, sexual or otherwise, that are completely foreign to me-- even my darkest impulses, even things I can't imagine doing-- I know I can do them under the right circumstances. The trick is trying to make sure some of these circumstances never come to pass, but I know I can kill, and hurt, and abuse people-- and I'm pretty much almost entirely harmless as I expect anyone who knows me would tell you. I am theoretically capable of the whole range of human behavior, as are we all, and it is because of that self-knowledge that I find people claiming these dark thoughts are 'just' fantasies to be distasteful. It is in denying one's darkness and not paying close attention, not by embracing it, that one brings it dangerously close to overwhelming one's control.
It seems like when people dismiss fantasy as being wholly separate from the day-to-day reality in an effort to carve out freedom for themselves, they are really curtailing their freedom. They are separating themselves into parts, and labelling some more 'real' than others, a process of repression through which unsatisfied urges can fester and grow. If one doesn't make an effort to understand what one's unconscious mind is saying through any kind of 'culturally inappropriate' desire or fantasy, eventually one realizes that fantasy has its limits-- and they are reached when something snaps inside us, and we become hungry.
Finally, we realize that fantasy isn't a distant relative to our desires-- it is their very sustenance, the soil upon which desire grows. For whoever has wanted anything without also dreaming of it first? And is there really anyone out there who doesn't either crave or fear that of which they must dream? The passion in one's dream is what remains, after all, where 'real life' desire comes and goes depending on one's age and mood and body chemistry. "Real" desire is unstable, a surface thing, a fickle thing; it is fantasy which endures, and defines our past, our present and our future.
Ask anyone-- who do they think of more: the person whom they merely touched, or the person they'd long dreamed of touching? Which meant more to them? Which touch seemed more real when it happened?
How can anyone really know the difference between fantasy & unfulfilled desire? And indeed, what is the meaning of that difference if it existed? Only conscious choice; only our waking minds deciding to pursue one impulse and not another. And while our choices may define us in the eyes of others, and these are the things which fill up histories, we must at least admit to ourselves that it is our dreams which shape the identity which drives those choices forward.
Basically, the word 'fantasy' isn't something so flimsy and not real that I'd ever consider using the word 'just' about it. Then again, I'm the sort of person who'd say 'just' real life before I'd say 'just fantasy'. But even so... this illustrates the attitude that people have-- as if fantasy is completely divorced and separate from our daily selves and from who we really are-- which is what I find ridiculous and kind of scary if I think about it.
I mean, I'm not Freudian by disposition to say the least, but this is a major psychiatric movement of the past century and a half, all based around the idea that we are defined by our unconscious minds and urges-- by our dreams and fantasies. Jung focused more on the collective unconscious, and I admit I respond more to the symbology involved, but I do think Freud was on to something. We are what we dream, because the conscious mind is mostly a morass of rationalizations and white lies and avoidance and coping mechanisms of all sorts. I suppose you can judge a person in a legal sense by what they actually do in their waking life, but how can you use that to judge a person's real nature without being hopelessly incomplete?
Naturally, people overreact and use fantasies & dreams as a direct parallel to 'real life' (whatever -that- is... honestly), so someone who likes erotica featuring sexualized children is automatically somehow a child molester, for instance, which is just another way to degrade the idea of fantasy. The truth is, one's fantasies are neither entirely divorced nor tightly welded to one's everyday personality-- they come and go, they mean different things at different times, they function as stress relief and trigger and escape and many other different things. How many ways are there to dream? There are infinite ways; as many ways as there are dreamers.
My impulse is to be disturbed at fantasies that seem dark and twisted, fantasies about harm to others, and I feel that's a valid impulse-- not as in, it's an excuse for rash judgment but as in a reason to investigate further. If someone has continuous escapist fantasies of a violent and dark nature, sure, that doesn't mean they're repressing these same urges in themselves-- but it does mean something, and that something is most likely troubling them or will at some future point. How can it not? It is one mind that reasons and that dreams alike-- the barriers are flimsy and porous at best, and it is not a different person that comes out at night or in secret, when we let our guard down. The only difficulty is being able to believe that we do not know all that is ourselves, that we must contain many layers of self-identity we aren't fully aware of, and yet how can one believe anything else?
I know from my own experience that I don't have any fantasies, sexual or otherwise, that are completely foreign to me-- even my darkest impulses, even things I can't imagine doing-- I know I can do them under the right circumstances. The trick is trying to make sure some of these circumstances never come to pass, but I know I can kill, and hurt, and abuse people-- and I'm pretty much almost entirely harmless as I expect anyone who knows me would tell you. I am theoretically capable of the whole range of human behavior, as are we all, and it is because of that self-knowledge that I find people claiming these dark thoughts are 'just' fantasies to be distasteful. It is in denying one's darkness and not paying close attention, not by embracing it, that one brings it dangerously close to overwhelming one's control.
It seems like when people dismiss fantasy as being wholly separate from the day-to-day reality in an effort to carve out freedom for themselves, they are really curtailing their freedom. They are separating themselves into parts, and labelling some more 'real' than others, a process of repression through which unsatisfied urges can fester and grow. If one doesn't make an effort to understand what one's unconscious mind is saying through any kind of 'culturally inappropriate' desire or fantasy, eventually one realizes that fantasy has its limits-- and they are reached when something snaps inside us, and we become hungry.
Finally, we realize that fantasy isn't a distant relative to our desires-- it is their very sustenance, the soil upon which desire grows. For whoever has wanted anything without also dreaming of it first? And is there really anyone out there who doesn't either crave or fear that of which they must dream? The passion in one's dream is what remains, after all, where 'real life' desire comes and goes depending on one's age and mood and body chemistry. "Real" desire is unstable, a surface thing, a fickle thing; it is fantasy which endures, and defines our past, our present and our future.
Ask anyone-- who do they think of more: the person whom they merely touched, or the person they'd long dreamed of touching? Which meant more to them? Which touch seemed more real when it happened?
How can anyone really know the difference between fantasy & unfulfilled desire? And indeed, what is the meaning of that difference if it existed? Only conscious choice; only our waking minds deciding to pursue one impulse and not another. And while our choices may define us in the eyes of others, and these are the things which fill up histories, we must at least admit to ourselves that it is our dreams which shape the identity which drives those choices forward.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-24 10:33 pm (UTC)Word.
And I also think the word "just" is a comforter, because very rarely do people actually want to confront the complex reasons of why they enjoy/write/draw/whatever certain kinds of fantasies. Because, well, humans aren't good at introversion, and nothing is ever simple. I also think this is behind a lot of the way society dismisses Freudian theories, as well as other such philosophies/theories along similar lines of the power of the unsconcious. All those scary vulnerable/powerful/strange/beautiful things on the inside that might disrupt their regular little lives.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-24 10:56 pm (UTC)Maybe I'm just lucky I'm not into anything I feel is so unpalatable...? I mean, sure, there are a number of things I probably wouldn't do for any number of reasons, but I don't think there are any that I wouldn't do 'cause I think they're wrong and yet I use them as escapism. And it's not that I'm so healthy but that I don't tend to think things are wrong if no harm be done, y'know. Eh, it's so complicated ^^;
no subject
Date: 2005-02-24 11:07 pm (UTC)It's also interesting the connection between fantasy as in epic fantasy and fantasy as in erotic fantasy. There are hugely distinct differences, but I suspect that on a deep level there may be more connections than I expect.
I think it relates also to the sorts of fantasies one has. Does one fantasize about the 'real' world, having more or better stuff, status, power? I always thought pure fantasy was much more rewarding because there weren't so many details to keep consistent or 'realistic.' Anything's possible, why not make the most of that?
no subject
Date: 2005-02-24 11:51 pm (UTC)I think on a base level all dreams & fantasies have many interconnections within our response to them and the self which generates them rather than the end result. Sexuality, community, self-actualization, art-- all of this is part of a spectrum of identity and life as we experience it. It's a question of seeing different facets of the same picture, using different lenses and so on; the ultimate reality of desire, if there can be said to be such a thing-- the inner landscape of one's dreams-- that remains a wild and many-faceted wilderness in which many different kinds of stories may be set.
I think the types of fantasies one has depends on the kind of person one is and what one finds important. One of the earliest fantasies I remember involved being a princess-- which I associated with treasure and physical possessions for some reason, though I was never interested in -real- dresses or jewelry nearly as much. I wanted a -princess'- dress, a princess' treasure chamber, because these are the fairy-tales I was raised on. I think it was always my lack of ability to set my sights on anything vaguely 'realistic' which hindered me in my life, in some ways :>
no subject
Date: 2005-02-26 01:37 pm (UTC)I think you're right about this. It goes a long way to explaining how easy it is to get lost in endless intellectualizations about practical matters. The increasing specialization of knowledge provides more isolated perches from which various people can claim some level of expertise or understanding which most anyone else lacks the specialized knowledge or desire/willingness to refute.
This sounds a bit, to me, like I am giving you a hard time, but it's really myself I target, now as always. I do consider myself a generalist, but I've done exactly what I decried above. I'm off on my own little perch with my own little understanding.... I am trying to find my way back down, though....
I'm backing off from Live Journal for a while.... It's time to focus on more serious writing projects, of which I have several with specific reasons to follow up on, including the collaborative story environment.... So many ellipses.... Heh.... :P
no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 09:40 am (UTC)