On Imagination
Collage #3: If you took your imagination out of your head, what would fill the space left behind?
🐬 Your Favourite Animal
There was an age when your ‘favourite animal’ was a core part of your identity. 8 or 9 or 10 years old. Laura was horses. Alice was elephants. Sophie was dolphins.
Dolphins were a good choice for a little girl in the nineties because swimming with dolphins was a very tangible life goal to have. People were going on holiday and swimming with dolphins all the time.
I could imagine what a dolphin would feel like, quite vividly. Wet and smooth. Slippery, but not slimy.
What is that, knowing exactly how something would feel without ever having touched it?
🏰 Disneyland
Dolphin swimming was a big ticket on 90’s holiday bingo. Another one was Disneyland Florida. All of my friends had that same photograph in their bedrooms: the family in pastel shorts and baseball caps, lined up next to Mickey Mouse on a patch of golf-course-green grass. Behind them, palms trees and the pink-capped castle.
After every Disney feature film, the video cassette would keep turning: an advert for Disney Parks in Paris and Florida. In that post-Lion-King limbo, just before reality seeped back in, there were two minutes of rollercoasters, Mickey-shaped food and Pluto waving right atcha.
I would always try to imagine what it would be like to go to Disneyland and swirl in the teacups. Would I be brave enough to go down the flumes? How would I know what to say to Mickey Mouse? Would Goofy have a French accent in Paris?
It seemed very far away and for somebody else. But I wanted to go. Everyone had gone to Disneyland! It was a rite of passage, surely.
☁️ Beanie & Baskety
My favourite animal was dogs. I felt like I should choose something a bit more exotic like a snow tiger or a tree frog but the truth was I just loved dogs. My grandparents’ black labradors were the blueprint for my imaginary pets: Beanie and Baskety.
I could imagine Beanie and Baskety following me around. Communicating telepathically. Tails thumping when I approached. Panting and running. Curling up sleeping. Basket for Baskety. Bean-bag for Beanie.
When you are the age of ‘favourite animal,’ you imagine a lot of things. Testing and pushing the limits of what might be easy to imagine, what might be harder. You spend a lot of time imagining good things happening. I mean, if you have a brain and you can use it to imagine anything, why wouldn’t you use it to imagine something good?
🪄 A Dream Machine
I always wanted a machine which could collect my dreams or imaginations and turn them into a TV show I could watch. It would be magical. I could see myself in all the places and scenarios I wanted to experience. I would see Beanie and Baskety. I would go to Disneyworld. I could swim with dolphins.
Imagine being able to conjure things so quickly. What would you want to see?
If you took your imagination out of your head, what would fill the space left behind?
If you outsourced half of your imagination, would the rest still work the same?
Would your dreams still be in the shape of you?
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I’m just sitting here marveling at that collage! 👽
also reg the dream machine: it reminded me very much of dream journals which never worked for me as i then either proceeded to dream a blend of everything together for a while or wouldn’t enjoy dreaming anymore cause it felt like the freedom & joy in them were gone