I believe fantasy through escapism is important because it can allow people to escape their problems for little bit and it allows creativity and imagination to grow. I also think imagination is important for people to make it through the difficulties of life and it can make life more interesting and exciting. It can lead to new possibilities and opportunities and if people work hard at it, they can make their fantasies part of reality.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Research Topic Proposal
My topic is on fantasy as a way of escapism. The term fantasy is often referred to in psychology as a "mental apprehension of an object of perception, the faculty by which this is performed." This is often performed as a way of escapism. People often do this because it allows them to "escape" stressful situations by focusing on happier and exciting moments or things. In some ways it can be harmful to people when they escape themselves so much to the point where they reject reality completely and they don't approach and solve their problems in a realistic and practical way. However on the other hand, escapism into fantasy can be helpful to a person and even healthy, because it can help people relax and shake off stress and anxieties for a little while. It also can promote creativity, imagination and problem solving.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
10 Resources Outline
Source 1: http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/fantasy.htm
Fantasy: Definition and relations/genre
- Definition
- Most often referred to as a term in psychology as a "mental apprehension of an object of perception."
- The fact or habit of deluding oneself by imaginary perceptions.
- A daydream arising from conscious or unconscious wishes or attitudes.
- Desire and fantasy seem to be closely related.
- Imagination with genius and fantasy with taste.
- Fantasy is it's own genre in film, television, theater and literature.
- Fantasy in cinema and theater must be viewed in conjunction with surrealism.
Source 2: http://www.answers.com/topic/fantasy-psychology
Forms of Fantasy
- Conscious Fantasy
- A situation imagined by an individual or group that has no basis in reality
- Likely involves the impossible
- Can be considered a trait of Narcissistic Personality Disorder
- Can have beneficial elements
- A similarity positive view of fantasy.
- Ex: The energetic man is one who succeeds by his efforts in turning his wishful phantasies into reality.
- Ex: The artist can transform his phantasies into artistic creations instead of symptoms.
- The unconscious is made up of phantasies of relations with objects.
- Thought as primary and innate and as the mental representations of instincts.
4. Desire
- The subject situates himself as determined by the phantasy and on a single theme, minimizing the variations in meaning which might otherwise cause a problem.
Escapism: The Good and the Bad
- The Good
- A term employed by the psychological profession to denote an act of the intentional or unintentional removal of one's psyche from it's current reality.
- By this definition we can remove ourselves from our immediate surroundings to exchange it for something more pleasurable.
- Can give one a new self image.
- Can leave a person thinking that he has everything and knows it, but thinks it says something about him and while it does, it may not be the same way to others.
- Leave someone unaware of oneself.
- More like a vacation and that you have to come back eventually.
Escapism: Its causes and how it's important and/or unimportant
- Causes:
- People want to get away from daily stresses of life.
- Depression or mental anxieties.
- Those who want to focus on happier times.
- Can allow a person to realign themselves and approach reality with a more positive outlook.
- Can open doors and can surpass natural sciences in many ways.
- Some say it's important to the human experience to live in reality and face the consequences.
- Can cause a person to neglect reality and retreat from dealing with depression or similar mental anxiety in a tangible and practical way.
- Why would people want to escape?
- Hardships. War, poverty, stress etc.
- Desire to maintain a certain image.
- Escape pressures and responsibilities.
- Low self-esteem
- Escapism is considered a panacea
- Escaping the self is thus not a matter of removing the self entirely, but rather of shrinking it down to its bare minimum.
- It's more like an escape from identity into body.
- It involves passivity.
- Apart from the body, the rest of the self is something that was made, and to escape the self, you must mentally unmake it.
- Psychological Basics of Human Behavior
- Common sense may be indeed common, or general, but its sense is surrounded by prejudice, superstition, and acres of wishful thinking.
- Studying the individual is in all the facets of a person and determining how these factors explain and predict his behavior.
- To achieve such, one would require the need to formulate an explanation on every occurrence in the past and permit predictions
- Would need to make arrangements, manipulate environment, prepare for known action, and thus control outcome.
- The present treatment of the mental phenomenon.
- The activity of man with which he enters life completely equipped and has given to it the term subconscious: that which lies below or outside of consciousness, but not the opposite of the term conscious.
The Movement of Surrealism
- Aims and Methods
- Might be described as both the common denominator and the most extreme variants of irrational, fantastical phenomena.
- Surrealists were aware of the subject of dreams yet the interpretations of the latter wasn't of essential importance.
- Dreams interested them, along with many abnormal psychic reactions and conditions, because the interest in these things led beyond the "rational" everyday reality.
- Surrealists were sometimes poets.
- In one respect, painting was especially close to semi-conscious or unconscious creative spontaneity.
- It is believed that with a painting manner less tied to its physical model, the unconcious can achieve a breakthrough with for less inhibitions.
Artists started/influenced Surrealism
- Andre Breton
- He was drawing attention to the works of poets, philosophers, psychologists, artists, and others that contained, to a greater or lesser degree, the features which would later be called Surrealists.
- He gave Surrealism its first formal definition in the manifesto of 1924.
- Defined it as a state of the creative mind and/or spirit which had existed in various individual throughout history.
- Influenced the style of illusionistic surrealists by the "poetic theater".
- While it was a crucial influence for many surrealist artist, his references to the inconography of the past were handled in such a way as not to be assimilable.
- Began the series of oil painting in which this synthesis is embodied, and which constituted the sole direct link between Dada and Surrealism, late in 1921.
- His proto-surrealist style is generally realistic, but with the elimination of detail, the low-relief modeling, and with deep and stage like space.
Picasso and Surrealism
- A way of escape
- Frequent escape into the solitude of creativity was as essential as a fresh intake of air, and as bracing.
- Having embarked upon a quest for metamorphic forms, he followed it down a dozen different avenues.
- He shared the Surrealist's conviction that large sources of subject matter waited to be tapped in art.
- The painting style represented far more than a salute to surrealist doctrine; it was the omen of a new style in Picasso's art, unleashing his inventive powers as never before.
- His surrealistic poetry was spontaneous and unselfconscious, unfettered by rules of grammar or form; yet it was full of original imagery.
Artists interpretations of Surrealism
- Max Ernst
- One of Surrealism's first revolutionary act was to bring down its myths with impartial means and in the severest form, by insisting vigorously on the purely passive role of the "author" and by unmasking as adverse to inspiration all "active" control through intellect, morality, or aesthetic considerations.
- Since every normal person carries in his subconscious an inexhaustible supply of buried pictures, it is a matter of courage or of liberating methods to bring to light from expeditions into the unconscious objects.
- It was difficult for him to talk about his painting since it was always born in a state of hallucination provoked by some shock, objective or subjective, for which he was entirely irresponsible.
- He increasingly forced himself to attain a maximum of clarity, power, and plastic aggressiveness, that is, to provoke first of all a physical sensation, and then to arrive at the soul.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Thoughts and feelings
I at first wasn't too sure on what to come up with for the brain search. Then I thought of the word fantasy. Since we were told to go nuts and free write, I thought that fantasy was a good way to let the mind go and I thought I could try that. It's actually an interesting topic and the more I thought about it, the more ideas and terms I came up with. All I had to do was not think about it some much and just go with it and let it flow. I also think that fantasy and imagination is important and also fun to me and that was what I'd like my focus to be on.
Direction and Opposite words and ideas
Direction: Fantasy/imagination- What is it and it's importance
Opposite Words and Ideas
- Sadness
- Childish
- Nonsense
- Loss/Slipped away
- Grow out of/Grow up
- Not thinking realistically
- Hallucinations
- Crazy/insane
- Leads to distractions
- Dull
- Colorless
- Empty
- Stiff/Uptight
- Judging others
- Mental disorders
- Nightmares
- Disbelief
- Black and White
- Same as everyone else
- Strange
- Boring
- Not normal
- Won't get one far in life
- Not real if no one's seen it
- Leads to naivety
- Hoax/fake
- Weird
- A problem
- Clouds the mind or one's judgement
- Sticking out
- Fear
- Rigid/unyielding
- Keeps one from seeing what's right in front of them
- Close-minded
- Uncaring
- Useless
- No such thing
- Give it up
- All work and no play
- Routine
Direction and Relate words and ideas
Direction: Fantasy/imagination What is it and it's importance?
Related words and ideas
- Happiness/joy
- Escapist/escape
- Creativity/creative
- Making something out of nothing
- Making something my own
- Magical
- Hopeful
- Dreaming/Daydreaming
- Making something real
- Ideas
- Stories/Fables
- Emotional/feelings
- Believing/having faith in something
- Keeping one's mind wide open
- Remembering/reminisce
- Journey
- Artistic/Art
- Reaching for dreams
- Fun/exciting/playful
- Games
- Fantasy world
- Friendship
- Safety/comforting
- Enjoyment
- Love
- Different
- Unique
- Genuine
- One of the best things about life
- Journaling
- Real to oneself
- Happy place/thinking place
- Feels like home
- Adventure
- Sharing
- Therapeutic/calming
- Sleeping
- Created from memory/one's mind
- Describing
- Colorful/beautiful
- Can broaden one's horizons
Brainsearch and Freewrite list
Fantasy
- What does it mean?
- Imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.
- The forming of mental images, especially wondrous or strange fancies.
- Psychology- an imagined or conjured up sequence fulfilling a psychology need.
- Daydream
- Also fantasia literature- an imaginative or fanciful work, especially one dealing with supernatural or unnatural events or characters.
- images, imagine, fantasize, imagination
- The best part of life.
- Dreams
- Fantasy can be like idealizing - creating ideas.
- mood or feelings: happy, excitement, fear, hopeful
- mind wandering, distracting
- useful tool in art or story making/writing.
- can lead to new things or stories.
- exciting
- escape/escapist
- Ivory tower
- Believing in
- Unrealistic
- crazy
- Create one's own world, things, people, etc.
- healing/ therapy/ calming
- colors, colorful
- Nightmares
- Brought to life, Bringing to life
- creative/creativity
- Curiosity/curious
- Making something out of nothing.
- Safety/security/sense of place/longing for
- This is home
- heart, soul, mind
- ingenuity/uniqueness/different/indifferent/not normal/abnormal
- Adventure
- Playful
- Enjoyment/fun
- memory/reminisce/recall/remember
- Just because you can't seen it or have never seen it, doesn't mean it's not real or doesn't exist.
- The most real things in the world are the things we can't see.
- Broaden horizons
- light/darkness
- Emotional/emotions/feelings
- Lies/fabrications/fake/hoax
- Judging others
- life lessons
- crazy/strange/different/weird
- Pleasure
- Wishing/longing/hope for
- run after/go after/finding/searching for
- Peaceful
- encouragement
- Why is it important? Gives one the chance to create or get more out of life
- No sense/odd
- Wonderful
- Whimsy
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
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