WEBVTT - Pretend Play, Part 3 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:14.880 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:15.720 name is Robert. 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.520 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.759 the third part in our series on pretend play, the 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:27.640 type of play that involves non literal understanding. So when 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:30.080 a child or an adult, but it's usually a child. 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.360 When a child runs around the living room saying room, room, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.600 I am a truck. Or when they turn a cardboard 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:40.360 box that a package came in into a house and 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:42.440 live in the house and do things in there and 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:44.440 talk about the tiny people who live in there with them. 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.480 When they pretend to feed and care for a plastic 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.640 dinosaurs if it were a baby, When they have adventures 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.680 with an imaginary friend. All of these are forms of 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.680 pretend play. It's played that takes anything in the world 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.240 and the situation in an object in the cell health 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:03.720 as something other than literally what it is now. In 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.120 the past two episodes, we got into a number of 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:11.559 fascinating ideas and concepts from the academic study of pretend play. 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.440 We talked about the standard schedule on which pretend play 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.720 appears to emerge, usually with the first type of play 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:23.200 being object substitution, So you know, this stick is a sword, 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.240 this dinosaur toy is a baby, this remote control as 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:30.240 a phone. We talked about the evidence for possible links 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:35.400 between pretend play and the development of complex cognitive capacities 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:41.119 like symbolic understanding, counterfactual reasoning, and theory of mind. And 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.800 in part two we talked about some of the existing 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:49.040 research on imaginary friends and imaginary companions, how prevalent they 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.360 are within and across different cultures, how they work, what 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.920 different forms they take, and what children believe they know. 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:58.440 And today we're back to talk about more. 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.880 When you mentioned how work, it instantly made me wonder 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.480 if there are some imaginary friends who have jobs. I 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.959 would not be surprised to find that some imaginary friends 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.040 do have jobs, but I don't think I read anything 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:13.200 about that in particular. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.480 Oh well, based on what I've been reading, there are 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.760 a good number of observations of imaginary friends doing what 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.840 the child themselves cannot. So you know, there's a kind 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:27.560 of vicarious attainment of life goals or vicarious participation in 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:31.000 activities through the use of imaginary friends. So maybe if 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.640 in the same way that the child can pretend they 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.560 can like play mom and dad and go to work 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.320 even though they're not actually going anywhere. They could also 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.040 have the imaginary friend have a job, and that's another 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:44.359 way of simulating, right. 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.000 Yeah. Yeah, Now, as we discussed in the last episode, 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:50.800 and I would encourage everyone to go back and listen 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:54.799 to the previous episode. The previous two episodes actually take 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.400 these in order because a lot of the things we're 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.639 discussing they may stand alone, but we're also build upon 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.600 what we talked about previously. But one of the things 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:09.120 we talked about with imaginary friends and or imaginary companions 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:15.200 is that, of course they seem to be widespread and 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:21.000 fairly common, but there's a lot to discuss about samples 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:26.560 and where you're looking and also even time. So is 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.240 this a capacity that all children have and is that 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.080 capacity not really maxed out in every culture and certainly 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.520 at every time in human history. I don't know. There 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.520 are some interesting cases to be made for that. 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.440 Yeah. In fact, that very thing might come up with 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.520 some stuff I want to talk about later in this episode. 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.760 Yeah, So, as we roll into what we're going to 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.160 talk about next, it's just important to bear in mind 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.320 that there are a lot of caveats involved here, A 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.240 lot of the research. Most of the research is certainly 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:58.000 focused on children in the West, and therefore it's not 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:03.920 necessarily allowing for cultural differences that may be in play 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:10.240 regarding how these trends are expressed in given children. Now, 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.840 having talked about imaginary friends and imaginary companions, we've touched 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:21.760 on one very fascinating phase in the imaginative lives of children. Storytelling, 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.440 of course, weaves its way through this and other examples 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.880 of imaginative play that we've discussed so far, even in 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.520 its simplest forms. Right dinosaur is hungry for crayons and 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:32.719 therefore eats crayons. 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:37.240 Is a sort of story, sometimes a comedy, sometimes a tragedy. 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:41.320 It depends on the exact line graph of how the 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:45.160 plot flows. Right, is the dinosaur getting everything it wants 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.680 on it and its lead up to downfall or is it? 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.839 Or is it just one disappointing meal after the other, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:54.279 and eventually it will rise to the top of a 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:55.160 crayon buffet? 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:57.880 And I think something about does it end in a marriage? 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:03.000 Yeah, it may. Marriages sometimes do occur for toy dinosaurs. Yeah, 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.520 so you know, our ability to engage in storytelling, of course, 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.080 only becomes more and more refined as we get older. 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.719 Even children but also adults who do not think of 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:19.279 themselves as storytellers inevitably engage with the power of storytelling 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:21.640 on a daily basis. We've talked about this before in 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:25.680 the show. We craft events in our lives into stories 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.760 that we relate to others and to ourselves. We come 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.000 to live our lives and reflect on ourself as a 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.680 character in a narrative to varying degrees. 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.920 You know, this is just reminding me of I think 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.240 an episode or a couple of episodes that we did 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:43.919 years ago. Now I forget what it's even called, but 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:47.640 we were exploring the work of a particular philosopher who 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:51.560 was this was one of the most like perverse and 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.760 yet persuasive ideas we've ever encountered on the show. It 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.600 was pursuing the idea that ultimately fiction is bad for us. 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.560 And I remember was like they this guy made a 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:07.120 fairly persuasive case that like, it's not very good for us, 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:09.359 you know, like it causes us to think about the 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:13.880 world and incorrect ways and makes allowances for bad behavior 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.200 and all this kind of stuff. And yet it's just like, well, 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:17.760 we're not getting rid of it, and I like it 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:19.479 too much, so it's like too bad. 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.479 Yeah. Yeah, there's a whole discussion to be had about 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:26.920 how life isn't story shaped, but we often compare it 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.800 to stories and end up with expectations based on those stories. 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:34.479 So yeah, it's uh, it's complex, and I think, you know, honestly, 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.440 I feel like there's there's give and take on both sides. There, 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.640 Like stories and storytelling enrich our lives in so many ways, 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:45.760 but yes, they can you know, also lead to false expectations, disappointment, 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.320 and and and again. Coming to back what we're directly 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:53.760 talking about here, Yeah, thinking about yourself as a character 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:58.480 in a narrative, you know, can maybe get into maladaptive 0:06:58.560 --> 0:06:59.479 territory at times. 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:00.880 But we're not going to stop. 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.440 No, no, why would we stop now? There are many 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.400 different forms of narrative activities to be found in childhood, 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:11.360 and they range from the nonfictional to the fictional, from 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:16.280 social to private, from acted out to linguistic, and all 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.160 with varying levels of character and plot development. There might 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.200 not be any plot development in the saga of Dinosaur 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.560 Eats Crayons, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have some 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.400 form of story to it, right, right, But one particularly 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:33.080 interesting form of imaginative storytelling can be found in middle childhood, 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:38.800 generally around the ages of eight through twelve. And in 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.000 this we explore the world of paracosm. So this goes 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:47.040 beyond the notion of an imaginary companion and it transcends 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.840 into the realm of an imaginary world. 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.840 So if the single imaginary companion or imaginary friend is 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.160 the equivalent of a fiction writer creating a character, this 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.680 is the equivalent of world building exactly. 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.120 Yeah, And obviously this is a rich area to dream about, 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:08.240 and indeed to tell stories about. C. S. Lewis's Narnia 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.480 and mister rogers neighborhood of make Believes certainly come to 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.880 my mind. I'd throw Alice in Wonderland in there as well, 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:16.960 while we're at it. And these are probably some of 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:18.920 the examples that resonate with folks who grew up in 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.600 the same decade as me on a similar media diet. 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.640 But there of course far more number of these that 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.160 you can think of any number of these. There are, 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:32.320 of course, more concrete ideas of actual fantasy worlds that 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.200 one might venture into that are at the same time 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:39.160 linked to the concept of creatively imagined worlds. You can 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.520 also look to any magical treatment of characters crossing over 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.959 into the worlds of books, TV, and movies, as well 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:51.040 as so many different sci fi, virtual reality, dream walking scenarios, 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.560 all creative treatments on the idea that imagine worlds become 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.440 a place in the mind that we might retreat to play, 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:00.839 dream and seek soft. 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:02.960 You know, just now thinking about it, it struck me 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:08.240 how many of these stories about characters who want to 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:14.040 escape into an imaginary world focus on showing the characters 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:18.280 struggles and and unhappiness about real life. You know, it's 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.160 there in the Never Ending Story, it's there. And I 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.000 don't know why. This is the other example that came 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.840 to mind for me, But the Last Action Hero, you know, 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.480 there's just like it's just like, oh, well, real life, 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.120 you know, it's full of troubles, but there's this other 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.520 world that's so much more interesting and exciting and better. 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.560 Yeah, there's so many examples of there's so many different 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:42.040 like subgenres of it, like the changing channels variations you see, 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:45.680 and I think at least a handful of not several 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.000 different movies, especially the nineties, where oh I'm sucked into 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.679 the television again, I'm going from TV channel to TV channel, 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.000 you know, and you know, you can even get into 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:00.400 things like well Star Trek in general as again a 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:04.600 fictional universe we might escape into imaginatively. But also they 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.520 have the Holo deck in there, which is its own 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.599 form of paracosm within a paracosm. 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.040 Yeah, that's right. But I just brought it up because 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.920 I think it's interesting that in reality. I don't think 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:18.360 one need be unhappy with real life in order to 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.680 enjoy thinking about alternate worlds. But this is like a 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:24.640 thing that we sort of go to in fiction when 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.640 we're sketching this character who wants to escape. 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:32.040 No, no, it does, certainly it does come up. One 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.520 source I was looking as a twenty eighteen Artifact magazine 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:40.320 article by one George James and Jane cites child psychologist 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.680 Gwynn Abin, who argues that when faced with trauma, children 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:47.360 and adolescents may fall back in their development, returning to 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.760 a place where they felt more safe and quote a 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.400 paracosm is similar, the goal being to step out of 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.520 reality because it is too difficult to process. Now I 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:58.720 agree with you, and I think other things I've read 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.400 backs that up the idea that you may see this 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.520 some of the time, certainly, but you don't need to 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:09.079 have something in particular you're escaping to engage in paracosm, 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.760 to have an imagined world that you're dreaming yourself into 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:17.000 and building out in your mind, you know, especially during 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:18.040 these vital years. 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.040 Yeah, so it might in fact be one way people 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.439 get there, but it's not the only way exactly. 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:24.800 That's my redone it anyway. 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.439 Yeah, sorry to interrupt your flow though. 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.680 No, no, no, no, But I think it is worth 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.079 noting as well that this is this sort of thing. 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.400 The energy of this doesn't necessarily go away in the 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.680 human experience. Obviously. Adults are certainly quite capable of escaping 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:42.199 into their own imagined worlds in plenty of perfectly healthy ways, 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.720 as well as some potentially less healthy ways. We discussed 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.680 the idea of maladaptive day dreaming on the show in 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.880 the past, so you could line that concept up with 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:54.400 some of this. But yeah, I mean, on any given day, 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.960 I challenge listeners out there, how many different imaginary worlds 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.640 have you engaged with so far today? In one form 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.320 or another, and you know, I was just like, I 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:06.760 don't have a firm count in my head, but I 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.840 feel like it's been at least five, you know. So 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.160 you know, our lives are full of imaginary spaces. It 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.119 just depends on how much time, what sort of engagement 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.280 we're getting into there, and so forth. 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.760 Well, yeah, that does raise an interesting question, like how 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.319 much engagement is generally required for it to be thought 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.280 of as paracosm play. I would assume just like reading 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:33.200 a book is not usually would not usually qualify as 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.040 engaging with paracosms, or would it. 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:39.320 Well, the stricter definition of paracosms, as mentioned in that 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:43.760 Artifact magazine article by James, is that it would be 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.360 a paracosm would have to adhere to the idea that quote, 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.319 the formation of the world must occur within childhood or 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:53.600 early adolescence and in many cases continued on into adulthood. 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:56.200 Doesn't have to continue on into adulthood, but at least 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:59.760 like the memory of it often does. So generally we're 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.640 looking looking at this specific time. You know. You can 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.800 certainly people dream up very rich imagined worlds as adults, 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.080 but we might think of that differently because it's not 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:15.040 emerging out of this key time period in middle childhood 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:16.040 and early adolescence. 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.640 And it sounds to me, based on that definition, like 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:24.280 something about the paracosm experience is usually taken to have 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.960 a kind of daydreaming aspect, like the child is directly 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.120 participating in the construction of this imaginary world and thinking 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:36.040 about it, apart from just say, participating in a story 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:37.479 written by somebody else. 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.760 Right right, though there are some connections to pre existing work, 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.360 as we'll get into. So the other paper that I 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:49.400 turned to to understand this topic is a twenty twenty 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:53.120 paper published in the journal Childhood Development by Marjorie Taylor 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:57.920 at All titled Paracosms The Imaginary Worlds of Middle Children. Now, 0:13:57.960 --> 0:13:59.720 first of all, no one is denying the existence of 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.400 paric and children. There's there's plenty of evidence, plenty of 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:06.880 reports on this, but exactly what we can draw from 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.679 the accounts and how it all factors into childhood development 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.240 requires a bit more effort and varies somewhat in the 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:17.800 specific theories. During middle childhood, some children develop and or adapt, 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.720 so it doesn't have to be a world that's created 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.960 completely wholesale, And I think ultimately, you know, that's a 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:29.000 lot of pure imagination to expect from adult creatives, much 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:30.520 less children. 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:34.800 But dealing with something more like fan fiction here. 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:36.720 Yeah, yeah, and I mean you can make a case 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.280 that everything's fan fiction to some degree, right, but but 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:42.760 but yeah, it doesn't have to be created wholesale, but 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.480 it's a rich imagined world that may entail. Each world 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:53.120 may entail its own government, geography, language, culture, associated artifacts. 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:57.400 A lot of these worlds have particular names, so it 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:00.680 gets it gets very deep. Like you know, apps may 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:04.840 be involved, either mental or actually recreated physically. Now, what 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.400 are the percentages you're probably wondering. You know, we talked 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:12.160 about the percentages for imaginary friends in the previous episode 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:16.960 and those were quite high, based again on the sample 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:22.440 groups generally in the West. Yeah, the percentages here. I 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:24.000 think we'll be able to grind the numbers down a 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:27.160 little bit in a minute here. But the percentages either 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.880 referenced in the text or from other studies or produced 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.400 by the authors in this study range from three to 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:39.480 twelve percent to sixteen to seventeen percent. And in individual 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:43.840 sample groups you see some much higher percentages, like up 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.640 into the forties. But so generally, just to sum it up, 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:52.880 it seems like there's a lower percentage of paracosms compared 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.960 to imaginary companions or imaginary friends. 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.720 Yeah. In some of the Western sample data, we were 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.640 looking at somewhere between one third to two thirds of 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.800 children having some form of imaginary companion, depending on how 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:06.960 strict your definition is. 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:20.400 Yeah, So, Joe, I have to ask, we talked about 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.760 imaginary friends in the last episode in our own experiences 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.840 or lack they're off with them, did you have any 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:31.160 paracosms or something you think might constitute a paracosm when 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:31.720 you were younger. 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.720 Well, I guess again this would be a question of definitions. 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:41.360 I absolutely did dream up imaginary worlds, but I always 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:45.320 remember thinking of them as ideas for stories I wanted 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.880 to write. So it wasn't like I was dreaming of 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:54.040 living in these imaginary worlds or say playing like, oh here, 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.320 you know, here I am in my imaginary worlds. As 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.000 long as I can ever remember thinking about these places 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.360 I would dream up, I was thinking about them as 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:04.240 stories that I was creating. 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:06.920 Okay, well, you know, I don't know that that would 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:11.280 necessarily disqualify any of this, because certainly as we'll explore 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:15.639 there are examples of paracosms certainly becoming written created works, 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:17.840 or you know, some sort of a creative endeavor later 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.640 on in life. For my own part, I remember two 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.359 specific things, like, in around third grade, I had some 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:27.800 sort of an elaborate scenario going on in my head 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.960 that was based loosely on something from the Gi Joe 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.600 cartoon that involved like a space station, as well as 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.159 a snippet of an animated film i'd seen part of 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.560 on TV, which I would later come to believe was 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.680 likely a snippet from Nausica, something with the Giant Warriors, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.359 but I didn't know what it was at the time. 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:46.960 Well, what a privilege to have that as an inspiration 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.159 for your para cosm. And that's a yeah, that's a 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:50.639 good one. 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.280 Now, this world had no name, and I even hesitate 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:56.240 to call it a world, but I would say that 0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:01.200 it was a recurring imaginary space that I would often 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.480 go into, like I remember going into it at school 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:06.879 a lot. If I got a little bit bored or 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.720 distracted in school in third grade, that's where I would go. 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.040 And so that one comes to mind. And then in 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:20.040 junior high I had a world that was loosely inspired 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:24.399 by Ian Flux cartoons, oh, which was you know, pretty 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:26.639 exciting at the time. I hadn't seen a lot of 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.240 animation from outside of the US at the time, you know, 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.280 only a little bit of anime. And of course, you know, 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.960 this was a highly stylistic cartoon with graphic violence and 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.240 a lot of sex appeal. So and it was on MTV, 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:42.719 so I watched it like everything else on MTV at 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:43.080 the time. 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.760 Well, this is really interesting. So in what sense exactly 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:51.159 were you mentally engaging with these paracosms. Were you like 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.560 just sitting there sort of mentally building them out, like 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.960 thinking about new details of them, or were you imagining 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.480 inhabiting them bottle or like do you know what I mean? 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:04.800 I know, not bodily. Maybe there was a certain amount 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.280 of bodily presence in the third grade example, but in 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.480 this junior high example, I was not there at all. 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.760 It was other characters, different factions, and you know, it 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.120 was like stuff sort of built on top of rough 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:21.720 Ian Flux inspiration, so. 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.159 More equivalent to kind of like writing a fiction in 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:24.640 your head. 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:27.679 Yeah, But at the same time, this was definitely a 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.760 time period when I was also you know, trying to 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.040 write things and thinking about things that could be made 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.800 into a short story or a book. And this was 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:39.639 never an idea that I pointed in that direction, you know, 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:45.200 you know I was, and I wouldn't even I wasn't 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.719 even exploring it in things like Dungeons and Dragons at 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:52.440 the time, which I was also a creative outlet then 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:57.240 as it is now. But yeah, based on some of 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.119 these parameters, I would think that maybe this second and 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:04.400 constitute some form of paracosm, though certainly not as rich 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.840 and elaborate as some of these other examples that I've 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:09.520 read about. You know, this is not a place. It 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:11.919 had a name, it didn't have a it didn't have 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.960 its own language, I had no maps, but it had 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.359 you know, rather distinct action sequences laid out. 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.560 I would say, well, maybe we can come back to 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.359 this question later on. But yeah, this is making me 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.760 more and more curious about really what are the key 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:34.560 distinctions between having a paracosm and just say, writing a 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.200 fiction that you don't share with anybody else or maybe 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:38.400 the Judicia you know who knows. 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:40.480 Yeah, well, I mean, as is pointed out in that 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:42.639 one definition, there's the idea that you might take it 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.080 on into adulthood and it becomes this cherished world that 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.119 you keep going. That is not the case with my 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:51.359 influx fan fiction or whatever it was, you know at 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:53.159 the time. I mean, some of the sensibilities that I 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:56.000 that are associated with that I've certainly you know, carried on. 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:58.720 You know, I still like the idea of life forms 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:01.360 growing on spaceships. I'm still like, you know, kick ass 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.399 female action heroes, that sort of thing. But you know, 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:06.439 this is not on the level of say like a 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.359 Middle Earth or something, you know, or where the seeds 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:14.840 of it were present in middle childhood imagination and then 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:19.000 carries on into you know, grown up creative endeavors. 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.280 This made me just realize I might be able to 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.639 amend my earlier answer. This isn't This was never something 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:29.560 super elaborate, but I remember there were a few times 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.080 when I was a kid when I would wake up 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.920 from having a really good dream. I would be frustrated 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.560 that the dream was over and want to be able 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.159 to continue the dream. So I would just sort of 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:47.280 like try to remember the world and the scenario of 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:50.440 the dream and keep thinking about it, and usually it 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.360 would go away pretty quick anyway. But like I remember 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:57.080 there were a few I think that had similar contours. 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:01.520 Often they were about like discovering a secret passage or 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.560 a tunnel from my house that went somewhere really amazing. 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:08.439 Oh nice. Yeah, I think that does line up with 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.159 some of the things you know, we're discussing here, and 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.119 is reference the role of dreams is referenced in that 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:16.119 Taylor at All paper. 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:18.960 Yeah, though I don't think any of these ever really 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:21.639 continued for you know, more than a day or so. 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:23.840 But like I remember, at least a few of these 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:27.280 instances making a strong impression, even if I didn't continue 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:29.960 to develop the world or re engage with it. So 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:31.640 I don't know, I don't know where I fit into 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:32.200 this whole thing. 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:36.320 I'm hoping we'll get some really robust examples from listeners. 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:39.320