Reality and Fantasy....Where is the line?

Imagine being put into a trance-like state where you are floating between reality and fantasy.   If you have been hypnotized, you are in a way letting go of reality and entering a deep sleep that allows for fantasy to occur.   You’ll also understand that during this trance-like state, you still possess complete control of yourself if you choose to snap back to reality.  There is hypnotist that can force you to do things that are against your will.   However, if you let go of reality and let go of yourself, you will find this state of trance very relaxing, enjoyable, and free of all stress.  You will also discover that your imagination will be greatly enhanced.  You’ll believe you can become whoever you wish to be.  You’ll believe you can do anything your mind imagines.  At least this was what I felt as I danced in front of a crowd like a music pop star and flexed my muscles like I was the strongest man alive. 

Now what would imagine if I do have the will or control to snap back into reality?  Would that make me insane?  Salman Rushdie provides a good study of fantasy versus reality, madness versus sanity, and disturbance versus harmony in his short story, The Harmony of the Spheres.  Eliot Crane was a writer who was suffering from what he called “brainstorms of paranoid schizophrenia” (125).  His mind continuously floated between what is real and imaginative to the point where he can no longer distinguish between the reality and fantasy.  He woke up one night convinced that Satan was downstairs.  “He made the sign of the cross with his arms and screamed, “Apage me, Satanas.” Get thee behind me, Satan.” (135).   All throughout the story, he lost his mind because he cannot find that balance between fantasy and reality.  He doesn’t have that mental capacity to draw the line between fantasy and reality.  He seemed to be floating freely between the two states of minds which lead to his madness.

Eliot’s failure to find harmony or balance in life is what I believe ultimately cost him his life.  “Harmony? You never heard such a din as the ruckus in Eliot’s head.” (142)  He is probably a genius, but a genius without balance and harmony in his or her life will fall.  In Eliot’s case, he failed to find balance to his fantasy and reality, balance between his sanity and madness, and balance between disturbance and harmony.    He was constantly living in his fantasy.  He would often go mad such as driving at high speed on the wrong side of the road.  And, due to what he called “a simple biochemical imbalance”(134), he was losing his mind.  He was going mad, which led to his tragic death.

Unlike Eliot, while I was hypnotized, I felt I could return to reality whenever I chose to.  Eliot doesn’t have that capacity or will to bring himself back reality once he floated into his fantasy world.  When I snapped out of the hypnosis, everything returned to back to normal.  But because of Eliot’s disorder, what he considers normal is not normal it everyone else.