Okay~ I got this question in my head after looking up all things Alice in wonderland related. So when we are kids, it's usually normal for them to make up imaginary friends and such to talk to. When they are older and are still hearing voices in their head, shouldn't that be considered just an overactive imagionation?

I mean when the kids are kids, some of them can't help it and it's all on it's own doing. So does that mean that the kids were insane to begin with if it is still happening years later?

I can see that Imagination helps writers and creatures of any kind~ But is it only Insanity when someone acts upon the Imaginative thing? Say a little kid sees superman and thinks that he can fly to so he jumps up off of something to try to fly. The kid may be called insane but is let off with the common "Oh, he/she didnt know any better." Because they are a child. Let's stick with that for a moment shall we?

So It is not insanity when the person has no idea that what they were doing was wrong or not reasonable. They always hold it upon adults to know what is reasonable and what is not. So, what if the so called adult grew up in a childhood sensored so much that they hardly know what's right to do and what they should do. Can they truly be held accountable for their insane action? Or could it all just be a matter of their imagionation going wild and it was all for the sake of fun?

Is there truly such a thin line? Or is all just the same reguardless.~ Let me know what you think.^^

i don't think it's insanity. ok, the jumping off a high area thing sounds crazy, but it's normal for a little tiny kid. as for a normal like, adult hearing voices is slight insanity. unless they made it up for company, like if it's a hermit that's all alone. but if it just happens, and they can't make it go away, that's a little insane. little kids have extreme imaginations, that's all. but adults hearing voices...i don't know. if the voice is a bad voice, like, tells them to do bad things, they need help. but that's only if that happens. usually, if they hear a voice, they made it for company. but otherwise, if it just happened...i don't know.

Depends on if they can control it or if they develop a second being. It's one thing to imagine a friend and how they would respond to your questions, than asking questions to someone who you know/don't know is there but in reality isn't there yet answers with an individual personality.

Both for kids and adults. After all, adults are just overgrown, experienced and more stressed children, don't you think? :angel: Just because people like to think actions become different as you get older doesn't mean it's true. Like, if a 5-year-old girl sleeps with a 3-year-old boy it's cute, but if a 50-year-old woman sleeps with a 30-year-old man, she's a cougar.

Maybe it's because a little kid is ignorant of his/her surroundings, while an adult is suposed to know them. The adult has been more time on this Earth than the kid, after all. So it's assumed the kid didn't know the danger, while the adult knew but did it anyway because either he's stupid, insane, or both. So they receive a different term.

Hm. Little kids are surprisingly in touch with reality and observe and know things grown ups fail to see/understand. When a child sees 'imaginary' people or hears voices, etc, it's just considered imagination, as you say. But growing up, people develop cognitive skills to separate their imagination from what is real. Imagination is something in your head, what's real is everything around you that everyone else can correlate to.

For insane people, that separation has been rubbed out, a bit. For them, what they see and experience is reality. It is there, they can touch it, feel it, hear it, see it, etc. Some connection in their brain has gone a bit nutters, and their brain says it's there and it's real.

The separation of imagination and reality is a natural thing that happens when we develop. Saying that insane people just have an overactive imagination is incorrect then, because there are chemical connections in their brain, real connections, that have gone wrong. They've lost it. It is not just overactive imagination, it's imagination and reality in a mix, and they've lost the capability to distinguish the two.

I like to think that as an adult with an overactive imagination the voices and characters that live constantly in my head are just that. Part of an active imagination, and that's because I KNOW that they are just in my head and I'm breathing life into them. If I stopped thinking about them and asking them for advice (think of it as asking one's self for advice but with a different voice) they would go away and stop completely.
I think the real insanity comes from inability to pin these "voices" on internal thinkings and instead treat them as real, cognisant beings. Once we loose sight that the imagination is our own doing and that we can end it is when it borders and tips over into insanity. And secondly I think that insanity is also when one does the same thing over and over and expects a different result than from the first several times. Like opening the fridge and looking for beer when there hasn't been any beer for weeks. Now I'm not saying that we are all crazy for doing these things but that was just one example, the real insanity would be coming from things like opening doors and hoping that they lead somewhere new, or by jumping from tall things expecting to fly when every time you have fallen.

i would think that it would be insanity if even a little kid thought that their imaginary friend was actually, physically real and there. when i was a little kid i had an imaginary friend but i was perfectly aware that it was imaginary.

The difference is knowing what is real and what is not. You can pretend but still know its just pretending. Insain people do not know its pretending and they think its real. Kids may appear to believe what they find real, but its not really real. And they know it.

To cut down what I could of said, >.<;
it may seem strange, but lately I've had a strange feeling of what is real and what is just the influence from the media and materialistic desires. I would like to shift the blame to religion, and this idea that I have of life having a curtain, and everything is fake until you lift up that curtain and see what is beyond.
You could say, it's loosing grip on reality.
But as I recall reading a short quote from somone's profile once: "Criss-Crossing the borderline of genius and insanity"
Now I'm taking the idea of genius to account, and wondering the difference between genius and insane. I also think of Einstein when I mention genius, like many. Suppose he was insane; but stable. But he must of had some insanity to be able to come up with the ideas that seem so far out of reach to the normal mind.
I believe most artists have a percentage of insanity. They must, right? But now, what is the difference between pure creativity and insanity. I find an insane person to be pretty creative in the way they do things and behave out of the norm. ^^; or maybe we have some percentage of insanity, some more than others, that show.

Ah, I'll be dragging this on a bit longer.. but earlier today, actually. I looked up the question "Is knowledge a Sin" and THAT brought me back to Adam and Eve eating the apple of knowledge, in Genesis. (and yet another topic we could discuss for hours...) @[email protected]; I'll just stop right there. lol~

I seeing nothing wrong with having imaginary friends when you're adult. I think it might be a sign of loneliness, but not insanity.. I know my reply is short, but I really don't know what else to say. I don't think there's anything wrong with an overactive imagination, unless it's like..about evil things you know? like killing people and stuff.

Though normally most people know what is real and what isn't real. When they forget that then yeah that's a bit like insanity. I don't know any adults personally that have imaginary friends. I don't know, I think imaginary friends might just be you talking to yourself, sorta. I'm sorry, but the whole imaginary friends thing..well I had imaginary friends till a little bit after my 3rd year of highschool. then they went away, because I had a busy life.

Any voice that they have no control of and they can't make go away is probably insanity (even little kids are able to control the voices and know on some level that these voices aren't real) so if it's a 'real' voice and it's out of control even for little kids it could be counted as insanity.

What if insanity is merely being able to see what most people can't percieve, but being unable to handle it because todays society teaches that if you cannot see it outright then it isn't real? young children have not yet been taught that, or do not understand it, so their mind doesn't block out the entitties that are there always, but just out of our visual range.

Most so-called "mental illnesses" are just doctors trying to push pills, I think. For instance, a writer could get very involved with their characters and connect with them, although they are fictional. Because of the social world we live in, the writer subconsciously believes there must be something wrong for them to be so connected with their characters and that grows into something larger. This is where the imagination comes in. The writer can be so imaginative with their characters because they are no longer the ones writing, in a sense.
In this way, insanity is imagination, and vice-versa.
As for "I didn't know any better," it's the basis of pleading insanity in court. The person is insane, and thus cannot be held responsible for their actions! Again, this does depend on the kind of insanity, and, as we've seen in movies, pleading insanity can often be a load of B.S. However, there are instances where a person really cannot be held accountable for their actions; but there is no way to completely shirk the repercussions. Pleading insanity will get you into a mental institution and will probably garner the same amount of judgement; even if it wasn't the person's fault.

I did my disertation on Alice and Wonderland, and i can tell you right now that the extreme lengths Lewis Carroll used to write that story was nothing of his pure imagination. Lewis Carroll was a child pornographer, and an opium addict.
Now, im not saying anything bad about kids using their imaginations, or whatever, im just saying that the truly outrageous lengths that He went to takes.... an outside interuption.

I think that as long as it doesn't hurt themselves or anybody else, it shouldn't be considered insanity. Hell, I still have that wild imagination I had when I was a kid and sometimes my friends ask me who I'm talkin too, and I say my characters name at the time, and they say cool!
though, if I were to throw a knife or something because I got to into it, then yea, I should be sent someplace so I know that I shouldn't do that.

I think everyone is born with the potential for incredible imagination, but its often not cultivated and encouraged. Then as we grow up, society almost 'trains' us to not use or need imagination, yet those who have it are highly regarded. I think this is one of society's fatal flaws.

I recently read a quote - but I can't remember where - that said there is a fine line between genius and insanity. I hold this to be true, because often the brilliant prodigies of the world are teetering on the precipice of insanity in certain ways or areas of their minds.

As for imaginary friends, I agree with what's been said: that they're fine as long as you realize they are not physically there; and that the voices don't tell you to do bad things.

Do I think some people are born with or develop mental illness or insanity? Yes. And sometimes people really do need help. But if no one's getting hurt, then I'm all for active imaginations.

Okay, this is an interesting topic. Especially when you mentioned Alice in Wonderland. I just had to come. XD

Let me see... I think the difference between insanity and imagination is how it is taken. If the kid is hearing "voices" that say jump off a cliff and the kid knows its wrong and knows its just his imagination, then it's fine. He laughs, but doesn't actually do it.

When it's insanity, the child believes it. Does it. There is no thought on what will happen if they do that. Or maybe they don't care (but that can be called depression and is a whole other story).

Insanity is when you aren't thinking clearly. Every one knows whats good or bad for them when it comes to physical pain.. By the time they start getting an high imagination, they understand right and wrong. Heck, I knew right and wrong when I was 3. So, if they still do the bad part (like suffocating a cat... Or tripping old women and then finding it amusing), they could probably have something mentally unsettling with them.

Originally Posted by Jack Friday

Okay~ I got this question in my head after looking up all things Alice in wonderland related. So when we are kids, it's usually normal for them to make up imaginary friends and such to talk to. When they are older and are still hearing voices in their head, shouldn't that be considered just an overactive imagionation?

Uh... no. There are different developmental stages children go through as they mature psychologically, and the norms for those stages are markedly different from one another.

Which is why most people would consider widening the social circle of a six-year-old with an imaginary friend, and seeking therapy or medication for a sixteen-year-old with an imaginary friend.

For a young child, there's not a big difference between a vivid imagination and an actual distortion in the perception of reality. The gap should widen with age. If it doesn't, you're most likely looking at someone with a developmental disability or other mental illness.

Originally Posted by Jack Friday

I can see that Imagination helps writers and creatures of any kind~ But is it only Insanity when someone acts upon the Imaginative thing?

Nope, not necessarily. If a tree falls in the forest, it will make a sound. If a schizophrenic never tells a soul about the voices they hear, they're still hearing them, and they've still got a diagnosable mental disorder. Behavioral and cognitive dysfunction are important to consider.

Originally Posted by Jack Friday

Say a little kid sees superman and thinks that he can fly to so he jumps up off of something to try to fly. The kid may be called insane but is let off with the common "Oh, he/she didnt know any better." Because they are a child. Let's stick with that for a moment shall we?

So It is not insanity when the person has no idea that what they were doing was wrong or not reasonable.

Whoa! Bad leap in logic, there.

If a young child is somehow led to believe he can fly - and then attempts to fly - it may or may not be an early sign of mental dysfunction. Kids are notoriously naive and highly suggestible, especially at certain stages of development. Eventually, they should mature out of it. If they don't, they most likely have a developmental disorder or some degree of mental retardation.

Here's where the logic fails: the assumption that behavior and cognitive functioning that is normal for a young child is also normal for an adult, or vis-versa. No normal infant pops out of the womb correcting their parents' grammar, and no normal adult spots Superman and jumps out a window without a ridiculous drug cocktail in his or her system.

In fact, if an adult is unable cannot understand the consequences of their actions or determine the difference between right and wrong, they meet the criteria for legal insanity.

Originally Posted by Jack Friday

Say a little kid sees superman and thinks that They always hold it upon adults to know what is reasonable and what is not. So, what if the so called adult grew up in a childhood sensored so much that they hardly know what's right to do and what they should do. Can they truly be held accountable for their insane action? Or could it all just be a matter of their imagionation going wild and it was all for the sake of fun?

I don't think anyone should be "held accountable" for mental dysfunction. It's not their fault if they've got a disorder, and I definitely think an extremely restrictive/abusive environment can foster dysfunction in children.

I've heard insanity defined as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." While that may be true, I do think there's a thin line between imagination and insanity. There's also that line between insanity and genius as well, because as we grow and learn, society puts blinders on us if we will so that we'll think and act a certain acceptable way. If one is able to shake these blinders, one can reach closer to genius, but because there are no blinders if you will, it's easier to lose sight of reality.

On a personal level, I do believe I walk the thin line between imagination and insanity. When left to my own devices, such as on my morning walks to work, my mind will wander and sometimes I will perceive myself and my surroundings as different than they truly are. Side effect of roleplaying for as long as I have, I suppose. I also have a bad habit of forcing myself into a dissociative state so that nothing feels real, nothing looks real. This sometimes happens on its own, but usually it's an emotional defense when reality is too intense. As long as I can still find my way back, I'm good though.

As a person going to school to receive her degree in psychology I would have to say that the usage of the word insane is credible. I was once told by my professor that a person has no clue what an insane person is like until they are faced with one personally.
I believe that there a medical mysteries that abound us about the human brain and what it is capable of. I also believe that there are truly insane people in the world, of course shows like Batman seem to be an over-exaggerating...but it is truth to a point.

There are just to many cases out there that have proof that the person is just insane.

That's a great point, Lady_Megami.

I'm actually planning on perhaps becoming a psychologist when I get older. Whether it be forensic, or child, I have not decided.

This is a very interesting topic indeed.

i think the biggest question to counter the "insane or imaginative" question is...."does it effect their ability to live a functional daily life?" do they have an outlet and draw or write or whatever it is they might do....or do they wander around anti-socially with the exception of mumbling back to the voices in their head? i also think it MIGHT be an issue of very intelligent people becoming too bored. they're not being productive and doing something with their intelligence so they get too bored and it drives them nuts. *shrugs* who knows really. i think with SOME people it also has something to do with chemical imbalances.

i think it is all about if you know that the other voices are there or not or that you are doing the actions that happened to make people ask you that question. I also think that it is only insane if you, the "insane" person, have a problem with what you are doing or if you hurt people.

Just a comment on the original post:
The author of "Through the Looking Glass/Alice in Wonderland" was in fact on PCP when he wrote it.
Just to let you know.
Insanity has nothing to do with it.

Originally Posted by Nasagi Rei

Just a comment on the original post:
The author of "Through the Looking Glass/Alice in Wonderland" was in fact on PCP when he wrote it.
Just to let you know.
Insanity has nothing to do with it.

very true in lewis carroll's case.

I hope it isn't insanity to sometimes hear others talking in your mind, as long as you know it isn't really anything except your own brain and imagination. Because if it is, I suppose that'd make me insane.

I've always had what my mother called an 'overactive imagination'. When I write stories or roleplay, I will actually 'hear' the characters talking in my head. But as long as I know it's just my imagination and not really someone talking, I will continue to believe I'm perfectly sane.