I raise my arm. I feel the action driven by my shoulder blade driven drawing down my back into my body establishing deep, powerful integration from my finger tips to my core.

I raise my arm. I feel the action driven by my finger tips reaching out into space establishing a connection to the audience.

Same action. Different sensation. Its all about perception…or is it “only” perception? I hesitate to trivialize this important process by saying it is only an imaginary shift of attention. It’s not real, its only a different perspective. I would say, No, the two actions, even though they accomplish the same purpose, are fundamentally different because the body experiences distinct and separate sensations by receiving different messages through real neuron connections from the point of sensation to the brain.

However, this complex does pose interesting questions about a societal cling to reality and fear of the imaginary. Consider a crazy person who suffers form hallucinations. “Oh they’re only imagining it.” The idea of living in an imaginary realm is a socially rejected idea. So, what purpose does the concept of reality serve in our lives? Is it limiting? First and foremost the concept of reality keeps us on the same page as others. As a by-product it also keeps us in the realm of the purely observational, but maybe the realms of imagination and reality are not so distinguished from each other. Lets not forget that the entire cities as they exist today, did not exist hundreds of years ago and were brought into the realm of reality BY the imagination.  Pieces of art, the sound waves of a musical composition are real artifacts that only once existed in imagination and who is to say that our sensations are any less? Even a person who imagines himself covered with ants in hallucination is only describing the very real sensation of his nerves firing. Imagination is a real experience and so are the “imagined” ideas that form a perception.

-Julia Moser-Hardy