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"Hallucinations" Chapter
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After reading Sagan's chapter on Hallucinations, I am heartened to read that facts, and our understanding and manipulation of them, are not what make us normal. According to Sagan, normal lies somewhere between reality and fantasy. Most of us, perhaps despite what we say, believe in / have encountered things that cannot always be explained within the plane of reality...and even while making those claims, we still seem to understand, socially at least, that fantasy is just that. I am fascinated to think about this idea of a gray area--somewhere that rational people can somehow explain or suspend disbelief, without venturing over into the realm of pure fiction. As Sagan seems to continue, if most of us have a similar capacity for truth, fiction, and whatever lies in the middle, what does that say about the middle zone? Even though scientists and scientific explorations have largely disproved the existence of 'aliens' in our solar system, many of us continue to believe/have hope/remain open to that possibility. I wonder what might come of other shared beliefs, held in suspense in our collective mid-space between fact and fiction. Its only a matter of time before we realize that some of our shared truths came from a space of collective dreaming, instead of fact. And what *then* would happen?
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