Insane man goes through a dark Allice In Wonderland experience and wakes up only to realize that it was medical hypnosis. This is just a short story idea, but I'll most likely make it into a book some day. I'm debating if the hypnosis is drug stimulated or not, but I do know that the story will begin being as normal as something can be in a correctional facility, then he winds up in some outlandish place by means that are impossible, then strange and outlandish things happen that are both symbolic of his people, history, and things outside of hypnosis and symbolic of greater things to life. Different people symbolize different emotions, character traits or whatever... and lets not forget insanity and darkness. And I've been racking my brain for a cheshire character that's symbolic of the hypnotist that's guiding him. My question is, what symbolic events that are seemingly nonsensical could occur and yet have deeper meanings? And what do you think of the idea?
Sounds interesting to me Laim...but it requires more thought than I can give it when im sitting at work heh..I already push it as it is reading in between working I will give this some thought today though and see if I can help you out with it.
how about not going too outlandish with it and giving it a sort of real approach and tying the ending into coming out of the hypnosis? You already have the chesire, the therapist that hynotizes him. And really everything has deeper meaning. It just depends on how much one reads into it. Meaning is a matter of perception. It's all how you lay the clues out as to what message you want to send.
Koz... You read what I said, but you didn't connect some of the dots. Yes, the therapis IS the cheshire character, but WHAT sort of thing will present itself AS that Therapist? How will he precieve it to behave, how would it be simular, and how would it differ from the Hypnotist himself (the real one in the real world)? What will it look like? What's its mannerisms? The Cheshire character would play a bigger role than the ACTUAL cheshire cat in that the Therapist is guiding the state of hypnosis from point "A" to point "B". It's a SIMULAR idea to Allice -- BUT its format is entirely different. As for everything having a deeper meaning... Nah... I dissagree. Not everything does. But I'm Left Agnostic and based on the grandiousness of your statement, I'm assuming you're highly religious and are constantly seeking for symbolism that's not necessarily always there but is a quirky behavior that's somewhat constructive. That's just a statement, some of it was a little negative, but it ended as a bit of a compliment in that this sort of behavior would help you write something like this where I'm not attuned to and have a dissadvantage so-to-speak. That's why I'm asking for HELP. I agree that MEANING is a matter of perception. For instance, I said I was looking for a cheshire character to represent the hypnotist and you didn't quite understand what I was saying... simular things happen all the time, I'm just asking what would be some interesting stuff. I already have a few ideas I'll write about, but I'm also interested in what other people might think up. If he goes into a somewhat Allice and Wonderland sort of territory... and he's insane... I don't know HOW to make it NORMAL... In fact, I think I'm more than just enclined through paragative -- but also EXPECTED to make it even wierder. Allice and Wonderland was FAR from normal. The author was high when he wrote the rough draft and realize "Groovy, Dude! This almost makes sense... I'll edit it later. Let's be Hippies." I'm only attempting to accomplish what she did, by accident, but on purpose.
Nah....You pegged me wrong. I am far from religious, although I am a comtemplative guy and love to find metaphor in the simplest of things. Like I said, everything has a deeper meaning. The trick is to create a road that pushes your reader into the deeper meaning that you desire them to get. You can do that by accident or on purpose. Either way you are setting the stage for what message you want to convey. That is the purpose of writing to begin with; to convey a particular message. Why tell a story if you don't have something to say? Satires generally accomplish this best. and if you did your homework on Alice in Wonderland, you should know that it is in fact a satire. A very political satire. You can add fantasy with the realism is the point that I was trying to make. Say for instance you have an every day character who's life gets out of sorts. Strange things start happening to him (take artistic license here). Now the chesire would be the weekly therapy sessions that your character has? Explaining all the nonsensical garbage torturing his daily life. The Therapist is set up to give advice (hence driving the character from point a to point b). If I can help let me know.
Actually... I looked it up in wikipedia and there's no sign of it being a political satire. However, there's a few books written by people who have studied Alice In Wonderland and have their own opinions on what the things stated would mean... so I don't know if it was political satire, or just randome nonsense with an underlying message... or whatever, but I have yet to do more research before I write this short story.
Here are some interesting points of view on Alice in wonderland. You are right as to the fact there has been some speculation as to political influence on Alice in Wonderland. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carroll/societyov.html Anyway, my original point was to mean that you could actually turn this into a sort of Alice in Wonderland meets Vanilla Sky type story. It might make for a very twisted and interesting plot. I'd like to hear any other ideas that you may have flushed out because I think that this could be a really interesting project.
Actually it just occurred to me that Vanilla Sky was a little bit of an Alice In Wonderland sort of story... in a way, just a few days before you posted that. I LOVE Vanilla Sky. It's one of my favorite movies, but I personally don't want to take this that direction. However, the political satire idea might fit. I'm thinking I could grab hold of quite a bit of the current politics that have been going on and make a bunch of simbolic imagery and put my character into all of that. Then I can put in a message, a moral to it that goes in the lines of my political views only into the coded format of the political simbolic formula. I think the bet way to do that is to read up on current offairs (I already know a good portion of what's going on but it doesn't hurt to know more) and also to collect a bunch of political cartoons and use those as inspiration. However, I wish that every political cartoonist didn't always have the ace and the eliphant simbolism.
That would defitely give your plot a very seductive twist. Who's the white rabbit? That is the real question that needs to be answered here. You've pretty much got your chesire and ideas for your main character. Now lets see if we can't tie in a white rabbit??
Have you ever watched the musical/film "All that Jazz?" It's loosely based on the autobiography of dancer/choreographer Bob Fosse. In this film, the protag slips in and out of drug- and anxiety-induced hallucinations that ultimately foretell his death. It's a great flick that shows a fabulously creative entertainer slowly losing his mind. Characters from his childhood, his current life, his dreams, tv shows, etc. populate these hallucinations. You might check it out. Ben Vereen acts as this protag's Cheshire Cat. Very clever!
One of the things that characterized Alice and Wonderland were the colorful scenes that played out. Do you have any ideas for scenes yet, Laimtoe? Just off the top of my head, I would think that colors that play on the colors of the place where the guy is incorporated. I don't know if you've ever been in a prison, but they usually have simple color themes that clash badly. Oranges and yellows and reds that are meant to be cheerful, but instead are sort of sad. So, instead of a place with blue skies and a yellow sun I see an orange sky and a flickering blue white sun. Alice would have wondered if she was on a different world, but the characters around her would have confused the issue. The question of sanity was always semi-present in Alice.
