[Congregants] practice seeing, hearing, smelling, and touching in the mind’s eye. They give these imagined experiences the sensory vividness associated with the memories of real events. What they are able to imagine becomes more real to them.
And one day the mind leaps from imagination to hallucination, and the congregant
These yearned-for voices and visions have the reality of perception. One of Luhrmann’s subjects, Sarah, put it this way: “The images I see [in prayer] are very real and lucid. Different from just daydreaming. I mean, sometimes it’s almost like a PowerPoint presentation.” Over time, Luhrmann writes, Sarah’s images “got richer and more complicated. They seemed to have sharper borders. They continued to get more complex and more distinct.” Mental images become as clear and as real as the external world.
Sarah had many such experiences; some congregants might have only a single one — but even a single experience of God, imbued with the overwhelming force of actual perception, can be enough to sustain a lifetime of faith.
Even at a more modest level, all of us are susceptible to the power of suggestion, especially if it is combined with emotional arousal and ambiguous stimuli. The idea that a house is “haunted,” though scoffed at by the rational mind, may nonetheless induce a watchful state of mind and even hallucination, as Leslie D. brought out in a letter to me:
Almost four years ago I started a job that is housed in one of the oldest residences in Hanover, PA. On my first day, I was told there was a resident ghost, the ghost of Mr. Gobrecht, who lived here many years ago and was a music teacher.… I suppose he died in the house. It would be almost impossible to adequately describe how much I do NOT believe in the supernatural! However, within days I started to feel something like a hand tugging on my pant leg while I sat at my desk, and once in a while a hand on my shoulder. Just a week ago we were discussing the ghost, and I felt (
Children not uncommonly have imaginary companions. Sometimes this may be a sort of ongoing, systematized daydreaming or storytelling, the creation of an imaginative and perhaps lonely child; in some cases it may have elements of hallucination — a hallucination that is benign and pleasant, as Hailey W. described to me:
Growing up without brothers or sisters, I created a few imaginary friends whom I played with frequently from approximately age three to six. The most memorable of these was a pair of identical twin girls named Kacey and Klacey. They were my age and size, and we would often do things together like play on the swings in the backyard or have tea parties. Kacey and Klacey also had a little sister named Milky. I had a strong image of them all in my mind’s eye, and they seemed very real to me at the time. My parents were mostly amused by it, though they did question whether it was natural for my imaginary friends to be so detailed and plentiful. They recall me having long conversations at the table with “no one,” and when asked, I would always say I was talking with Kacey and Klacey. Often when playing (with toys, or games) I would say I was playing with Kacey and Klacey or Milky. I would talk about them often as well, and for a period of time I remember being fixated on the idea of a seeing-eye dog, begging my mother to let me have one. Rather taken aback, my mother asked where I got the idea; I replied that Kacey and Klacey’s mother was blind, and that I wanted a seeing-eye dog like hers. As an adult, I am still surprised when someone tells me that they never had imaginary friends growing up, as they were such an important — and enjoyable — part of my childhood.
And yet “imagination” may not be an adequate term here, for imaginary companions may seem intensely real, as no other products of fantasy or imagination do. Perhaps the difficulty of fitting our adult categories of “reality” and “imagination” to the thoughts and play of children is not surprising; for, if Piaget is right, children cannot consistently and confidently distinguish fantasy from reality, inner from outer worlds, until the age of seven or so. It is usually at this age, or a little later, that imaginary companions tend to disappear.
Children may also be more accepting of their hallucinations, having not yet learned that hallucinations are considered (in our culture) “abnormal.” Tom W. wrote to me about his “intended” childhood hallucinations, hypnagogic visions he would bring on as entertainment from the ages of four to seven:
