Fiction to Astral

[Albalida]

... or maybe Astral to Fiction? Here's one of my favorite exchanges about this, from ABC's Once Upon A Time.

Jefferson: Stories. Stories? What's a story? When you were in high school, did you learn about the Civil War?
Emma: Yeah, of course.
Jefferson: How? Did you read about it, perchance, in a book? How is that any less real than any other book?
Emma: History books are based on history.
Jefferson: And storybooks are based on what, imagination? Where's that come from? It has to come from somewhere.
Emma: Here’s the thing, Jefferson. This (gestures around to the room) is it. This is the real world.
Jefferson: How arrogant are you to think that yours is the only one? There are infinite more. We have to open your mind! They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands, each just as real as the last.



Let's say that, for the most part, imagination comes from experience and memory of the default world. The author sees a need in the readers, or feels a need in the world, and cobbles together symbols from their own experience in order to tell a story and fulfill that need. Events are symbols, characters are symbols... and the way it all comes together to fulfill that emotional or intellectual need in the reader, is all up to the craftsmanship of the storyteller.

But sometimes, I will read something from fiction that feels real on a paranormal level. Or, I will see something on a paranormal level that too closely resembles something from fiction-- but by now I can tell that it's real as any other spirit or entity.

Have you ever had that happen to you? How do you think that works? I have a couple of guesses, myself, but I want to hear from others.