Where do The Ideas Come From?

Are the ideas my imagination — or am I channeling another time/place?

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

There can be philosophy and psychology associated with fiction.

While most of us are pretty sure the worlds we envision — far-out places of fantasy, science fiction, and the like — come from within us — they may be out there. Somewhere.

Get real, you might say. King’s Landing and the world of George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire is fiction. So’s Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The planets of Star Wars are all made up.

I tend to agree with this. Hell, the worlds I’ve made up — be it The Vapor Rogue’s Amasheer, the Source Chronicles’ t’Thera, or the planets of the galaxy of the Void Incursion — come from my imagination. Right?

That’s my thought. But there is another, deeper question. Where does the idea come from? What spawns the imagination?

Now we’ve entered philosophy, psychology, and the metaphysical realm — applied to fiction.

I am not saying I believe this idea — but I still am going to put it out there. What if the fiction realms of my and other writers’ imaginations DO exist? What if we’re just channeling alternate realities into our own?

Less preposterous than you might think