Spellbound Senses
or as J.G. Fichte called it, the “sweet intoxication” (süße Trunkenheit) of aesthetic immersion:
Immersion can be quite a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we can lose ourselves in nasty dopamine traps like social media or disturbing intrusive thoughts. However, immersion in a particular activity, such as playing artistic video games or watching inspiring novels, can be incredibly relaxing, inspiring and even healing.
Recently, I stopped watching TV and movies for a bit. And after stepping away from the screen for some time, I couldn't get lost in those fake worlds anymore. I only saw artificiality and triviality. It was like my mind had detached from the made-up worlds. However, after some “practice”, I got back into the swing of things and now I can get lost in those fictional worlds again.
I have experienced this also with novels. Narrative immersion is a habit. And what is true for passive consumption of art, is even more true for active creation. Immersive acting is a skill that can be trained like any other.
When professional actors dive into their roles, they aim to become the character they portray. This involves a deep psychological transformation, whereby the actor not only mimics the external behavior of the character but also takes on their thoughts & emotions.
Actors experience decreased activity in brain regions that help form a sense of self when acting, as they immerse themselves in a new role. Or as Steven Brown from McMaster University describes it:
“You have one voice, one face, one body. The more you're pretending to be someone else, the less of you there is. It's a zero-sum game.”
This can lead to a blurring of the lines between reality and fiction, as the actor's own personality traits may be influenced by the character they played. Especially, method actors don't just act like the character, they immerse themselves into becoming the character. In some extreme cases, the actor may find themselves taking on the habits, beliefs, and values of the character they played, even after the role has ended.
Perhaps the most famous scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho occurs as Janet Leigh’s character is brutally stabbed to death in the shower. This scene has not only cemented itself in cinematic history but unfortunately also long-lasting in Leigh’s psyche:
“I stopped taking showers and I only take baths… When I'm someplace where I can only take a shower, I make sure the doors and windows of the house are locked”
Similarly, Jim Carrey felt a deep transformation in his own sense of self:
“I realized that I could lose myself in a character. I could live in a character. It was a choice. And when I finished with that, I took a month to remember who I was. ‘What do I believe? What are my politics? What do I like and dislike?”
— Jim Carrey
The Two Dimensions Of Escapism
The infamous “Fake it till you make it“ sometimes plays with this motif of merging with your role instrumentalizing it for the self-help industry. Playing a role, embodying your idols in order to become like them. Encouraging individuals to mask their true emotions and pretend to be someone they are not… What could possibly go wrong?! Unsurprisingly, it was shown that "Fake it till you make it" is a slippery slope. Due to the constant tension between “Is & Should”, this artistic approach of self-optimization can lead quite fast to feelings of emotional exhaustion. Plus, it fosters a culture of dishonesty.
Only honesty can provide a closed feedback loop that enables our intuition to learn healthy patterns:
“…being honest with yourself. Your subconscious is not gonna be calibrated correctly if you’re constantly bullshitting yourself. The more objective you are, the less you cloud your motives and reasonings with illusion, the better you train your brain to pinpoint the causes and effects of all things.“
Escapism eg like role play can be driven by either a motivation towards positive emotions (honest desire) or to avoid negative feelings (dishonest dodging). These two different mindsets are referred to as self-expansion and self-suppression.
“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?…. If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!” ― J.R.R. Tolkien
A recent paper about it recreational runners showed that self-expansion was positively correlated with subjective well-being, while self-suppression was negatively related to well-being.
Instead of exercising to escape life and prevent a negative mood by running away from thoughts & feelings, we can flip our motivation to pursuing flow and running towards new experiences, towards new forms of agency.
But what the heck is Self-Expansion in Role Play & Acting? Are we not always faking and therefore limiting our authentic selves with role play & games?
The problem with “unrestricted freedom” is that it leads to the repetition of old habitual frames and reaction patterns. When we are left on our own terms we often are stuck on the rusty rails of our conditioning. Therefore strict rules (like in games or role-play), adopted temporarily, can push us out of our habits. Or as C.Thi Nguyen puts it:
“Games are yoga for our agency.“
Dreamlike Nebulosity
The nebulosity & ambiguity of art is a feature and not a bug. It allows the actor to interpret the piece in their own unique way. When an artwork is too literal or straightforward in its message, it can limit the actor’s imagination & limit the potential for a deeper connection to be made between the viewer and the artwork.
David Lynch is a director who utilizes this principle of vague prompts and cues for his actors. When Naomi Watts had trouble finding into her character for the movie Mulholland Drive, David Lynch told her “NAOMI SHE'S LIKE A BUNNY NAOMI BE LIKE A BUNNY” and apparently that did the trick. Another example of David Lynch cue for helping and directing an actor on set: “OK, Kale, I want it with a wind, and a little more like Elvis.”
By leaving room for interpretation, art can become a catalyst for personal reflection and introspection. Metaphors and vague ideals give directions without closure. Nebulous Metaphors are seeds for our subconscious to let our own trees & associative roots grow.
“Creativity is the addictive habit of prompting your own brain.“
-Joscha Bach
Similarly, Maria Lugones argued that having the quality of ambiguous and plural selves was essential to playfulness and engaging in a fictional "world"-travel in order to identify ourselves.
The Seductions of Clarity
Gamification is in this sense the opposite. Gamification creates tunnel vision on some values to optimize. And with this trend, people are becoming used to the idea that the goal is some simple, quantified thing that can be pursued. The bad side of things might be that they keep looking for systems that offer them clear, quantified views of success, and then they’ll enter into the world and pursue those quantities without reservation. Explicit values place firm boundaries on our attention and therefore can cause closed-mindedness. Training your mind to solve “well-defined“ problems causes it to depend on it not knowing to orientate without the spotlight on the big fat price.
“We shouldn’t worry about games creating serial killers, we should worry about them creating Wall Street bankers.”
- C.Thi Nguyen
Playfulness, on the other hand, is about the ability, not just to reject rules, but to move lightly between different “rule-worlds”, and to learn to shift between different modes of agencies. Exploring, creating, and sharing new forms of agencies. A playful mind is a messy, ambiguous mind. Expansive daydreamers unite!
Whereas explicit goals rely on conceptual thinking and logic alone, creative playing with nebulosity mixes logic with intuition.
"Love is seen not as fusion and erasure of difference, but as incompatible with them. Love reveals plurality."
-Maria Lugones
Some Sources & Inspirations:
https://psyche.co/ideas/a-life-of-splendid-uselessness-is-a-life-well-lived
https://psyche.co/ideas/wish-you-had-more-self-control-you-should-hear-the-downsides
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/271647/GoingEls.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035196/full#ref42
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01490400.2012.633849
https://tobias-lib.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10900/98411/Sch%C3%BCler_004.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
https://aeon.co/ideas/acting-changes-the-brain-its-how-actors-get-lost-in-a-role