shift

Driven back to my home at night we passed over a bridge, i watched the highway cutting under on my right, a gaz station at one side and a car dealer on the other, the two places diffusing powerful fancy lights with neons; in the middle the huge six tracks road was slithering in darkness, i could see a short iron barrier set on a line of grass running all along, separating the lanes in halves, i started imagining myself dawdling around the gaz pumps, then crossing the road, trampling the grass and jumping above the barrier, at this point i had an idea, there are two ways to picture and feel in my mind this event, i can see it like i'm omniscient and actually create a replica of me while i'm watching down, like if i was watching someone acting except it's my own self i see, from this point of view the senses aren't this much triggered, and then i can also imagine myself really down there, crossing the road toward the mass of light in front, feeling the softness of the ground under my soles and the coldness of the metal putting a hand on the parapet to jump above instead of only seeing me doing it, it's still a musing of me acting in that environment but with a subjective imagination, i think it depends on the personality of people to use one projection of themselves more than the other, we all have that ability but we are more inclined to use one than the other depending on our personality;

I thought, once aware of that i can use whichever i want when i want it, i tried to put myself in place of the driver of the car i was straped on, imagining what was the real sight on the road ahead he had or feel the slickness of the steering wheel on my palms and the curves of the seat on my back and thighs, putting myself really in his place and imagining what he was feeling with his senses, i continued experimenting on the other guy on the next seat, then a little farther on a shadowy sidewalk i noticed a couple kissing and huging tight, i experimented transposing myself in that scene too, feeling the wetness of the girl's mouth and the hand caressing the back;

The power of imagination is incredible but limited by the range of our experiences through life, everything from our birth and the first breath we took, i could imagine myself so real crossing the dark highway to the barrier because i know in reality what walking on concrete feels like, i can put myself at the wheel of a car in my imagination as i already drove one, but there are some things i never knew and those can only be created thanks to close, related events and known sensations, or descriptions we read by someone else, and are therefore a distorted copy of the real thing, of the real feelings, the more we experience with our senses the more powerful our imagination can be.

(the same way we can put ourselves in the mind of someone, but that will only be conjectures of the real thoughts by the person, and only our mind in someone else's body)