The Reality Overload: The Modern World's Assault on the Imaginal Realm

Le Brun, Annie

ISBN 10: 1594772444 / ISBN 13: 9781594772443

Published by Inner Traditions, 2008

About this Item

Seller Inventory # ZBV.1594772444.LN

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Reality Overload: The Modern World's Assault on the Imaginal Realm
• Publisher: Inner Traditions
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1594772444
• ISBN 13: 9781594772443
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: like_new

About this title

Synopsis

A powerful critique of the increasing mechanization and homogenization of modern life

• Shows how the constant force-feeding of too much information dispossesses us of our deepest connections

• Describes a link between the destruction of the environment with the assault on our individuality, creativity, and ability to think for ourselves

What underlies the many problems of the modern world--from accelerating rates of extinction and desertification to the increased alienation of the individual--is a reality overload, an increasingly invasive mechanization and homogenization of modern life that glorifies consumption and conformity. This overload has been created from the constant force-feeding of too much information, a phenomenon that dispossesses us of our deepest connections to time, our physical world, and each other.

Annie Le Brun explains that the degradation of the environment mirrors the devastation going on in our minds revealing a link between genetically modified foods and the transformation and decay of our language and communication. There is a direct relationship between the rupture of the great biological balances that govern the planet and the equally devastating rupture in our imaginal realm. The imaginal realm is the home of our dreams and the perceptions that feed our thoughts, individuality, and creativity. Without its influence we are forced to live a drab, alienated lifestyle based on consumption alone. If, as Shakespeare claims, “we are such stuff as dreams are made on,” this theft of our imagination by the reality overload threatens the very foundations of our existence.

About the Author

Annie Le Brun (1942–2024), a member of the French surrealist group during its later years, was a poet and essayist who wrote books on subjects as varied as the work of Raymond Roussell and the war in the former Yugoslavia. Her groundbreaking work on the Marquis de Sade has been translated into English as Sade: A Sudden Abyss. She lived in Paris.