Welcome to Gaia! ::

If you believe Freud, and you are a sorry person to do so, you believe that everything in your mind is based on sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Perhaps I use the wrong terms, but in the 1900's rock and roll hadn't quite made it, but since they're all in the same category, perhaps Freud merely forget, or did not have the foresight, to mention the third item.

What does all of this have to do with Alice in Wonderland?

Twenty years after Alice Adventures in Wonderland, aka Alice Underground, was officially published, Freud makes this daring notion that all of the classic books are at fault of sex, drugs and rock and roll, or as Mr. Hendrix once eloquently put it; the psychedelic.

A background, if I may, of the times in which our esteemed Charles Dodgson lived in breathed in short, the Victorian age, when everything was about appearances, children were not allowed to be children, your place in life remained your place and you were not allowed to rise above your class. During this time, strange books like "The Awakening" and ever stranger plays like that of "The Dollhouse" were being released, quite popular, calling for the revolution of the age and banned in many high society. So it is odd for such a book, a children's book no less to slip into through the nursery to shock their parents into finally believing the hype, enter Alice in Wonderland. No one of 1865 claimed Dodgson a drug addict to the ever popular opiate; opium. In fact, ten years later, it was quite illegal to smoke it in public places outside of brothels and by 1909 it had been made illegal by several countries.

Being the ONLY hallucinogenic drug of the time, (no one ate rancid mushrooms, or mixed chemicals together to create meth, acid, and all sorts of the lovely and dangerous drugs that gave rise in the 1960's) it was used by many an author of the time. Shelley a marvelous example with her horror story of the time which quite bores me now a days, sorry darling, don't want to know about that wicked high you got last night.

So it was led to believe that Mr Dodgson was under the influence at the time, the 1950's film produced by Disney did not help his cause, as the creator of the film wished the Wonderland to have quite unreal colors. It was unfit for the time ten years later, when people created songs and such creating the myth that both the creator of the book and of the movie were on hallucinogenic drugs.

I ask this question of you then, do you believe that Alice is Psychedelic or Phantasmagorical?

I, if you cannot tell by the bias of my previous statements, believe it to be phantasmagorical, the silly behavior of Freud and experimental '60's hoodlums (and even now to this day of people who believe that getting high off of drugs is a good thing and helps cover up their real problems) has marred the image of Alice that once charmed youth.

This claim is false, firstly the Disney movie, Mr Walt Disney would have fired and scrapped the whole project if he had any notion that the Alice team was on drugs. He did not favor the movie as it was, and a high crew would have solidified in his mind that the project was useless. Also for every single animator to have been intoxicated would've been improbable. Needless to say, Disney had his morals and dislikes, we would not be discussing a movie if such a thing had happened, as just the mere mention of outright crude or bawdy behavior disgusted Walt. If things were to be bawdy, they would at least be refined(hence the firing of Tex Avery's crew.)


As for the Freudian aspect of Dodgson's books, I think it's downright silly. For example, I have a dream, in this dream I'm fighting a giant alien reptile monster, we're fighting neck to neck I'm dodging all of his attacks when suddenly he spins around and whips me with his tail and I fall off my bed.

According to Freud, its either I'm on drugs(which I'm not) or it has something to do with my father and insecurity(or security) with intercourse.

I fail to see how those intertwine. I think that maybe it was just stress from finals getting on me and I was sleeping too close to the end of my bed.

Mr Dodgson was part of a church, although he was not a priest, he still had to follow the rules set down by the church.

Some argue that when he began to have seizures, he took drugs. This was well after the creation of Alice.

To assert my issue, I believe that it was the phantasmagorical that was the inspiration for Mr Dodgson and his reason for success.

So then, what do you suggest the guidelines for Alice is?

Phantasmagorical. Although, Lewis (yes i do know its a pen name, but i forget his real name. Charles?) may have been on drugs while he wrote this.

Phantasmagorical. Not because of the author but because of who he was writing for - a child. I think it's only adults who have passed the child's mind set who can come up with the ideas that this book is a drug trip. I have a five year old niece who attaches herself to me like a leech whenever I visit and the stories, tales, and other imaginative things she comes up with are right in line with the imaginative creations of AiW. Even if we scratch all of Dodgson's works out of existence and look at other books written for kids we still find the same elements - other magical worlds, knights, kings, queens, mysterious cats, the chase after someone, riddles, transformations, trials, etc. I mean, why do you think Harry Potter is so popular? Or Eragon? But yet no one accuses their authors of being junkies.

As for the "unreal colors" of the Disney movie - again, it's aimed at kids. If I gave my aforementioned niece a coloring book and a box of crayons and had her color everyday objects or animals I'd bet you we'd end up with orange televisions, red dogs, and purple and pink cats. Disney's "unreal colors" are nothing special with that in mind.

Basically, if you want a child to be interested in something you have to put it in their terms. Their world, by their imagination. AiW is nothing but that. While some adult things may have slipped into it - such as a hookah and its use, that can be attributed to the fact that Dodgson was an adult. He may have been trying for a child's eye view but no author can avoid leaving traces of themselves in their works, whether it be language or a more adult understanding of how the world works.

What Shelley work are you referring to that has to do with "that wicked high you got last night"?

As for being part of a church and following its rules, in my opinion, unless we establish that he was devout rule follower that really means nothing. We have laws that prohibit murder. And how many people get murdered every year?

As for for Freud... *twitch* I could write you an essay on how messed up that guy was and his work but I'll save it to these:
1. Freud's patients from which he derived his theories were people who were mental patients. Alright! Let's base how all of humanity thinks based on people who are considered "not normal" by the majority.
2. Freud himself confessed to having mental disorders and believing all people have the same issues based on his having them. Such as the Oedipus complex.
So why we would ever go by Freud to come to a conclusion about AiW seems... unsound, in my opinion.

White Rabbit is an awesome song. I loved when they used it in the climatic scene of the AiW episode of Warehouse 13.

As for Dodgson being on drugs when he wrote AiW it's logically improbable. Take a look at the basic writing process for any book. You write a bit, take a break (say for dinner) maybe write some more, go to bed, have breakfast, write some more, go to work perhaps, eventually after several days finish the work, then go back and edit it for spelling and grammar. So unless he went through time to somehow intravenously connect himself to a bag of opium over several days/weeks (which probably would have killed him or severely effected his ability to write anything) it is very improbable he was on drugs the entire time. Sure, I'll grant the chance he might have written some part of it while on something, but once he was off more than likely (if he didn't just throw out the whole piece) he would have edited it canceling out the drug effect on it. Of course, I'm basing this off averages and extremes, I certainly wasn't around back then to give him a drug test while clocking how long it took him to write AiW.