A Deconstruction of The Never Ending Story and how it links to MDD

[Josh]

HI 

I experience MDD on a daily basis and  I'm writing some articles about the chakras, this is an extract of an article that is going live on the VeganMag in a few days. The vegan magazine that I write for approached me a few months ago to add some articles about meditation and personal development. This series of articles detailing the chakras can be followed on the link below. This is a deconstruction of the film 'The Never Ending Story' and has some interesting material about MDD that I may think might be of some interest.

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The 1984 movie ‘The Never-Ending Story’ (Spoiler alerts) perfectly epitomises the pleasures of living in a world of fantasies. The main protagonist of the story is Bastion who feels at a loss with the domains of his surroundings who not only has a father who is distant and cold but is also being bullied terribly at school. He finds solace only in reading but then he picks up a book which the story that he reads he becomes in total control of, he hides away in an unused room in his school building missing his classes, when it’s time to go home he stays in his school, locked inside, he continues to read the story.  When he becomes aware that what he is reading is being controlled by him he becomes shocked, ‘That’s impossible,’ Bastion shouts as he reads his own psychical scream jotted down on the pages his eyes are set on after being frightened by coming across Morla, the giant swamp turtle who is reluctant to help the warrior Atreyu from saving the universe the story is set in, Fantasia. Fantasia is a concept of Bastion’s imagination, crumbling and perishing as to what becomes known as ‘The Nothing’ and Morla, who is indifferent to the fate of the nothing due to apathy and facing degeneration, the imminent apocalypse from Bastion's viewpoint when he faces Morla  symbolises that 'He who dares dreams' must have a certain level of nihilism because in order to sacrifice hope our underlying belief systems need to make total sense of what we must visualise as meaning.  Morla is unfortunately no different to many of the people we know throughout our lifetime, these are the people that become unhappy perhaps in older age, resentful and horribly tyrannised by their own mortality that they do not wish to make the world a better place for their peers. Bastion is terrified of Morla because he too is afraid of the unknown but from all the malevolence he's faced, he still wants to make the world a better place. This is proven as he immerses himself in Fantasia and manages to save it by giving the Empress a new name, however, Morla being the humungous creature that he is, dwelling in the swamps of depression symbolises the mass pessimism of society. Atreyu comes across a ‘luckdragon’ called Falkor who helps Atreyu on his quest to save Fantasia, dragons are often seen as threatening and can be villainised in many stories, however in an archetypical sense they are also seen often as protectors and accessories. When Bastion's being immersed in Fantasia, he is able to fly the dragon into the real world and even confronts the bullies in the human universe, weak people can turn incredibly formidable when they are protected.  Bastion's guard is fully up when he meets Falkor, but also lets it down when he confronts the bullies because in situations in which chaos processes into order the transition is more frightening than chaos itself. Falkor constantly tells Atreyu that he must never give up against the hopelessness of ‘The Nothing’ and when Bastion meets Falkor his estranged and hopeless reality is protected by Falkor too, so he finds solace in his fantasies. We all have ‘A Nothing’ in our lives, when we think about our personal hopeless entities they may make us feel apathetically attached to them. A key takeaway from the story is that fantasy is far from being a threat to the ability to live in the real world and is the natural and invaluable partner of reason and common sense, provided that one can move easily back and forth across the boundary separating fantasy and reality and provided that the world of fantasy can be constantly renewed by the efforts of new fantasists like Bastion.

Maladaptive daydreaming is a psychological condition that is not widely accepted medically and is not featured in any diagnostic manual as of yet but it can cause a lot of dysfunction and interference for people’s everyday lives that experience it. MDD as its often abbreviated to has been associated with strong urges to daydream and for many hours of the day, people who experience this create plots in their head, they can make micro facial expressions and micro gestures as if they are literally in their own little world, the act of daydreaming is often triggered by real-life events. The plots and characters that they fantasise about they know are not real, it’s the urge and impulsiveness to escape from the sufferings of their world that they find solace in their life. Watch the film and decide for yourself if Bastion is channeling his negative energy in a healthy way.

People with an overactive sacral chakra tend to extremes, which can show up in emotional outbursts, but also through pathological dependencies on other people. They run the risk of losing their authenticity and can no longer be themselves. An important step is to dedicate yourself to the positive and beautiful things in life. The basis for this is self-love and acceptance of your own needs and yourself.

The full article can be viewed on Veganmagazine.co.uk in a few days time! The article includes information about Dr.Simons famous studies which link to visions of goals and ties in to improvement of the self.