How Do We Know When a Piece of Art is Finished?

I was in a sculpture class in high school and our assignment was to make a plaster sculpture that required an armature. An armature is a structure that supports the piece from inside and is never seen once the piece is finished. We were provided with blocks of wood for the bases and various gauges of wire, chicken wire, wire cutters, etc. with which to construct this supporting structure.
One of my classmates, let’s call her Linda Yen, created an armature of a horse that was so lovely the teacher called a halt to the class. Everybody was gathered around (the way I remember it) for a discussion about what to do next. The armature was so beautiful that the question arose as to whether the piece could be called complete at this stage. The instructor asked the philosophical question – one I still use every day -“How do we know when a piece is finished?” What a great question! The teacher was wise enough to let the student decide whether and how to proceed with the assignment. I remember some of the options:
· Leave this one as-is and call it complete.
· Finish the piece as assigned (cover it in plaster bandage and then more plaster). The sub-text to this was that if it loses something, she could attempt to make another wire sculpture.
· Stop now and create another companion armature to cover in plaster.
There were so many possible outcomes. The piece could look even more gorgeous when plastered, but there was no guarantee. What if it looked worse? None of us knew for sure what would happen. What if she were unable to create another equally graceful armature? I remembered the instructor taking a photograph of the armature “just in case.” It turned out the student chose to cover the armature in plaster as originally assigned. It lost its grandeur, appearing heavy and clumsy when it was finished. I remember her attempt to remake a wire armature afterward. It, too, lacked the beauty of the original.
I always took it as a lesson: When something looks really lovely, maybe it’s time to call it complete. Maybe it’s not what you were expecting, but try to step back from the “assignment” (your preconceived notions, your original expectations) to see the piece for what it is. If it is a treasure, treasure it.
I didn’t realize how deeply impacted I was by this learning. Let’s face it. Most of us in high school don’t learn by others’ mistakes – we much prefer to make our own. I know I did. I was truly impressed with Linda Yen’s original sculpture. I was equally disheartened by her loss in finishing the sculpture with plaster in a way that dulled its elegance, and then by her struggle to re-create another fine armature that also fell somewhat short.
Cut 42 years into the future:
Last week my friend Peter started posting digitized slides he rescued from our old high school in the midst of its demolition. In typically wasteful fashion, the venerable old building was being torn down while still full of books, supplies, furniture, art, and, oh yes, a carousel of old slides from the art department. What are the odds Peter would come up with images of the art work made by our cohort in the late 1960s? He did.
This is a photo of my life lesson. This is a slide of Linda Yen's armature from 1969. How do we know when a piece of art is finished? Is it when the teacher says, "Let me get a picture of this now, just in case?"
The larger lesson from this event is encoded here, too. What if your life isn't what you thought it was going to be? What if you have a different life? Is it possible for you to step back and see its elegance, beauty and completeness? Maybe it's not what you expected, and it has turned into something even finer. Imagine that.

Multi-Generational Impact of Art Therapy

I go to the homes of my clients when necessary due to their mobility limitations. I visited a client today, I’ll call him Steve, but that’s not his real name. Steve is recovering from traumatic brain injury (TBI). Steve also has severe symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) secondary to the car accident that caused his TBI. His symptoms are very hard to tease out and separate. They are all tangled like a ball of yarn after a cat attack. Today we talked a little bit about art therapy and we made some art.

Sleep is a challenge for Steve. Sometimes he can't sleep. Sometimes he gets too much sleep. He is on a complicated regimen of medications, each with its own side effects. Sometimes he has vivid and disruptive nightmares. Today Steve worked on a recent dream that had disturbed him. My thought was to help him externalize the dream in order to create a therapeutic distance from it. I showed him how to make an accordion book with four pages. The structure and limitations might really help him contain his distress. Being able to open and, more importantly, being able to close the book gives him some much-needed control. Steve was really forced to compress his dream into a tight space. But he made it happen. Steve worked silently at the table beside me. He was able to tell his story in four pictures, including an introduction and conclusion! He drew images and wrote words with a pencil, and then colored his pictures with markers. He told his story in very concise imagery and language. It was an impressive accomplishment.

When he was done, we talked about the process.

Without prompting, Steve reflected on his changed perspective at the end of the story. In the third picture he was depicted as small as a speck, nearly invisible, a microscopic dot on the paper, overwhelmed by a gigantic mountain seeming to block his path. The very last picture showed him big enough to fill half the page as he changed the dream channel. The image progression showed a remarkable improvement in self perception, and a sense of personal power. Again, this was quite a feat. It likely would have taken multiple sessions to get there without the art’s assistance.

And then Steve thanked me for helping him to “complete something in one hour.” Yeah, that’s important, too. He struggles with distractibility, and it can take him the whole day – or longer sometimes – to finish a simple task.

Later, toward the end of session, Steve told me, “You know, art therapy is affecting multiple generations in my family.” Oh? “Yes. Now when my grandchildren come over they all want to make art with me. They are not interested in TV anymore.”

And he’s told me this before, but somehow today, in these words, it stayed with me differently.

Nice one. Truth is, getting to work with people like him changes my life, too. Thanks, Steve.

Underpainting. I'm looking at snow and realize the snow is not white, but rich with color. It reflects sky and it displays shadow. Blue or pink, orange or purple, the snow is only sometimes, intermittently, white. And when it is – the white is blinding! Dazzling!

But it's the shadows and reflections that make the snow so interesting and give it form.

I've been using chalk pastels to lay out an underpainting on Strathmore charcoal paper. I must confess the paper I have is ancient paper. I inherited it from my former husband's grandmother in the early 1980's. It was old then, before she passed it down to me! It might have been purchased in the early 1970's. Yes. Well, now you know something about my weakness for accumulating art supplies. I have lived in six different homes in four different states since acquiring those art supplies from John's grandma. Those supplies have traveled with me, dwindling with use, all the way.

I have a (new!) box of Prismacolor pastels and a new tin of denatured alcohol. Laying down a bold underpainting color for sky and foreground with my Prismacolors I fix it to the paper using denatured alcohol and a bristly paint brush. The denatured alcohol dries quickly, sealing the underpainting so I can get right back to creating the local color without the worry of it getting stirred up and bleeding through.

But you know me. There's more to making art than technique. It wasn't long before I started thinking about the metaphor of underpainting. There's the person we see and there's the underpainting that makes that person so interesting. It's the shadow and reflection that gives meaning to a life. It's what makes us what we are. What is the underpainting in your life?

What is Art Therapy and Why is it Important to Work With an Art Therapist?

What I know about art:
art is fun
art can be messy
art surprises
art tells a story
art can keep a secret
art is curious
art is poignant
art saves lives

What is Art Therapy and why is it important to work with an Art Therapist?
Art Therapy is making art with a person who is educated about how art and your psyche relate. Working with a real Art Therapist (there is a master’s degree and nationally recognized credential for this field!) makes a difference. Because art making is so powerfully transformative, huge shifts can come very quickly. It is important to know how to contain big feelings as they come up. Some of us need containment and some of us are so numbed out and our feelings are so shut down that we need help to become MORE expressive. You might not be aware that some art materials could be triggering to those of us that are carrying scary memories.

Q. What art skills are necessary for art therapy?
A. The simple answer is none. Art therapy requires no artistic ability. The art therapist offers guidance and support and the opportunity to explore issues of concern using simple art materials. Art can be used to help you express your feelings in a safe way.

Q. If I don’t even know what I’m feeling, how can art help me?
A. Some art materials can give you more energy and some can calm you. A good Art Therapist will know what materials and interventions are appropriate for you as you work together.

Q. What kinds of results can I expect from Art Therapy?
A. With art therapy you might find dreams changing. You might become more aware of your surroundings during the day. You might find your relationship with yourself and with your past, with the important people in your life, is changing. This is noteworthy: as you gain more control in your art you may find you gain more control in your life, too.

My personal philosophy about art making is this: I believe that we are made of the same creative stuff that created the universe. The energy of creation is in every molecule of us. Therefore, when you stimulate creativity in one area of your life (by making art, dancing, writing a poem, knitting, etc.) other parts of your creativity are also stimulated. When we do something creative we begin to heal in thousands of unseen ways because we are tapping into that original creative source from which we are made.
There is much more information about Art Therapy out there. Please visit my website.

My name is Susan Boyes, and my practice is called Center for Creative Growth.
I am a Registered and Board Certified Art Therapist working in Ann Arbor, MI.
I have a fan page on Facebook that will help you to keep current on what's new in Art Therapy, globally and locally.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about art therapy.

How We Decide

I just finished yet another incredible neuroscience book, this one is How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. It’s easily readable and I highly recommend it.
In case you think you make all your decisions logically and rationally, I’ve got news for you. Without input from your emotional circuitry you’d never make a single one. It turns out there’s a real need for the emotional parts of our mind to contribute valuable information when we have decisions to make, both big and small.
If you’ve ever wondered why you get confused when there is too much information (think new car purchase) this book will help you understand.
Let’s face it, there are some things you don’t have to think about. You have practiced certain activities a long time. If you’re a musician, airline pilot, or an athlete, certain decisions are made seamlessly and seemingly without any thought at all. In fact, when you start to think, really think about the performance of your specialty, it can go completely into the weeds.
Trust me, there are also times it is imperative that you apply rational thought to your choice-making. You need to know which occasions call for a cool rational response and when to blend your logic with information from your non-verbal mind. This book takes time to explain which decisions call for which type of input. And why they are both of critical importance.
I’m taking it a step further. As an art therapist, I think making art (as a non-verbal method of problem-solving) and reviewing it with a knowledgeable professional (adding words to help clarify your imagery) can help you make important decisions. What a supportive way to work through complex issues.

Operators are Standing By Call Now!

I recently received a marketing newsletter that informed me the best way to get people to open my newsletter is to have a subject line that indicates a time-limited offer. I thought "One Week Only!" and then realized art therapy is not really time limited. Is there really such a rush to come in for art therapy as that?

In another informative "here's how you do it" article I read that the way to wealth is to offer something online that people coming to my site can immediately purchase and download. What a genius of an idea! Instant gratification!

Believe me, I am trying to come up with just the right thing. I'm thinking of parenting advice. After all, I am an expert, having brought three children safely to productive adulthood. But honestly, I am just like a million other mothers in that way. My children are brilliant and hard working mostly because of how they came into the world. They are a result of a million experiences of which I was not an integral part. I doubt my parenting advice and methods will teach anything new. Besides, I learned most of it after they were grown up and I returned to school. It's amazing I raised such successful kids prior to my expensive education.

No, I don't want to write a book. It's a lot of work. I don't even want to write a pamphlet or an article.

Oh, then I had a wonderful inspiration. I will publish a sketchbook. That you can purchase and download from my website! Yes, a book of blank pages is just the thing! (And if you want a larger sketchbook, please load your printing tray with "14 x 11" paper.)

I wonder how much it should cost...

"Art Time"

What is the difference between art education and art therapy? Where does one stop and the other begin? My own experience as a potter frequently gives me the experience of being out-of-time, especially while I work on the potter's wheel. In one of the art therapy discussion groups I belong to the following conversation thread has developed. One contributor to the conversation suggests that in regard to a figure drawing class:
As things progress, if the teacher has done her job, then you enter "art time" where time seems to disappear, the model is now an object of undulating curves, infinite shading, the meeting of light and dark contrasts all of which have to be translated into the restraints of charcoal on paper. It is hardly an all right brain thing, but more a collaboration of both hemispheres of the brain in conjunction with higher and lower brain functions.

I recognize that state of being~doing, which I find is very difficult for many to describe. In that state, where Jungian Dr. Marion Woodman says, "The painting paints the painter," we seem to leave "ordinary time" which the Greeks called "chronos" and enter the time state of "kairos" which is often called sacred time, by those same Greeks... It may be a time-less state, where transformation is possible, for the strictures of reality may be loosened, by the setting aside of the reality-based ego, which for some of our patients has been formed as a limited and restrictive critical ego function.

Now I ask my readers: what is your experience of "losing time" while engaged in art (or music) making?

Cabin Fever

What an interesting time of year. While still cold and snowy in much of the country with cloudy, gray skies, the days are growing longer and brighter. Among days of bitter wind and frigid temperatures, we can experience random days of sunlight and even warmth that remind us spring is just around the corner.
Either we accept and embrace this chilly time and wile away the hours sipping hot cocoa, reading or watching movies while enjoying a respite from outdoor responsibilities like mowing the grass and pulling weeds. Or...we grow anxious.
It is subtle at first. Then, the sensation of being confined leads to pacing and a lack of focus. Minutes seem like hours, and we spend more of them peering through slits in curtains drawn to keep the cold at bay. We hope for a glimpse of green grass or crocus buds peaking through the dingy snow.
Diagnosis? Cabin fever. Treatment? Friends and activities.
Occupy your head and hands with an exciting new project in a social setting. Make the most of this time "trapped" indoors by trying a new craft. Take a class, join a group or attend a social craft event at a store, café or friend’s house.
Even a few hours spent creatively with loved ones can bring a little sunshine into your day and chase away winter blahs.
With thanks to all the inspirational art therapists out there.

The Mini Saga

I learned a wonderful new art form from the book by Daniel Pink, "A Whole New Mind." It's called the “Mini Saga.” The mini saga consists of 50 words - no more, no less, - that tell a story from start to finish. Here’s one I wrote recently.

And Forever
By ones and twos they grow up and move away. That’s the way of children. They take your heart and run with it. We think there’s all the time in the world, but it isn’t so. From now on it’s only visits. Brief, poignant, and infrequent. I miss them terribly.

Solstice and Hope

I’m watching the snow outside through the window from inside on the couch. I’m spending the day in my bathrobe as I recover from a virus. It happens to be Friday, my day off, and it’s snowing like crazy here. If I felt better I might bundle up and go outside to enjoy the experience. “Enjoy” is the wrong word. I don’t like being cold. It brings up a lot of sad feelings from the past. Winter in general is a hard time for me with its darkness.
2 Days Later… I’m starting to think about hope. My health has returned and some energy came with it. The sun is peeking through the clouds and reflecting brightly off the snow left behind by the past week’s weather. Still friggin cold out there, but there are moments of beauty – especially if you are out of the wind.
It gives me hope. I recently had the pleasure of attending a speaking engagement by Evan Handler. You may remember him as the bald, Jewish love interest of Miranda in the series, “Sex in the City.” Turns out he is a cancer survivor and also a fine author as well. (See: “Time on Fire" and “It’s Only Temporary”). He was on a book tour and came to Ann Arbor as part of it. I have read his first book and I’m on the waiting list for the second one from the library.
One of the notions I came away with from his talk was this: There is no such thing as false hope. Mr. Handler claims that false hope is an oxymoron. Handler was frequently being admonished by his doctors against false hope. He had a type of leukemia that at the time had a 90% fatality rate. Mr. Handler understood this to mean that a full 10% of people with his disease would be cured! In his description of the experience it seemed as if the doctors were trying to protect their own feelings, rather than those of their patients. The doctors had lost many patients. Evan Handler’s doctors expected their patients to die. It was hard for them to retain hope for individual patients in their care.

I can’t solve the mortgage crisis alone or rescue the auto companies in Detroit – though my tax dollars will be earmarked to this end for the foreseeable future. But I hope all will be well in the financial world. I hope the stock market stabilizes and grows again. I hope our work continues to joyfully sustain us. I hope our health stays solid.
Hope is defined by Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (mine from high school) as “desire with the expectation of fulfillment.”
My hope looks like this: We will have sunny days again. The days will get longer from now till late June. At the solstice I am reminded that natural light really does affect my mood. I need and want more of it. Hope is back with tilted axis of the earth in its orbit.

World Class

I am lucky enough to live near a city with a world class art museum. The Detroit Institute of Arts. I’ve been going to the DIA since I was a baby. It was a place my mother loved to visit and she would sometimes take me. My mother was in high school when Diego Rivera was painting his famous “Industry” murals in the DIA courtyard. She watched him at work on the scaffolding after school.

The DIA became a second home to me. I hung out there a lot as an adolescent. I was an art student at Cass Tech, and the Art Institute enriched my studies as much as it comforted me with its familiar sights, sounds, smells, lights, and shadows. Returning to the DIA now comforts me just as much.

My favorite things today included a wonderful black and white photograph of Andy Warhol visiting Detroit. I saw photos by Andre Kertesz and Henri Cartier-Bresson. There is currently a special exhibition, “From Monet to Dali,” from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Included were some truly luminous Monet paintings. Reproductions don’t do justice to the light captured by Monet. I could hear the sounds and feel the air and smell the summer captured in his paintings. They felt alive to me. Although I was surrounded by people, even jostled at times, it felt like I was the only one there. Everything fell away around me when I stood before these thrilling works.

It was a wonderful day. I love visiting the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Whole Mind

From another book about the brain, “A Whole New Mind,” by Daniel H. Pink, I have culled the following: Roger W. Sperry (Cal Tech professor, Nobel Prize winner in medicine) reshaped our understanding of our brains. In the 1950s Sperry studied patients that had had surgery separating their brain hemispheres (as a treatment for epilepsy). He discovered that the established hemispheric dominance/subordinance theory of the brain was flawed. Yes, our brains are separated into two halves. But as he put it, “The so-called subordinate or minor hemisphere, which we had formerly supposed to be illiterate and mentally retarded and thought by some authorities to not be even conscious, was found to be in fact the superior cerebral member when it came to performing certain kinds of mental tasks.” In other words, the right wasn’t inferior to the left. It was just different. “There appear to be two modes of thinking,” Sperry wrote, “represented rather separately in the left and right hemispheres, respectively.”

The left hemisphere reasons sequentially, excels at analysis, and handles words. The right hemisphere reasons holistically, recognizes patterns, and interprets emotions and nonverbal expressions. Human beings are literally of two minds.
*We need both / ALL / parts of the brain to function at our best.*

Contrary to some 1980's beliefs about right brain - left brain functioning, high levels of creativity require an integration of right and left hemispheric functioning which, with repeated exercise, results in an increase of the micro neural pathways in the corpus callosum. If you think about that for a moment, then you can clearly see the benefits of an art centered approach to therapy.
I’m just sayin…

Neuroplasticity - The Brain Changes!

I’m spending more time reading about neuroplasticity. I am just wrapping up “The Brain that Changes Itself,” by Norman Doidge, M.D. and Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D.’s book, “The Boy Who was Raised as a Dog.” Both of these doctors’ books report new knowledge of the brain’s insults and its astonishing ability to recover. These are cutting edge discoveries.

Many of us suffer losses and trauma in our lives. Some are quite severe. Our brains, our neural networks, record these events. Physical changes take place in the brain as we learn. Neurons grow and connect. We make sense of our traumas however we can. Over time our protections, understanding, behaviors, and experiences lay down even more neuronal paths. Things change. Not always for the better. Sometimes we become sensitized. We may learn unhealthy habits (addictions) to help us cope with painful memories. Some of us have brain systems that become "stuck" – such as in anxiety disorders or other OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders) – where we are compelled to organize, straighten, or check incessantly. There is help available. Although a neural connection can’t be erased, new learning can take place that can work around the existing impairment. Sometimes we need help to create new learning to help us recover.

Art is uniquely suited to addressing areas of entrenched pain or dysfunction. At times art making may work similarly to free association in psychoanalysis. You may start by drawing a recurring dream and begin to describe the picture and discover more about what your dream is telling you. Art can be a safe way of processing preverbal trauma. Maybe your image is just color, line and shape. Maybe it’s a lump of clay that represents how Depression has you feeling cold and lifeless. Maybe it’s a decorative box that holds your secrets. Or a book you bind together yourself with pages you can open and close, show or keep private.

The metaphors and meanings are as individual as you are. As you spend time with your art making you will be engaging in new learning. This is a good, good thing.

Rag Doll and Professional Identity

Just back from the AATA Conference. That’s the American Art Therapy Association’s annual gathering to learn and share. This year it was in Cleveland. It’s expensive financially, in time, and trouble. It’s inconvenient, always coming just before Thanksgiving. It’s an enormous hassle. This year it was a bit easier because we could drive. And I learned so much. Okay, I know, a rag doll doesn’t seem like much. But it’s not just that I learned how to make a rag doll. This doll is practically a fetish, a voodoo creation. It is inspirited, I might say. Inspiration. Breathe in.
The doll was made with INTENTION. [The intention has to do with my professional identity.] Okay, so how does a rag doll evoke or invoke identity? Oh I don’t know HOW, but it does. I find myself thinking about my professional identity as I wonder about the color choices. They’re not colors I normally like. They are plain. They clash. I wonder about the sparkly bits. I had “sparkle envy” at the table where I worked and the person across from me generously gave me a piece of her sparkly fabric. I quickly placed a seashell on her waistband as I raced to finish the piece and remembered wampum as I did. Shell was used for money, called wampum, by some Native American tribes in New England. I will add the face later. Or maybe I won’t.
Here is a craft (you should have seen the materials flying!) that can make a huge mess. I was anxious as I tried to figure out how to assemble the doll. I have never been a fan of dolls and couldn’t understand why I signed up for this workshop – and paid extra – to learn how to make it. I felt frustration. I didn’t get it about how to connect the figure to my professional identity or anything else.
Yet, now that it is done it carries a quiet energy. It embodies competence, knowledge that I have my sparkly bits, regardless of how much it may show to others, and my value is firmly fixed. I’m wild about my doll.

Right Now

I’m watching the sky go gold as the sun slips just out of sight. What a pretty day this one is. I know it will be dark, rainy and colder tomorrow. I know. I know. How am I ever going to get through the dark time of year? When it’s dark I don’t want to go out. I would rather lock myself in my room and read under the blanket. I lean strongly toward hibernation. But I digress. Today is glorious. Clear and warm (still nearly 70 on Nov. 6!) I find the leaves stunning. They glow as if they are lit from within. In another couple of weeks they will all be on the ground, but now they remain half suspended, tumbling red, gold, amber, purple flecks through the blue air. I could be in a twisting kaleidoscope.

Ann Arbor does a cool thing. The city comes and collects leaves for compost. You don’t even have to bag them. Just rake them into the street and twice in the fall the trucks comes by. A bulldozer pushes the leaves into a great pile and another truck collects them, followed by a street sweeper. Whatever I don’t use for my own compost piles (I have 2 going, plus gardens to enrich), and whatever has not been mulched with the lawnmower to feed the grass, gets raked into the street. It’s a wonderful event. Next spring we can buy finished compost for our gardens, either by the bushel or truckload.

Right now the sunset I’m watching is viewed through the lace skeleton of the bare trees across the street to the south. The tree outside the west window is still half full. Stopping to write about it has caused me to notice both trees more clearly. Drawing or painting it will anchor the moment in even better. It’s about mindfulness. Noticing that today is gorgeous even though tomorrow is predicted to be cold and rainy.
Let us celebrate our moment of joy. We have a new president-elect! And let us not fear the future. Regardless of the predicted hard times ahead, it’s beautiful now.

Stealth Art

So here’s what we were talking about earlier today. Living within your means. You know, not buying things you don’t have to have. Small house. One small car to share. Enough, but not extra. Can we live like that? What about the occasional treat? And what about art and music? How life sustaining is art? How critical is it to make art? Where is art time on the “gotta have it” scale? I think I probably talk about art more than I actually do it. I always like to do art, but I don’t do it as much as I used to do. I used to spend maybe 10-15 hours a week in the pottery studio. Maybe even more. How come I don’t do that anymore? I can’t come up with a good reason. I remember hearing an addictions counselor explain one time that we don’t have to make up rules for things that aren’t a problem. We don’t, for example, say, “I’ll only have one glass of milk today.” The way we might say “I’ll only have one glass of wine.” Usually drinking milk isn’t a problem and we don’t need to set artificial rules about milk intake. I keep trying to talk myself into going to the art studio and finding reasons I can’t go and then feeling bad about not working on clay art. Sometimes I have to sneak art in under my own radar. I call it making stealth art. I can do it casually, on my lap. It can be knitting. It can be teabag imprints on paper. Later on I can go back over the tea art and doodle-outline shapes that present themselves in the dried tea blot stains. The ultimate teabag Rorschach. Yes! Stealth art. Wow. Looka that. Looks like Shamanic Power Animals to me.

Hallucinometer

Blogalicious. I’ve been trying to get all experty and technical and then I threw it all away. You know how I keep saying, “don’t forget to have fun?” I was forgetting to have fun. Thank you to all my lunatic friends for reminding me to take myself less seriously. So here’s a picture of part of my recent project. It’s an invention just begging to be made real.
THE HALLUCINOMETER
Here’s how it works – each person wears an aluminum foil hat (well, yes) and each wears special goggles. There are transmitters and receivers and through these the participants can experience each others’ hallucinations – audio, visual, olfactory, kinesthetic. It’s a bonanza of sensory input! Imaginary? YOU make the call.