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2002-11-14 - 5:41 a.m.

Sometimes illusion can be more gratifying than reality. During difficult times I take myself off on a fantasy trip to a favorite place. I do, that is, if I can get myself to give up the reality and let go of the frustrations inherent in the reality.

Fool’s paradise? Maybe.

The paradise I most often visit is the lake. Cool moss green water harbored in gently rolling hills. The hills untouched and thick with oak and cedar. The burnished sky a patchwork of blue and wispy white cloud. The sun burning into my skin. Air fresh and warm, stained only by the sharp odor of meat barbecuing. The silence punctuated by the flap of a blue heron’s wing; the lap of waves against the rocky shore. Serene. Soothing. Comfortable.

I go there a lot when the world around goes to hell. I went there yesterday, but not because the day was fraught with threatening realities or frustrations. I went there yesterday because I was bored. The north wall of my office is a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. The view stinks. A utility pole growing a Medusa of wires, the faculty parking lot, and, across the street, a monotonous three-car shed belonging to a neighbor. The elms and maples and oaks have shed their leaves, and what few remain are dull, dead brown. I was slumped in my chair staring out the window looking through the unappetizing view and lost myself in a more satisfying illusion. Lost and relaxed until the damn phone rang and brought me back and dumped me in the late-fall death throes of the neighbor’s yard and eventually back to the chaotic mess of my office.

My transporting (Beam me up, Scotty!) myself to a better place isn’t the stuff of idle daydream. It’s a guided tour, and the tour guide is imagination. All you need to do is throw open the window on your reality and fly out (c’mon, give me a chance, I’ll explain why I’m not completely loony tunes!).

A scenic tour of a self-made illusion might be looked upon as impractical, unreal and fanciful, but it can also be liberating. Check the pressures of work, the stress and emotional drain of a difficult time, or the struggle to cope with tense day-to-day complications at the door, pick a destination and take a magical mystery tour.

Of course, there are problems with the illusory get away, just as there are problems with real trips. The tour bus blows a gasket, the plane is fogged in, the cruise is too expensive, or the vacation package isn’t available when we have time off. Sometimes I miss the fantasy tour bus because of a stubborn--and unhealthy--refusal to let go of the real situation. I want to wear the frustrations and anger like a second skin, and I won’t take them off, even for five minutes, just long enough to dip my toes in the refreshing lake water and ease the tension of the situation.

My flights of fancy are actually guided thematic imagery. Mind-body interventions prescribed by practitioners in the medical and psychological communities to ease stress and tension and release anxieties. I haven’t gone over the edge and moved into a psychotic world, these professionals are making megabucks coaching people along imagined highways and into relaxed destinations.

If you can make yourself shed your thorny skin for a few minutes each day, the illusory vacations do work to reduce stress and anxiety. And they’re a helluva lot cheaper than Carnival Cruise Ships or a beach bungalow in the Caymans!

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