Love your books? Love reading? You're not the only one. In a June article recently discovered by yours truly, Annie Murphy Paul described how she felt about it. (Read it here.)
Paul talks about the benefits of immersive reading and how it differs from the kind of reading we do on the Web or in magazines. There, hyperlinks, ads, and videos interrupt us. That reading is filled with distractions.
There are benefits to immersive experiences as anyone who has been refreshed by a day with The Mouse can attest. Deep, immersive reading is closest to a light trance or that state of being that is half way between wakefulness and sleep. While we are reading, we are transported and the state of the economy and world tensions do not exist. Instead, we are on a pirate ship deep in space or standing on high steel building the Brooklyn Bridge. For a time, we live in an altered state.
You probably think of fiction when you consider this phenomenon but non-fiction can do the same thing if it is written with the right tone. If you've been enveloped by a page-turner of any genre, you have experienced this unique mental condition. I'm sure it is one of the reasons we readers cherish our books.
Writing is the most important form of communication we have. It can change our minds...in more ways than one.
2 comments:
Well, I've never been to a Disney park, but I can testify to having traveled far, wide and deep when lost in a book. Thanks.
Well, I've never been to a Disney park, but I can testify to having traveled far, wide and deep when lost in a book.
Good comment on non-fiction, among those that have "captured" my mind was A Team of Rivals.
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