I live in my imagination, so sometimes movies help me get lost. I

“I live in my imagination, so sometimes movies help me get lost. I feel like I’m in it.” Thus spoke SZA, the poet of sound and soul, whose music carries the ache of longing and the beauty of introspection. In this tender confession, she unveils a truth that lies at the heart of the human condition—that imagination is not an escape from life, but another way of living it. For within the vast and sacred landscape of the imagination, one can dwell in infinite worlds, travel through time, and experience emotions too great for the ordinary day. To “get lost” in a story is not to flee reality, but to find oneself within it—mirrored, magnified, and transformed.

The origin of this quote is rooted in SZA’s identity as an artist, a woman of vision who weaves her inner world into melody and verse. Like the ancient bards who sang the truths of the heart, she moves between reality and dream, using art as the bridge. Her music, like her words, emerges from that mysterious realm where imagination and experience intertwine. When she says she “lives in her imagination,” she speaks for all who find refuge and revelation in the unseen. For the creative soul, the imagination is not a luxury—it is home. And when the weight of the world grows heavy, art—in this case, film—offers a place where the spirit can rest, wander, and remember its freedom.

The ancients understood this divine power of the imagination. The Greeks spoke of mimesis, the act of becoming what one perceives in art. When a poet sang of gods and heroes, the listener did not simply watch from afar; he was drawn into the myth, living within it for a time. Likewise, when we lose ourselves in a movie, we are not escaping reality, but entering another facet of it. The story becomes a mirror for our hidden thoughts and buried feelings. Through it, we see ourselves more clearly. SZA’s insight echoes this ancient wisdom—that through art, the imagination does not abandon the real, but deepens it.

Consider the story of Virginia Woolf, who, like SZA, lived in the realm between thought and dream. The outer world often wounded her, yet within her imagination, she found endless seas to explore. In her novels, she blurred the line between perception and existence, writing not what people did, but how they felt—the ebb and flow of consciousness itself. When she wrote To the Lighthouse, she did not merely describe a family by the sea; she painted the architecture of the soul. Through her work, she too “got lost,” and in that losing, she found meaning. Like Woolf, SZA reveals that the imaginative life is not a retreat from the world, but a deeper way of touching it.

To “get lost” is, in truth, an act of courage. It means surrendering to experience, allowing the self to dissolve and be remade. When SZA says she feels as though she is “in it,” she is describing that sacred merging that every creator and every lover of art knows—the moment when the boundaries between self and story vanish, when one’s heart beats in rhythm with the world on the screen, the song in the air, or the dream in the mind. In such moments, the imagination becomes not illusion, but revelation. It reminds us that reality is not fixed; it is something we can enter, shape, and feel anew.

Yet, there is also a quiet warning in her words. To dwell always in the imagination is to risk becoming untethered from the tangible world, to confuse the beauty of creation with the safety of isolation. The challenge, then, is balance: to move between the seen and unseen, to use art not as escape but as renewal. The wise know how to return from their inner journeys carrying gifts—new perspectives, deeper empathy, and fresh purpose. The imagination is a sanctuary, yes, but it must also be a forge where vision becomes action.

O seeker of truth, take this teaching to heart: nourish your imagination, for it is the wellspring of compassion, creativity, and self-understanding. Do not fear being “lost” in art or story—there, you may find parts of yourself you had forgotten. But when you return to the waking world, bring with you what you have seen: the courage to feel, the power to dream, and the tenderness to see others through new eyes. For in this dance between reality and imagination, we discover what it means to be truly alive. And as SZA reminds us, to live in one’s imagination is not to hide from life—it is to experience it more deeply, to feel it so completely that for a moment, we are not merely watching the world—we are in it.