the power of paranoia

Salvador Dali thought paranoia was an artistic tool. William S. Burroughs said "A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on". Robert Anton Wilson says in an interview that paranoids are the most genius storytellers ever, they just didn't realize that their visions were actually fantasies.  Most people think of paranoia as a very negative emotion, and rightly so. There is nothing more terrifying than thinking the world is organized against you while being unaware of how delusional you are. 

The Greek roots of the word paranoia essential mean madness. Paranoia is a state of delusion where one takes the irrational as real. An important part of the art movements of Dada and Surrealism was delving into the irrational. Basking in confusion, escaping rationality, and transcending reality were concepts artist like Duchamp, Dali, Man Ray, Tzara, and Artaud championed. According to Dali, exploring the realm of the paranoid was a way to find inspiration for his works. He called this the Paranoid Critical Method.

"..it makes the world of delirium pass onto the plane of reality"  

What could be more transgressive and threatening to bourgeois values than celebrating paranoia? While Dali has become a staple of High School art rooms and essential, his ideas are very subversive. 

The question is how does one control paranoia? While it's capability for artistic inspiration has been celebrated, one cannot forget that it's a debilitating mental ilness that can consume and destroy the mind. It might just be the most uncompfortable feeling one can experience. To allow oneself to be consumed by paranoia is a self destructive act. One is being opressed by their own mind. 

However opression breeds art, and it takes a truly opressed men like William S. Burroughs or Philip K. Dick to bring us visions of reality that are so twisted and insane yet full of truth about our society and existense.