"We read to know we're not alone"

Perhaps it indicates an overdeveloped sense of self-importance, but I've often had an intuitive sense that I've called events into being merely by being there. Or if not called into being, at least my presence authenticated them, made them real. They would have been like fairy tales otherwise.

Recently, I had one of those "What? You too? I thought I was the only one!" moments while re-reading A Separate Peace. Gene Forrester describes his years at the Devon School like this:

"In the deep tacit way in which feeling becomes stronger than thought, I had always felt that the Devon School came into existence the day I entered it, was vibrantly real while I was a student there, and then blinked out like a candle the day I left."