Perception II

There are clear signs that Winnie the Pooh might be an analogy to drugs: Eeyore (the donkey) is always the same… totally slow and lacks motivation = Marijuana. Piglet has constant fear, sees ghosts, and suffers under illusion of pursuit = Mushrooms. Rabbit wants everything ("everything mine, everything mine"... in my opinion, Cocaine is a status symbol drug... this may be influenced by the fact that the last book I read was Homo Zapiens...), and in addition, has the largest nose = Cocaine. Tigger (the tiger) constantly jumps around and cannot not stand still. There is never a sign of him being tired, no matter how much he hops around = Ecstacy. Winnie the Pooh is totally beside it, always sweet, and his fantasies are forever boundless = LSD/Amphetamines. Christopher Robin can represent two things: His ability to communicate with the animals = Sense-extending drugs. Or what I think is more probable: He's the only "sober" one of the group. Throughout the series, no other human is really included except him. His catchphrase "Silly old bear" could mean, in today's terms, "LOL You're trippin balls man!" Also, in the second Winnie the Pooh book (The House at Pooh Corner) all the animals throw him a farewell party and it is implied that he is going off to boarding school. Maybe this subliminally means that he's the only one that can get somewhere in life because he's not constantly destroying himself with drugs?

Of course all of these different drug figures take into account the stereotypical characteristics of drugs, and everyone is affected differently by them (Ex: not everyone becomes unmotivated after smoking pot). I'm aware of that... this is just a disclaimer so that anyone reading this won't bring up that argument. Keep in mind that, when Winnie the Pooh was first made, there wasn't the knowledge on drugs that we have today.

Also a problem that came up with this hypothesis is the time-line. The first Winnie the Pooh book was published in 1926, and LSD wasn't synthesized by Albert Hofmann until 1938. All the other drugs originated long before the first Pooh book, though.

I dunno... this could all just be coincidence, too. Synchronicity just interests me a lot.

Going along with this, in December 2000, a Canadian medical journal jokingly "diagnosed" characters in the books and films with various mental illnesses. For example, Winnie the Pooh shows signs of OCD; Tigger shows signs of ADHD, etc. Within this article, though, the writer suggests that Winnie the Pooh should be taking drugs, rather than comparing his behavior to a drug.

Article available here.