What's falling down the rabbit hole all about?

What happens when Alice tumbles into Wonderland? Nothing is as it seems: Big is little, little big, cats talk and she meets strange, frightening and alluring characters.

Wonderland as Metaphor

             Falling down the Rabbit Hole into Wonderland is a perfect metaphor for the creative journey which can never take place in the “real” or conscious world. Writing, whether it be fiction, poetry or nonfiction, finds its origins in the dark, fertile chaos of the unconscious. If you don’t meet Cheshire cats and Mad Hatters, Tweedledees and Tweedledums, mad queens,  dragons, flying monkeys and monsters, or your version of the above, then you have not fallen. This is not to say you have to be writing fantasy or horror to open to your unconscious, but as you will see, the journey for the writer must hold metaphorically a good sprinkling of both.

From The Art of Fiction Writing by Emily Hanlon