There was a text message waiting for me this morning, something like, “I just need to check to see if you’re okay.”
I’m okay.
I’m always okay, and it’s getting quite boring. I told my grandmother last week that I was pretty sure I could throw myself in front of traffic, and would make it through unscathed. I do actually believe that, but I’m not going to try it, because I’m pretty sure everyone else there would end up having a bad day.
No doubt, if I could jump off a building, I would die, but I don’t think it would be possible for me to jump off the building — something would stop me, just like something stopped me from pulling the trigger. That time it was the nice weather and the stars in the sky, i.e. God.
There’s been this huge investment in me, maybe no larger than the investment in anyone else, but huge nonetheless, and I can’t imagine why. Why would so much capability for understanding and doing be built up in a person who is obviously only capable of great understanding that he’s not doing anything with it. It’s like a joke.
Or, there’s something I’m supposed to do and I’m missing it, or that opportunity hasn’t come up yet.
The idea that there’s got to be some special purpose in mind is almost the only thing that keeps me around. Oh, I like my friends and I don’t want to ruin their days, either, but I survived the death of my mother and they could survive the death of me.
Here’s what I get out of doing DXM: temporary brain damage — wonderful brain damage.
It’s very interesting as the brain is disconnect piece by piece from me, my observer, and the observer has to go it alone, without his handy interpretation appliance.
What do I mean?
One of the handy things our brain does for us is identifying and classifying information from our senses. What does that taste like? What does that look like? I’ve heard that sound before, what is that? Where is that coming from? Is it warm?
Much of our understanding of the brain thanks to science has come from studying people who have suffered permanent brain damage due to traumatic injury — like a spike through the head.
So, what’s it like temporarily driving a spike through my head?
A DXM experience progresses in a very predictable pattern. The pattern is a little different if I’m well rested or exhausted.
If I’m well rested then the connections between my senses and between those parts of the brain that do the analysis are gradually severed and I experience the world more and more like a child would experience the world — seeing things as they are, sort of, without any knowledge of what they are… but knowing I should know what they are.
Losing the ability to read can be quite interesting. At the same time, I lose the ability to write — suddenly knowing that I’m not spelling words correctly, but not being able to conjure the correct spellings. Also, not knowing whether what I’ve written “sounds right,” if I’m sure the words are right — am I conveying what I wanted to say correctly or not. Does that sound harsh? It certainly seems robotic, but I don’t know why.
One of the MAJOR MAJOR senses we have is a somatic sense of where our body parts are and how much force we’re using on things. In order to catch a ball, I would have to do all the calculations in my head of how to move my arm, and open my hand, and meet up with the ball — a very difficult task if you’re unable to call upon your muscle memory to just do it for you.
But after doing this for 15 years, I seem to have developed new muscle memory. And my use of language is much improved during these times — the periods of incapacity are getting shorter or they don’t get as “bad” (good). And I’ve not been able to experience total amnesia since the summer of 2007 (that was an extreme case, but it was wonderful).
Here’s what I know: Our experience of reality is totally based on past experiences and learning about reality.
Everything we thing we are seeing is just a model in our heads based on what our senses were able to gather. Items persist in that model until we think the items would have moved away from us, or until our senses “see” that it’s not there.
As we lose the ability to associate the parts of the larger objects we are constructing in our model, then those items look different — they can begin to look like completely different objects, made up with parts that are still part of our associative memory. Once every association is gone then we’re no longer experiencing reality.
So, what if I’m exhausted?
It is possible to fall “asleep” but still be walking around. For some reason, the part of the brain that does the dreaming is not so concerned with associative memory. The dreaming brain will fill in the gaps missing from the conscious associations and suddenly you’re seeing a mix of reality and dream.
It took me many years to finally give up the dreams as being some sort of message, coming anywhere except from myself. I did this by identifying my own motivations for seeing what I was seeing. ANd then I proved it to myself by video recording me sitting at the computer one night, and noticing that the 30 minute adventure I thought I was seeing (playing Quake on the computer) was actually me sitting at the computer, eyes open, not moving for about 10 minutes.
Logically I knew that what I thought I was seeing could not actually appear on the computer screen, but when your brain is telling you it’s real, you’re used to listening, because it is our brain that interprets reality on the ground for us.
And, that I’m always still in there — that I’m always me and that I so still have the notion that what I’m seeing is not the way it is — tells me that there is a difference between our consciousness (the observer) and our animal (our bodies including brain).
I remember being the same me what I was a very small child. I thought I way I do now.
We don’t think in a language, by the way, our self talk is interpreted by our brains so it can remember what we thought through associative memory. Then we listen to ourselves interpret our feelings.
Well, that’s all. I’m okay… I’m just bored.
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