(TRIGGER WARNING : Vomit)
So I dreamt I barfed.
And that would be weird enough. But I did it as part of some kind of competition.
There was me and two other guys and we were being all bro about it and egging each other on, and puking into one of those shiny metal dog bowls.
And I was so proud of myself for making myslf puke when normally I have such a high resistance to nausea and throwing up.
That is, by both truth and preference, all I remember.
But what the fuck, right?
My instant replay analysis is that it must have something to do with how I have recently been more liekly to spontaneously express my emotion without filtering it first.
And from there, the all-imporant “emotional emesis” of recovery in general. I have swallowed a lot of bad stuff over the years and a big part of recovery is brings it back up so I can get rid of it.
Still, of all the dreams to remember, why did it have to be that one? I have been experiencing such heavy REM sleep lately that there had to have been much better candidates. Something more epic, more insightful, and less gross.
Oh well, better out than in.
Patient readers know that if I remember a dream like that from the most recent time I slept, it logically follows that I now feel pretty goddamned crappy.
The usual. Dizziness, disorientation, lightheadedness, and a general feeling that I got squashed flat by a cartoon steamroller in my sleep and I am slowl reinflating.
That’s been happening a lot lately. At first I thought I was just getting caught up on my sleep debt, but it’s been going on for more than a week, so it must be something else.
Probably just good ol’ untreated sleep apnea. Le sigh.
Goes well with my untreated umbilical hernia. my untreated left knee cartilege damage, my semi-untreated irritable bowel syndrome, and my undertreated diabetes.
I am a pile of illness and error.
Like I have said many times over the years, the ultimate illness is one that keeps you from seeking treatment, or in my case, from executing it.
It takes something like the monster on my leg to get me to focus and take my illnesses seriously and look after myself.
You know the story. Nobody ever looked after me. So I internalized that neglect and the cold passive rage that came with it, and so I treat myself exactly how I was treated.
An image came to me recently : a dozen pairs of eyes in a ring, facing one another and pointedly refusing to turn towards reality.
They hate reality. Reality sucks.
I feel like that is what happened when I was raped. I turned inwards, becoming the passive and thoughtful person I am today, and when it comes to dealing with reality, I am looking at it in a mirror I have raised like a periscope.
And my infinite retreat had lead me to the center of all things, where I can see everything but touch nothing because it is all too far away.
So here I am, a miracle in suspension, a frozen wonder, a magical creature trapped in the diabolical amber of mental illness.
And I want out.
Or do I?
Here comes the cut.
That Strange Island
Hey, I remember what I meant to write about! Yay me!
I have been thinking more about how it can be that it’s weirdoes like me, total social outliers, who seem to have very little connection to the rest of humanity are the ones who can make the art that expresses the hidden emotions of millions and articulates what the masses have been trying to say all these years.
It seems counterintuitive. But the pattern is clear, whether we understand it or not. You don’t get a lot of epic poets, transfigurative novelists, or breathtakingly original visual artists who invent a whole new visual language who are also outgoing, friendly people who are both boisterous partiers and emotionally stable.
No, it seems to primarily be us twisted loners with serious emotional issues who end up being the ones who can make that transcendental connection.
And I strongly feel that it is our very isolation that allows this. Being “left alone”, as my less sociable cohborts would put it, allows the individual artist to continue a long inward journey towards this strange island within us where all things come together and we can tap into the zeitgeist in its purest and most unfiltered form.
Probably because I have been reading Pratchett, I can’t help but putting it all into a high fantasy metaphor. Like in some mystic kingdom there is a literal island fortress- let’s call it Zeit – and everybody knows that it is the source of the deepest wisdom and the most powerful magics but to gain entry requires years of meditation, training, and ritual purification, and so it’s only the social outcasts and other misfits who ever even try.
And this knowledge is so ingrained into everyone on the continent that when anyone wants to insult someone in a way that implies they are the scum of the earth, they say “Ah, to Zeit with you!” or “There’s a place for people like you – Zeit” or “say hello to your mother for when you see here in Zeit!” and so forth.
So Zeit acts in many ways like their version of Hell, except that everybody knows it’s a real place. That’s because everyone has, at least once in their lives, encountered someone who has made the journey to Zeit and returned.
These people, know simply as Masters, wield godlike powers and appear to be angels – or demons – to common folk.
Everyone is worried that Masters will remember how badly they were treated in their previous lives seeking revenge on those who wronged them.
And it’s been known to happen.
But far more fearsome is to be sought out and forgiven. The forgiveness of a Master is a great and powerful thing that can purify a person’s soul…. or drive them utterly mad – because it brings to the person full and permanent awareness of all their sins and crimes without any ability to justify, avade, or delude oneself.
It has turned some into holy people – blessed warriors, learned scholars, sacred healers, and preachers whose words lift the hearts of all who hear them.
It has turned others into monsters – rapacious warlords, wizards ties to dark and ancient gods, spreaders of disease and deformity, and doomsayers whose dark fortellings and twisted revelations seek to slay the hearts and souls of all who hear them.
Mostly people, however, it merely drives mad.
Well, that got dark fast.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.