Reflections on a life of high strangeness

[SlipNet]

Well, the week has rolled on and I'm still thinking and writing about my strange dream recollections from last weekend. I'm feeling pretty good having come to terms with many peculiar experiences in the past and recently too. My dreams have always been intense going back to my earliest years, so I ought to be used to them by now. I'm still drawing a blank on the Christ dream, but I haven't done any meditation yet. I really want to discover subconscious detail from this dream, it absolutely fascinates me; I'm like a dog with a bone whenever an idea fixates me, I just can't leave this one alone. I'm back to daily prayer after a fallow period, so maybe that will help. My posts above about my life during spring/summer 1988 continue to be my main focus of late. Writing ideas down is what I have to do to make progress in my understandings, my mind becomes scatty whenever I try systemic thought processes. But like I said earlier, my visual memory is very well-developed and this enables me to provoke more thoughts that would perhaps have gone un-thought otherwise. It's enriched my life, let's put it that way. I know and understand more as a man due to this particular skill.

I've covered the alien abduction/dream and the Christ dream in detail in the posts above, so now I turn my mind towards the last weirdo event from summer 1988, the Out of Body Experience I had on a hot summer night that year. The precise date escapes me, but on my memories and journal notes I'd say July time. The weather was hot for Wales, and life was good. My elder brother and I were getting on better these days after years when our age gap was a problem. I would have been 13 then, and he 18. The previous Christmas he had been given a 6ft pool table, and during this heatwave we set it up in the centre of the back garden. It was awesome playing pool on a hot summers day! I have great memories of these years. I was doing well academically, even though I found school a drag, and I had many interests to occupy my mind. Mainly I was into computers and football. Music had always been there with me as an interest, but now it was emerging as a big thing too. My brother had loads of hard rock albums and he copied most of the best stuff onto blank tapes for me. He didn't have to do this so I was very thankful. While my mates in school liked 80's pop, I had stuff by Whitesnake, Def Leppard, The Cult, ZZ Top and GnR in my collection. I was still very much a kid but strangely my tastes were mature. I was allowed to stay up as late as I cared for, and watch horror and sci-fi movies as always. My parents always trusted me and I was never really scared by movies, I just found them absorbing. Anyway this is just painting a picture of the summer of 88 and how things were weird but good.

My visual acuity helps me out big time here. It's late one hot summer night, I've put on my lime green pyjamas and I'm asleep under my Liverpool FC duvet. It's mind-blowing picturing this, because seeing it in my mind, it feels like yesterday. My memory places me by the ceiling looking down on my fast sleeping body, I can recall how I felt at the time! I was speechless for a while I can tell you. I had no idea that you could experience things like this! There were black shadowy figures up by the ceiling with me, back in those days I saw them on weird nights, I never talked about them but I saw them a few times. Apparently when children hit puberty, the tendency for odd experiences goes up. Definitely true in my case, but then I was a 13 year old with the tastes and hobbies of an 18 year old, mainly thanks to my own curiosity and a sound family. Anyway I can hear their voices in my mind as a watch my sleeping self in bed, with gawping wonder. I can't for the life of me recall what was being discussed but from that moment there was a greater spiritual awareness about me, that much is for sure. Man what a weird summer! 3 astonishing experiences in a very short period of time, and I think these all got stuffed into my subconscious for future study and analysis. My Soul Chamber, as I called it in my journals. I didn't go back to studying these memories until 2004, when I took to writing and drawing in fevered states when my schizophrenia hit home.

Being able to draw well was an amazing act of mercy by the cosmos, because when allied with my acute visual memory it becomes a very powerful skill indeed! My journals are interspersed with little illustrations. I draw in ink too, which means you need a subtle hand, you cannot afford any mistakes. I was an A grader in art in school, all my mates assumed that that's what I was going to do when I left school, but fate had other plans. English and Sociology took over as my A grade subjects by the time I was 18. but getting back to the art skills, I tell you it's brilliant being able to depict my memories in such vivid detail. I have dozens of drawings on these recollections, and I still keep my hand in and new picture ideas are fairly regular. This week I'm planning on meditating on the summer of 1988, will sure be interesting if I can discover fresh details.

I've made a few discoveries while ruminating on my writings on this subject of late.

1 I was kind of a strange kid, watching adult content by the age of 7.
2 I am a soul. And I will forever thank God for that.
3 Never underestimate the power of art in one's spiritual arsenal.
4 Sport is good for the soul as well as the body, I'd have gone crazy without it as an outlet.
5 By the age of 13, I was convinced that aliens were real, but I told no-one.
6 Christ was real, and with this in my faith I felt reassured.
7 The C's quote that "You are not bodies, you are Souls" is now a given to me.
8 Video games were more innovative in the 80's lol!

And on that mirthful note, I'm off to do some drawing while listening to some rock n' roll. Thanks for reading, after I've had a meditation session I hope to have made some fresh discoveries, I'm convinced I've only scratched the surface of what's knowable.

 

[SlipNet]

One last thing which nags at me. This idea I have in my journals as my Soul Chamber. I've described it as a kind of Pandora's Box of weird unexplained experiences, and ideas have a tendency to tumble out and into my conscious recall on the odd occasion. But this is the kicker; it chooses to reveal something, I'm the receiver in this process. I cannot will these recollections, I only wait patiently for the next reveal. That's why I'm frustrated at my current inability to recall details from these last 3 dreams/experiences. In my mind I know that there are more memories for me to recover, but I'm currently struggling to break through. I'll keep persevering because that's just how I am as a person, but it's really nagging at me now I've made it this far. It's like I've been watching a really excellent movie with the sound muted, lol! I can see it's a really good movie, but I can't discern what's being said and done. Very frustrating! I have to make myself amenable to receive further information, perhaps I'm just not ready to receive at the moment for whatever reason.

Anyway, it's made for a very absorbing week so far. I'm back writing and drawing so that's gotta be a good thing.

 

[Tuatha de Danaan]

One last thing which nags at me.

Super interesting reads SlipNet but remember.....no anticipation!!!!!

 

[SlipNet]

Super interesting reads SlipNet but remember.....no anticipation!!!!!

Absolutely, you cannot force these types of things. The best way forward is to just continue the sound self-maintenance that's become habitual for me since around 2019. Losing my elder brother to cancer in 2018 had a massive impact on me, I've taken life more seriously since then.

If I really need to know more then I'm sure the DCM will give me a little nudge in that direction I suppose. All in a subtle way. It has been a very interesting process logging all these experiences down though. I come away feeling like I've made the effort and learned a thing or two on the way. If there's any more to learn then I will be ready and waiting, hopefully with a notebook handy.

 

[SlipNet]

I apologise in advance for the enlarged preamble I'm about to commit to print, but I felt that my context needed to be provided for what I'm eventually going to record. It makes sense of a good decade's worth of journal entries and loads of memories too. i also want to make this thread educational in terms of stressing the importance of actually keeping a journal. If one person takes up journalling because of this thread, then it has been worth it. It has tied my life together wonderfully, and I dread to think where I'd be without it.

Going over my journal entries is a very enjoyable enterprise. I've covered the period of 1974-2023 over 3 pages in this thread so far, and I have chosen to do "deep dives" into the most psychologically interesting experiences. What stands out most of all is that there were peaks of weird activity in the years 1988 and 2004. In the years 1989-2003 things went almost totally quiet. No weird stuff, no bad dreams, and these were largely speaking my most formative years. Graduating from high school was a funny one, that was way back in 1991. I was a lazy sod to be fair, even though I was bright enough for a working class lad, I can't say I worked hard. Always in life I have in the back of my mind that nagging thought that I could have done more.

I did good coursework but was very lethargic in swotting for my final exams. I'd leave it to the last possible moment, then I'd try to cram 2 years' worth of knowledge into a night's worth of revision. A terrible strategy and I was proportionately punished when I got my exam results. I dropped from being an A grade student to a C grade student when the results came in. I sighed and prepared for my next venture, doing my A levels in 1991-93. I'd got through school by the skin of my teeth, now I'd have to work a bit harder to continue to make progress. I took Art and English as A levels, then I took 2 more A levels in 1994 for an extra year of schooling (sociology and art history). The plan was to pass 4 A levels and go to University. I was cheeky, sensitive, and always curious, to the point of being nosy. Most of my friends had left Wales to go University in autumn 93, so my final year in Wales back then was a bit lonesome I suppose.

My life was intense, very concentrated and always busy. I was always up to stuff, and art, music and movies were a constant in my life. My interest in ghosts and the paranormal, which was potent when I was about 7-10, had abated big time. I watched less horror movies, but I was watching old Polish and Swedish films with subtitles on BBC2. I took an interest in politics thanks to having a brilliant sociology lecturer. He pushed me to challenge what was possible. I was having no weird dreams, nothing spooky in the years 1990-1994. Then following passing my A levels (I aced my sociology exam with an A), I was accepted by Westminster University, so off I went to London for 4 years, studying English and Politics.

Between 1994-98 I grew up considerably. I stopped playing video games, read loads of books on many subjects (though my fave were philosophy and Romanticism), watched Martin Scorcese movies, and discovered loads of music from the 60's and 70's, it became my chief hobby in fact. My brother had given me the rock n' roll bug back in 1983 when he got me into David Bowie and Adam and the Ants, now I was listening to The Doors, The Stones, Led Zeppelin and countless others. I spent a long amount of time becoming well acquainted with Soho pubs, and this was just a wonderful time for soul growth. I was just out of my teens and living in Westminster! The man who owned a mansion next door to our Halls of Residence in 1994-95 was Conservative MP Michael Portillo. He often complained about loud music in our Halls, lol! No weird happenings during these days, but just to show off a bit I'd wear alien themed t-shirts often, and of course since autumn 94 I was an avid viewer of The X-Files on TV. But no weird dreams, I suppose life was hectic enough anyway.

It was truly, for a rural Welsh kid, a seismic shift in lifestyle options. I threw myself into city life full-on, and I again had loads of fun while studying sporadically. My coursework was uneven. I was strong on poetry, political science and philosophy, but I was struggling on Shakespeare and literary theory. I had to re-do a module in 1996 in 1 month. Man, that was very hard work for me. I needed to get 50% in my final essay to pass the year. I got 52%, so again I got through by the skin of my teeth. In 1996, I also had a falling out with my (at the time) flatmates. Actually I was the intermediary, the other two flatmates were at loggerheads with each other. Two very intelligent lads with fierce egos. We had brilliant times together, but now it had turned ugly between them.

They actually had a physical fight one afternoon. I came home from Uni to find them both silent in their rooms, saying they;ll "never speak to (name redacted) again!". I tried to patch things up between them, but they were both very hot-headed, and to this day they have never spoken to one another again. I never found out what they fell out over either. So, to clear my head (and steer clear of the booze for a while so I could actually, you know, study), I moved into an old bedsit run by a lovely old Jewish woman in north London for my final year as an undergraduate. Whenever things get rough for me I tend to move inwards to protect the self. I could sense myself going off the rails, so I retreated into solitude and got back into reading. The last few weeks of my degree were the most intensive times of sheer hard graft that I've ever experienced in my life, a real and genuine challenge. I wrote my dissertation in 4 weeks, and paid a mate of mine to type it up for me because I didn't have a computer at this time. I paid him back by taking him to the Brixton Academy for an all night rave, it was superb. I also got back into drawing and keeping a journal. Always with me, when times get tough I turn to the oldest skills in the book, and they've never let me down.

I graduated Uni in 1997, and stayed in London till mid 98 studying teaching as a PGCE post-graduate student. By this time I was at Brunel University, and living in Richmond in Surrey, a lovely, classy place south of London. Anyway, for the year 98-99 I taught in 3 London schools, after which I decided I was sick of education and just wanted to cut loose. Between 1978-1999 all my life was study and education of some sort. I was burned-out and sick of it all, and I wanted a change. In 1999 I left London for a return to the family home, back in west Wales, where I was always welcome. Bless their hearts, I love my family dearly. It took me a few months to get back used to a slower pace of life, but I played video games with my younger brother, went out and got pissed-up drunk with my elder brother whenever he was around, and basically chilled out for 3 months. Then my mind got itchy again, I was in danger of stagnating.

I went back to art and started drawing again. I went back to my journals and started writing sophomoric poetry, pretty good stuff actually. Some of it was published in anthologies in 2007/8/9. I kept a journal on a semi-regular basis between 1994 and 2003. I always kept that secret place just for me, a secret inner world where I was master. Despite being an inherently social creature, I have absolutely no problem with being on my own, solitude and me get on just fine. As mentioned on page 1, I tended to work basic jobs in retail or catering for 6 months, then I'd live frugally and save cash, then jack the job in and just relax or party instead. It was a cool plan, it gave me a necessary balance between work and pleasure, not to mention exploration. My reading in 1998 turned to Oliver Stone's film about JFK. I was absorbed by what I found, and this started me on a life of challenging orthodoxy. The pattern of my life was seemingly set out for me, and the basic tone of my attitude was "Screw you suckers on the vine, I'm gonna live life on my terms, and no-one is gonna get in my way!". As a plan, it worked out well, for a while at least!

In these years I amassed a large collection of books and CD's, most of which I own to this day. I had a long-term girlfriend from 1998-2004, and we basically got shacked-up together in around 2000 in Hampshire in England. Life just kind of threw us together, and we said yes to the crazy trip. It was a very close and passionate relationship, and I really loved her, we were very committed to one another. We'd go to music festivals, parties and the cinema regularly, what a great time it was. It was a very enjoyable period in my life, and my first serious relationship. She was a bit younger than me, so I kinda took her under my wing and got her into reading Russian literature and all kinds of music from the classic era. I'm still friends with her today, a very sensitive and intelligent woman, I learned loads from her (she was a music graduate). Anyway, that was a big preamble, now let's get back down to the return of the weird stuff. I hope the reader understands I use my life story as a way of contextualising the weird events. My experiences are the tools that shaped my life after all.

It's been interesting in particular to note that between 1989-2003 my life was not haunted by the ether in any way. By 2002 my girlfriend and I had moved to Bournemouth on the south coast of England. It's habitually known as "God's Waiting Room" by the locals due to the sheer amount of rich elderly retired folk who live there, lol. We moved there just for the hell of it on the spur of the moment. I was annoyed at the timing of the move however, because it interfered with my enjoyment of the 2002 Football World Cup! I was still pulling my usual scheme for these days, a 50/50 work/fun split, living frugally when working then cutting loose and partying. I was a social drinker, mainly wine in these years. I also smoked weed fairly regularly, as did my girlfriend. We found a very cute one bedroom apartment, and it was near the town centre and most crucially it was cheap. We did the maths and knew we could live there and still have fun in our spare time, a very big consideration when you're 20-somethings just emerging into adult life. So we signed a 2 year agreement and moved in.

We had just lived through 9-11 of course, and I was always on the web searching for answers back then. We first came online back in 2000 when we bought a PC, and I was becoming a competent researcher of alternative ideas on the net. David icke, Jeff Rense, Art Bell, Henry Makov, Bill Cooper, they all came and went. I wanted the truth and I was not going to quit until I knew it. I was still reading a lot, and I was writing a fair bit these days as well. It was a febrile time, the push for war was relentless, Iraq was on the horizon. By this time I absolutely despised Tony Blair and the fake-ass Labour Government. they were just red Tories, and I knew it. But a very strange thing happened when I was on Icke's website one day. It was an article on Lizard Beings and UFOs. Another seismic shift in my consciousness was upon me. Immediately my mind went back to when I watched the V mini-series as a kid. Aliens! Well now, I'd forgotten all about those weird old buggers! I got back into watching the X-Files and reading up on unexplained phenomena. Between 2001-03 I must have spent hours and hours just searching for data, and always I came up short. but then I found Tom Montalk, and he was raving about these guys called the Cassiopaeans! In the super-hot summer of 2003 I finally found a link on Montalk's website to the Cassiopaea.org website, and I just dove head first into reading every instalment of The Wave. This was an incredible summer. I was young, in love with a wonderful woman, living well despite not being rich, and finally my relentlessness had paid off big-time, finding Laura's work. But the truth proved to be very sobering stuff indeed.

Ever the one for my secrets, I didn't share my interest in UFOs with my girlfriend. but one day I fished for info from her in casual chatter one night, and she told me that she saw a Black Triangle in west Wales back in the early 90s. I was impressed and I was starting to recall all those weird experiences I'd stored up going through life. When I was 13 I believed in Jesus (but no religion), and I believed aliens were real. By the time I reached 28, I still believed in Jesus, but for aliens I needed hard data. And experience. I hadn't recalled the old alien dream from 1988 yet! I hadn't put all the pieces together yet, so I was like a lost explorer for a while back then. It was like I'd spend all evening learning all I can, then I'd get stoned, fall asleep and wake up feeling like a blank slate again. It was so frustrating, I couldn't figure out why I was making so little progress in my understandings. Even now I'm never totally non-booze, I still have my moments. But back then I did my fair share of the mild stuff. then I went off the edge one autumn night in 2003. I was online in my bedroom reading The Wave, when I had the sudden need to go pee. I was reading a particularly good section and I didn't want to take my attention from the text, so I jostled in my seat for a while, like you do when you know you need to go. Anyway, the need to pee won, so I sighed and went to our bathroom, and I relieved myself in a perfunctory fashion. then the weirdest thing I'd experienced thus far happened. The mystery of the bathroom door!

I flushed the loo and turned to wash my hands. I gazed in the mirror, I look ok, a bit sleepy, "it's getting late I guess, the girlfriend won't be home from work for hours. god The wave is gripping isn't it?" I was keen to get back to the PC and continue reading. I dry my hands and slam the bathroom door shut behind me, when I feel the spookiest thing I'd ever known! A mega-heavy thud, I felt it as I shut that door! Something was on the other side of that door, I could feel it. You may scoff and say this is crazy talk, go right ahead, I'll hear you out. But you won't change my mind, because I felt it. The weight, there was something on the other side, I know it. I could feel every hair on my neck stand up straight, I've never been so spooked by something in my whole life. My reaction was classic me. I rolled a massive you-know-what and sat cross-legged in the hallway of our flat, gazing at the moon out of the window. I sat there for about 3 hours, slowly smoking and occasionally just saying to myself "Holy Shit! What was on the other side of that door? That felt VERY HEAVY!!!!!" Me and weird are old friends, we know each other all too well, but life often has the capacity to surprise you in the most unorthodox ways. I sat largely motionless for about 3 and a half hours in that hallway, gazing at a cold glowing moon in an uncaring sky. And I felt naked, afraid, and VERY confused! Eventually I went into the living room and put on the TV News for the Iraq latest in parliament that day. I was well-rattled, as they often say.

It's on my Bucket List of questions to the DCM when I next get to 5d! What was on the other side of that door that night? I will keep digging into that mystery till the day I die. It was real, it happened, There was an alien that had malfunctioned on the other side of that door. So there, my theory is in the ring. I've said it. But I can prove nothing, because for those 3 and a half hours I was too chicken to go back and re-open the bathroom door. I was too scared, I couldn't do it. About 12.30am my girlfriend rolls up, she's just finished a late shift at the restaurant she worked at. We embrace warmly, I've never been so pleased to see another person in my life. And, once again, I keep a secret for me to figure out later, just note it in the journal for posterity. i tell her I've been getting stoned and watching TV, when in reality I've been reading The Wave, and feeling the weight of an alien behind the bathroom door. We humans can become sorry little piles of secrets if we're not careful. We chatted in an animated fashion and smoked for a couple of hours then turned in for the night. It began well, turned real freakin' weird, then got good again! Phew! And I lived to tell the tale, probably what stopped me from opening the bathroom door was prudence, not cowardice? Such a shame to go completely insane over a mere "moment"? Lots to ponder here so I think I'll end with a golden quote.

"Lord grant me the wisdom to know the secret workings of the grand firmament!". I forget which book had that in, I'll have to go check a few for sure.

Oh, and by the way, before it was time for bed, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I slowly but confidently opened the door. There was nothing there. Ain't it always the way with mysterious doings, there's always something more plausible you could make of it? But for me I kinda live for those wow moments of weirdness. They keep me on my toes. Sorry for the rambling post, I'll l try and be more succinct in future. There's only really a couple more notes in my journals that I haven't covered that I think are noteworthy. thanks for reading, and watch how you slam those doors!

 

[SlipNet]

It's a hot sunny day and I'm taking refuge in my study, collecting my main thoughts on the 3 pages of journal work I've noted here on this thread. Over a 49 year period I've logged all the weird stuff that's hard to explain. It's made my understandings undergo subtle changes, I understand my younger selves better as a result of poring over the pertinent info. As has been noted above though, I cannot force the issue in terms of what happens next, so I've kinda fallen back into a more rustic view of life. Read a little, sit in the garden sometimes, go for country walks. Those mercurial Karmic and Simple Understandings settle back in my mind then. I realise that I've been interfered with for the best part of half a century, though I have no proof I do have much visual recall and strong data from memory. I've also come back from the brink of an abject state of schizophrenia, particularly in the years 2004-2016. My last set of journal notes will cover those years but that's too arduous a task for me at the moment, maybe later in the month. My writings capture a fragmented soul in those years.

It took a trial n' error process which grew more pragmatic with time. Eventually my efforts at a balanced, healing process emerged to my benefit. I kept writing and threw myself back into art as well, with variable results. Then I began typing up my short stories, which is plodding along in the background. Revisiting old memories from 2003 and even 1988 has been mind-blowing for me this last few weeks. Thanks to my acute visual recall, I can throw myself back into an intuitive response to these events. I'm fast approaching 50, a milestone I never thought I'd reach. I never saw myself making it past 2012, I was a bit linear in my thinking and I was impatient for The Wave. I've learned over the years that patience is indeed a virtue, and it also buys one some time to work on oneself further. Very important in my case because seeing a UFO in 2004 sent my life into a tailspin. I will write in depth about those events but I'm not quite ready for the intensity of it yet. It remains an act of mercy by the cosmos to grant us these few years of preparation time, for more work where needed.

So I'll complete my journal entries in depth later on, and for now I think I have taken stock of events fairly well so far. I'm left with mixed emotions reading back over this thread. I've witnessed some very weird stuff, and I'm still here, alive to tell the tale. I have vintage writings, illustrations and sculpture that spans a 30 year period, and the value of all this is considerable. I like myself more for the journey I've taken, I understand why I was a boozer, why I was a pothead, why I was a conspiracy researcher, etc. At different periods in my life, I've had different buffers which kept me comfortable. First sport, then computers, then books, then music. All of these played their roles in restoring my sanity these last 8 years or so. Despite being very sociable, I also suffered from anxiety, and so I naturally found that being chemically-enhanced opened more doors for me. So add red wine and weed to my list of safety cushions in my life. Despite being a very unconventional person in many respects, I also had those elements of hippy cliche about me too. When I worked to understand my 20-something self I made much progress in life. I could heal rifts with ease then, and I became more unified, not to mention loquacious. It was a gradual process of healing and understanding, and forgiveness too. It was necessary to go through and I emerged a stronger, more merciful man for having gone through it.

I still don't suffer fools gladly, though I'm quite the fool still myself, but I maintain a strategic enclosure far better now. I haven't managed to wean myself off my medication yet though, I still take 15mg Olanzapine every night to sleep. It feels like a valium, hits home after about 40 mins with me now. I don't feel ready to come off the meds yet. I continue to write, and I have a few ideas for new pictures also, so I'm keeping busy. I feel closer to normality than at any time in the last 20 years. Not the same as before, different, and slightly better in subtle ways. A bit wiser for the journey, and more understanding of others as a consequence. I still foresee a social split emerging, based on polarisation on the UFO topic. I think it's inevitable, and I don't feel sad about it, it has to happen ultimately. Let people learn at their own pace, free will and all that. But also one must acknowledge that which is objective and true, well that ought to be the goal of any sane-minded civilisation. It is that form of disclosure that I am working for. And we're a long way from that at the moment. But we've been warned of fits and starts of info leakage, plenty to come for sure. My hope is that more people come to question more orthodoxy, that would be a start for me. I don't see much of it where I live I can tell you, but hope remains.

It's really been worthwhile putting this thread together, it's got my brain working in new ways which are becoming reflex now. Very encouraging. Keep a journal for soul growth, that's the only piece of advice I'd give anyone who reads this. Onwards and always upwards! And don't let the bastards grind you down!

 

[SlipNet]

A few points I've gathered from revisiting my journals from 1994-2023. Next year will be my 30th Anniversary of keeping one, a real milestone. 30 years of interesting data and info, with the bonus of ink illustrations and some okay poetry. If it wasn't for my journals I'd be a raggedy old thing hanging out on the breeze, all life lessons have come to me this way. These are just a few general understandings I've gathered from doing this thread.


1 The concept of the Soul is a spiritual marvel to me. I continually feel gratitude to the DCM for being given this opportunity to live, learn and grow. And Childhood should be Sacrosanct in our culture, not subverted.
2 Existence is triple in exposition, You are what you know, what you do, and what you believe.
3 All these 3 facets of existence can be developed at will. And thank God for that.
4 The 7 Density Cosmic Theory is a very good baseline and framework for developing Knowledge and Being. Again something to be extremely grateful for.
5 Emotional development and refinement is essential to good spiritual progress. This will vary in quality in each of us, depending on our own peculiar traits of Knowledge/Being. Continual good habits, work etc can obviously do no harm.
6 Maintaining good physical health is also essential. Look after the vessel well. You'll be grateful when you're older.
7 Work and Study can be intense, find and maintain good outlets for rest and amusement.
8 Find and develop what you're good at, and try not to worry about where you're weak. A time will come where you work on these areas too, but patience is always a virtue. Don't force the issue, it will only cause frustration.
9 A Fine Romance is also good for the soul, but again it cannot be forced. True Love blows through us like a breeze.
10 Art is another crucial element to life. It combines work, rest, activity and pleasure, if you develop a good taste for these things. Again this is a continually moving process, and is to be enjoyed. Travel well!
11 The Brain is a Muscle! As with all good muscles, they manifest and work well when they are exercised. Keep good intellectual/emotional hygiene to ensure smooth progress. Higher Emotional/Intellectual Being is True Spirituality. What else could it be?
12 Keeping a good Strategic Enclosure is a vital part of one's spiritual arsenal. Mistakes will be made inevitably, but work hard on learning your lessons well. Again, as with all the good things in life, this is an ongoing and ever changing process.
13 Be Understanding and Merciful with others. Understand that we are each of us an aggregate of our own individual experiences and understandings, and we deserve to be treated well as we reserve the right to live and learn at our own individual pace. I was arrogant at times in the past, and learned eventually to keep quiet and listen more to others.
14 My Family is my Rock, the essential foundation upon which everything is built. Nothing means more to me. Plus I also inherited my nosiness from my family tree, one of my chief life skills. I'm not even joking there either.
15 Being able to network on this Forum is one of the great boons of 3d STS living. I learn something new reading on here every day. I'd rank this Forum as being in my top 10 discoveries in life easily.
16 Maintain a solid and humble connection to the DCM through sound conduct and regular prayer. I've learned the hard way the value of good spiritual practises. I was never an Atheist, but I was lethargic and spiritually complacent. This is a vital and underrated aspect of our knowledge/being. I've recently revised my understanding of the White Light/Silver Cord, and realised that I was slipping from my Aim a little. Again, an ongoing process.
17 You never know when your time is up, so be decent and kind to those you interact with each and every day. Life is rich with meaning, and we want to enjoy learning our lessons, not wincing at our mistakes. It feels good to be good, so why be anything different?
18 Staying Awake and Aware becomes easier with practice. As a seeker since 1998 reading on JFK, I think I've paid my dues in terms of effort and understanding. If you're reading this on here and you're a newbie to all this, don't worry and hang in there. Do what comes easy to you first, and you'll develop from a solid foundation. From here you can develop your Knowledge/Being from a sound and robust base. You have to be patient, because some things in life take effort, experience and time. As a 48 year old I marvel at how much I've changed over the years, the journals are evidence of this. Keep a journal, my only advice to anyone in life.
19 Pay attention to your dreams. You can learn and discover plenty. Write them down for posterity if you can. I've got dreams logged on this thread which span over 40 years. I'm like an elephant for remembering things. Again a handy life skill, which can be developed.
20 We are Souls living through an age of great trauma and transformation. It is down to us how we face the challenges of the present and the future, which as ever is open. Stay well informed and never be afraid to ask a basic question. A good mind will never chide you for your ignorance, we've all been there.


Just a few thoughts which consolidate my journal reading from this last few weeks. Next week I'll begin looking at the 2004-16 period, when my mental health was at it's worst. Life was variable and manic, and I suffered and enjoyed in equal measure. I was still young enough to have fun, but I was becoming wiser from my reading during these years. It took me until 2018 to truly turn the old ship around and orient myself properly. But that's a story for another day.

 

[SlipNet]

1 The concept of the Soul is a spiritual marvel to me. I continually feel gratitude to the DCM for being given this opportunity to live, learn and grow. And Childhood should be Sacrosanct in our culture, not subverted.
2 Existence is triple in exposition, You are what you know, what you do, and what you believe.
3 All these 3 facets of existence can be developed at will. And thank God for that.
4 The 7 Density Cosmic Theory is a very good baseline and framework for developing Knowledge and Being. Again something to be extremely grateful for.
5 Emotional development and refinement is essential to good spiritual progress. This will vary in quality in each of us, depending on our own peculiar traits of Knowledge/Being. Continual good habits, work etc can obviously do no harm.
6 Maintaining good physical health is also essential. Look after the vessel well. You'll be grateful when you're older.
7 Work and Study can be intense, find and maintain good outlets for rest and amusement.
8 Find and develop what you're good at, and try not to worry about where you're weak. A time will come where you work on these areas too, but patience is always a virtue. Don't force the issue, it will only cause frustration.
9 A Fine Romance is also good for the soul, but again it cannot be forced. True Love blows through us like a breeze.
10 Art is another crucial element to life. It combines work, rest, activity and pleasure, if you develop a good taste for these things. Again this is a continually moving process, and is to be enjoyed. Travel well!
11 The Brain is a Muscle! As with all good muscles, they manifest and work well when they are exercised. Keep good intellectual/emotional hygiene to ensure smooth progress. Higher Emotional/Intellectual Being is True Spirituality. What else could it be?
12 Keeping a good Strategic Enclosure is a vital part of one's spiritual arsenal. Mistakes will be made inevitably, but work hard on learning your lessons well. Again, as with all the good things in life, this is an ongoing and ever changing process.
13 Be Understanding and Merciful with others. Understand that we are each of us an aggregate of our own individual experiences and understandings, and we deserve to be treated well as we reserve the right to live and learn at our own individual pace. I was arrogant at times in the past, and learned eventually to keep quiet and listen more to others.
14 My Family is my Rock, the essential foundation upon which everything is built. Nothing means more to me. Plus I also inherited my nosiness from my family tree, one of my chief life skills. I'm not even joking there either.
15 Being able to network on this Forum is one of the great boons of 3d STS living. I learn something new reading on here every day. I'd rank this Forum as being in my top 10 discoveries in life easily.
16 Maintain a solid and humble connection to the DCM through sound conduct and regular prayer. I've learned the hard way the value of good spiritual practises. I was never an Atheist, but I was lethargic and spiritually complacent. This is a vital and underrated aspect of our knowledge/being. I've recently revised my understanding of the White Light/Silver Cord, and realised that I was slipping from my Aim a little. Again, an ongoing process.
17 You never know when your time is up, so be decent and kind to those you interact with each and every day. Life is rich with meaning, and we want to enjoy learning our lessons, not wincing at our mistakes. It feels good to be good, so why be anything different?
18 Staying Awake and Aware becomes easier with practice. As a seeker since 1998 reading on JFK, I think I've paid my dues in terms of effort and understanding. If you're reading this on here and you're a newbie to all this, don't worry and hang in there. Do what comes easy to you first, and you'll develop from a solid foundation. From here you can develop your Knowledge/Being from a sound and robust base. You have to be patient, because some things in life take effort, experience and time. As a 48 year old I marvel at how much I've changed over the years, the journals are evidence of this. Keep a journal, my only advice to anyone in life.
19 Pay attention to your dreams. You can learn and discover plenty. Write them down for posterity if you can. I've got dreams logged on this thread which span over 40 years. I'm like an elephant for remembering things. Again a handy life skill, which can be developed.
20 We are Souls living through an age of great trauma and transformation. It is down to us how we face the challenges of the present and the future, which as ever is open. Stay well informed and never be afraid to ask a basic question. A good mind will never chide you for your ignorance, we've all been there.

Just wanted to add, this list can be used by me as a kinda personal Karmic & Simple Healthcheck Questionnaire, so I can continually go back over it and find out where I currently stand in my understandings. So many of the points on there reflect ongoing processes, so it will always be a list of contemporary personal value. It's useful for me to consolidate things in one place on here where I can take stock and figure things out. Kinda like a Knowledge/Being 101 section to measure progress. If anyone has any pertinent observations to add to that 20 point list, then I'm all ears for responses and suggestions. As I don't see a psychiatrist any longer, it's become like a good form of therapy to create a form of spiritual diary on here. It's an intellectual exercise that I devised many years before I'd heard of Jordan Peterson and his Past Authoring Project. I've learned a lot about myself in doing this work, on getting things logically laid out for analysis and reflection, and in presenting very personal old notes, and revising them then in presentation so they can be easily understood by others. And thus I'm using different parts of my brain in this process, and developing a more detached perspective on very subjective memories, impressions and experiences. A very useful development, for which I can largely thank my acute visual memory aided by my inherent curiosity. Having a good, general kind of memory has obviously been very useful as well. I certainly don't think that's ever been light on the ground on this Forum either! We have an international confederation of Elephants on here. Ultimately, I think I've found that true understanding has come from patience, experience and forgiveness.

It will be interesting to see where I'm at once I've finished this little personal project, just what will I learn in what's to come? And what will I do then? Does it matter? Well, to me it matters a LOT. I cannot overstate how much progress I've made since re-joining the Forum in late 2017. I've begun to take life way more seriously and value knowledge far more than in my younger days. Things were a little vague and jumbled before, I couldn't express myself clearly, and often I lacked confidence in my reasoning, and my convictions. Now I know more, but I say less, I'm more comfortable listening to others these days, same with reading. That way I've found I learn more. I still enjoy writing, and this has become an energising project, but I learn more from others these days.

In closing my thoughts for the moment, I suppose I see a lot of Specialists in the world today, but not many Polymaths, and it's the latter kind that we need more of most today, to keep abreast of all pertinent developments in all the fields of interest. Obviously this requires the kind of savoir-fair that I'm lacking at the moment. I'm certainly no Polymath, but I'm intuitively wise enough to see the value of them in the world emerging today, and they will certainly be very useful in the reality of the future. So, keen reader: If you consider yourself wise and flexible enough to grow in multiple areas of expertise, then all I can say is GO FOR IT! As a culture we need you guys as much as we ever did. In closing I think my learning from this enterprise has been of value in multiple fields, be they psychology, 4d info, religion, politics etc. That is for sure. Now comes the effort at cultivating my understandings from these developments. Work that should keep me busy for the cold winter months to come, as I've tended to be a bit slow in making general understandings. It's taken me nearly 50 years to reach this 20 point list, it will be interesting to see what comes next from here.

 

[SlipNet]

Now comes the effort at cultivating my understandings from these developments. Work that should keep me busy for the cold winter months to come, as I've tended to be a bit slow in making general understandings. It's taken me nearly 50 years to reach this 20 point list, it will be interesting to see what comes next from here.

Amazing how much time has passed before I find the will to provide a report on how my efforts have been going. I still don't quite have the will to cover "The Abject Schizo Years 2004-18" but I will make note of the recent recovery of another wierdo dream I had back in 1996. I always believed the years 1994-2004 to be a very quiet period in my life re- weirdness but I do now have the fresh memory of this particular dream. I found it very stirring at the time, and immediately made mental and written note of it too.

It was the summer of 1996, and I was back at home in Pembrokeshire for the summer, before heading back to London for my final undergrad year of work. At this point I was an amiable dullard with a penchant for lager. I was a tad complacent, and the time spent reading "the hard stuff" (eg- Nietzsche, Schopenhauer) was not yet yielding any fruits in terms of solid understandings. This came way later in life for me, as a 40-something those old arguments began to click into place. Very often in my life I've needed the patience of Job to make decent headway in my knowledge/being process. I plotted how I began my modern initiative to learn all that I can when I'm fully engaged with both the subject and the process of discovery. That process began with me 2 years later, reading a feature length interview and article on Oliver Stone and his movie JFK. That summer in 1998 was mind-blowing. that's what lit the flame for me, reading about the most blatant murder of the 20th Century.

But two years prior to this in 1996 is where my weird dream comes in. It came back to me in the usual way; just tumbles out of Pandora's Box and into conscious recall. After focusing on the war in Gaza all winter long, it's nice to have a wee jolt of fresh life memories coming to the surface once again. I feel like a little "i" within me has yawned, then said "I think I have some things you ought to know!". Naturally I'm all ears for the juicy visual recall in my mind to kick in then so I can make mental notes in vivid black ink. Looking back, I think this one was stashed away in the old sub-conscious for about 28 years for a reason. It's a bit of a strange one. The beginning of this dream continues to elude me, but as it unfolds into an abrupt conclusion is certainly noteworthy. I am my 21 year old self in the dream, moving around a futuristic mansion of some type. I gaze at the many portraits on the hallway walls, and enjoy sampling the ambience of many rooms. How I got here god knows, but that's where my memory of this dream starts off, then it gets weird. I find myself in two adjacent rooms, one an observatory, and the other an abstract vanity room is how I'd describe it. The observatory is all red and gold furnishing, the night sky is clear and many stars are visible to the naked eye. But there is also a powerful telescope here in this room too. I am completely alone in the dream, I see no-one else as the dream unfolds. Basically for about what felt like an hour or so, I've managed to ramble through this ancient house and find the 2 most interesting places in the whole joint. This is where the action is!

I gaze at the cool night sky from a golden dome overhanging the observatory. The moon is powder blue in a calm sky. Then I hear a noise coming from the adjacent room, the vanity room. Strange how these 2 rooms were the ones that interested me most! Unlike many I don't dislike introspection, in actual fact I gratefully embrace it. I enjoy seeing the opulent surroundings in this dream, it feels like it's a set from a classy 60s movie. In the dream I head to a golden door with a red handle. This leads to what I call the vanity room, because in there you face what you do not expect. This is what I've managed to gather from about 4 hours of dream recall work I've done today. Inside that room is the great unknown, but in the dream I have no fear. I hear a sound coming from inside the room so motion to the door and open and enter and face the noise face on. Then I see it. A large, about 20 feet oval mirror. And the reflection is made of liquid for some reason, and it can alter images at will at any point! This room certainly flummoxed me at the time 'cos it's taken me until 2024 to even attempt to write about it! In the dream I close the golden door behind me, and stand in this dark green, dank looking room with an enormous mirror in it. The lights in the corner of the room are muted but tasteful. The mirror of course is the main feature, my hour of dream-roaming in this great mansion has finally led me to this final destination, or so it seems! I approach the mirror with a fool's confidence, naivety can be very intrepid on occasions. I see myself in many shades and poses as the mirror does its liquid stuff, just forming and reforming images constantly. It's all very entertaining but at this point I have no idea where this dream is headed. Soon I do however.

I begin to hear a voice coming from within the liquid reflection, addressing me by name. He claims to be my friend. Naively, this appears to please me. The voice beckons me to step closer to the mirror, and I do as asked. Recalling this dream I'm constantly wondering "why do that? That's so naive! Stupid boy", my younger self had a lot to learn. By this point I'm immediately in front of this 20ft liquid mirror in a dark green room. I see an image of a shadow, a humanoid shadow within the mirror. It is talking to me. It says that we are old friends from beyond space and time, And that in learning new lessons let's embark on this journey together? It would seem that was direction the dream took. I stress that this was 1996 after all. I'd had many strange experiences by this point, but they weren't conscious knowledge by this point. So that explains my naivety in wanting to befriend a faceless shadowy humanoid in a liquid mirror! This is a really haunting dream. The room smells damp, and it's all dark green, save for this enormous liquid mirror! What an odd dream!

I hear the voice one more time, beckoning me closer to the mirror. The humanoid is big, about 8-9ft I guess, way bigger than me. I'm about 5ft 10in as it happens. For some reason in the dream I feel no trepidation with regards to these events and acts on my part! To my 49 year old mind this is a nightmare unfolding and a dangerous situation that needs to be carefully defused. Not wandered into willy-nilly with all the kind of insouciance that came with mid 90s anomie, A fool I was that night I had that dream for sure. So that has meant I've had to update my alien weirdo dream list. I had one in 1988, 2004, and also in 1996. So every 8 years I get a very powerful alien dream/experience. The plot thickens. Any way the dream gets spookier from this point; I'm marvelling at the beauty of the liquid mirror and I put my fingers into it to stir its reflection a little. Then it kinda ripples a little and the humanoid shadow is right before me now. he says to me that we should shake hands, and I agree! What an idiotic thing to do in a dream like this! It's actually a very tough dream to come to terms with for me, because every step of the way I do the wrong thing at each crucial juncture. As usual with me, good production values but not exactly cosmic wisdom is it? Why oh why did I think it was a good idea to place my hand within a liquid mirror to shake hands with an 8ft tall Alien Hominid? Maybe my years spent frequenting Soho pubs in 1994-96 had made me a tad credulous in new company? I dunno, but I sure know that I'd handle myself VERY differently if faced with a similar scenario today!

So, like a fool, I place my forearm fully into the liquid mirror, and I feel a strong clasp from within the other side. It's the humanoid. I begin now to withdraw my arm from the mirror, but the hand of the humanoid won't let me! He's clasping me tightly as I try to pull my arm from the liquid. Strangely there's no sense of physical struggle going on. It's just the energy of 2 competing spirits doing battle on a spiritual plane. Even now I wasn't scared. Anyway, I continue to withdraw my arm and the hand of the humanoid assents and lets my hand go slightly, so I'm looser. He doesn't completely let me go however. My hand and arm emerge from the liquid mirror, and a scaly reptilian hand is then suddenly seen by me, still gripping my right hand! At that point I cried out, awoke from the dream, and wrote a couple of paragraphs about it in my journal of the time. And now 28 years later I'm figuring it out. I did everything wrong in that dream, and woke up screaming after shaking hands with a devil! I dealt with this dream better than the 1988 visitation I wrote about on page 2 however, I was more worldly by this point, even though I was only 21 years old, so still pretty much a kid. And I knew little about Aliens other than X-Files by this time. Not the last Lizard dream I've had, but to my memory it was probably the first. I gave it some mind that morning and afternoon, wrote about it for a while and then filed it away for future scrutiny! I was friendly and sociable at home with the family, it didn't get me down. But it did spook me waking up that morning. The mansion felt real, and I could still feel the cold grasp of the reptilian hand!

Oh and one other interesting thing to note; that afternoon I was phoned by one of my flatmates and the conversation from him on the line was priceless! I've managed to recall all this now purely by writing about this dream today. His first words were "Hey man, we've gotta meet up in September in London, man, you'll never believe the dream I had last night......". Well, one phone call later, and all was confirmed; we both had variations on the same dream! What were the Lizards up to in 1996? I'll continue with my writing,'cos I'm digging up fresh memories of this period in my life. A very strange and spooky dream, and I wasn't the only person affected this time.

 

[Tuatha de Danaan]

It was the summer of 1996,

Am amazing read SlipNet. I love the way you write and your descriptions make everything alive.

The subject matter is intriguing and seems to point out that memories will come to the fore only when we are ready. Please keep writing !!!

 

[elevenfrom11]

Hi @SlipNet ! If ever you have the opportunity, check Anton Parks - The Girku Chronicles - you may find some resonances and/or answers.

 

[SlipNet]

Am amazing read SlipNet. I love the way you write and your descriptions make everything alive.

The subject matter is intriguing and seems to point out that memories will come to the fore only when we are ready. Please keep writing !!!

Thanks! It was amazing learning about this dream yesterday and getting some visual recall in my mind made for an absorbing afternoon, just writing about it and thinking some more. It was a very sophisticated dream which lured me in with its grandeur. For sure I will continue to write in the future, it's one of my favourite pastimes, it's how I learned how to think, by writing in a discursive fashion. University education was worthwhile in that respect. My next subject will cover the years 2004-12, when my schizophrenia was at its absolute worst. A very interesting time, where I wrote feverishly and drew and painted loads as well. Quite an arduous task because it covers a lot of suffering, but it needs to be archived. In 3 pages on here I've created a lasting legacy, a well thought out and detailed dossier on my strange experiences from 1974-present. My prediction is that the next posts will be the toughest yet to go through, but it's a task I've been geeing myself up for all winter. The weather here is beautiful today, clear blue skies and golden sunshine. A good day to write more I think!

Hi @SlipNet ! If ever you have the opportunity, check Anton Parks - The Girku Chronicles - you may find some resonances and/or answers.

Thanks for the share. His name rings a bell, but I'll definitely look into this. Can you summarise what makes his work complimentary to my endeavour?

 

[SlipNet]

I thought I'd strike while iron is hot and provide a kind of preamble for what is my next endeavour on this thread, which is analysing what went wrong for me in my nervous breakdown of 2004 and subsequent struggles with auditory and visual hallucinations? It's a very complicated subject because I did have moments of ecstasy during these times, but they were spurts of the soul amid some unremitting grimness to be sure. The highs were wonderful, but the lows were absolutely devastating. It left me questioning just who I was, or what I was made of when speaking about my doing battle with some ineffable foe.

I was hospitalised and arrested in July 2004 for breaching the peace. I hallucinated that a giant tarantula was trying to eat me and ended up being fished out of a harbour in the south of England. Not one of my better days. I almost died that day. I'm a very poor swimmer, and I was sliding and leaping along the coastal rigging of this harbour I'm at, at 6am on a summer morning. My feet slip on a pier and I fall into a small boat below on the water. It only has one oar. I haplessly paddle around in circles before the police become visible on the shore line. I'm soaking wet, the police put me in the back of a car and take me to the station. I am read the riot act, then placed in a cold cream cell and told to wait. I was shivering and terrified. The night before I was my regular self, an amiable happy-go-lucky young hippie in most respects. Now I felt like I'd been struck by a whirlwind, by a force I had no understanding of. I can perfectly recall how I felt in that prison cell, cold, wet and shivering on the floor wrapped in a blanket. I had no idea that life could be so cruel. I didn't really know what was going on, I was completely knocked out by the experience.

After a few hours, there's a clinking sound and a cop is in my cell. He tells me to get up and follow him. I get up, still damp but drying slowly. I follow him down the corridor to an interview room. I meet a mental health officer and he begins to grill me. They know by this point that I ran 4 miles into the town centre, then to the harbour and ended up in the boat. But they want to know why I did what I did. I had a very stern voice in my head then saying to me "tell them NOTHING!". I do as I'm told and basically bluff my way through the interview for the next half hour. We part as strangers, he doesn't know any more because I basically stonewall all of his probing questions. Within an hour I'm released and my girlfriend picks me up in the car and drives me home to our flat. We'd been together for 6 years but this was the last straw for her. Within 2 weeks we separated for good. A real shame, because we had some really great times together. Thankfully I'm still friends with her to this day. We don't talk about these events in conversation though.

For the next 2 weeks of my life I was stuck in a mental health facility on the edge of town. A truly horrible experience. Some of the patients in there were nuts. I locked the door to my room every night. I was trying to recover my sense of self after a terrible experience. I was on meds but wasn't drinking or smoking weed during this period too, so it's not as if I can find an easy point to blame for my malady. I started hearing voices and seeing weird stuff by this point. Within 2 weeks I was back in west Wales, and seeing a UFO for the one and only time in my life. How I managed to navigate this period in my life I have no idea. Within a 3 week period this all happened.

1 I broke up with my 6 year Girlfriend
2 I lost my job.
3 I lost my flat
4 I lost my mind, my sense of self.
5 I hallucinated that a giant tarantula was trying to eat me in the night.
6 I nearly drown myself trying to escape this terror.
7 I get arrested and sectioned for my own safety.
8 I get hospitalised in a house of crazies for 2 weeks.
9 I see a UFO for the first time.

There's basically a whole lot of context and detail that I will provide in my future posts. The summer of 2004 was devastating for me. Just how I managed to pick myself up from the floor to continue to live life after all this is I guess a testimony to the human spirit, not to mention the benefit of having a supportive, loving family. Anyway, this is just a preamble to the schizo years that I will chronicle in future posts. This is murky territory for me, I don't think I've ever truly understood what happened to me that summer. So I'll be learning with the process as it unfolds from here too. In lieu of having a decent therapist these days, I kinda have to step up to the plate and take some responsibility for how my life has transpired. So there's a lot more to come in future posts, thanks for reading about my very weird life.

 

[heinrich]

I thought I'd strike while iron is hot and provide a kind of preamble for what is my next endeavour on this thread, which is analysing what went wrong for me in my nervous breakdown of 2004 and subsequent struggles with auditory and visual hallucinations? It's a very complicated subject because I did have moments of ecstasy during these times, but they were spurts of the soul amid some unremitting grimness to be sure. The highs were wonderful, but the lows were absolutely devastating. It left me questioning just who I was, or what I was made of when speaking about my doing battle with some ineffable foe.

I was hospitalised and arrested in July 2004 for breaching the peace. I hallucinated that a giant tarantula was trying to eat me and ended up being fished out of a harbour in the south of England. Not one of my better days. I almost died that day. I'm a very poor swimmer, and I was sliding and leaping along the coastal rigging of this harbour I'm at, at 6am on a summer morning. My feet slip on a pier and I fall into a small boat below on the water. It only has one oar. I haplessly paddle around in circles before the police become visible on the shore line. I'm soaking wet, the police put me in the back of a car and take me to the station. I am read the riot act, then placed in a cold cream cell and told to wait. I was shivering and terrified. The night before I was my regular self, an amiable happy-go-lucky young hippie in most respects. Now I felt like I'd been struck by a whirlwind, by a force I had no understanding of. I can perfectly recall how I felt in that prison cell, cold, wet and shivering on the floor wrapped in a blanket. I had no idea that life could be so cruel. I didn't really know what was going on, I was completely knocked out by the experience.

After a few hours, there's a clinking sound and a cop is in my cell. He tells me to get up and follow him. I get up, still damp but drying slowly. I follow him down the corridor to an interview room. I meet a mental health officer and he begins to grill me. They know by this point that I ran 4 miles into the town centre, then to the harbour and ended up in the boat. But they want to know why I did what I did. I had a very stern voice in my head then saying to me "tell them NOTHING!". I do as I'm told and basically bluff my way through the interview for the next half hour. We part as strangers, he doesn't know any more because I basically stonewall all of his probing questions. Within an hour I'm released and my girlfriend picks me up in the car and drives me home to our flat. We'd been together for 6 years but this was the last straw for her. Within 2 weeks we separated for good. A real shame, because we had some really great times together. Thankfully I'm still friends with her to this day. We don't talk about these events in conversation though.

For the next 2 weeks of my life I was stuck in a mental health facility on the edge of town. A truly horrible experience. Some of the patients in there were nuts. I locked the door to my room every night. I was trying to recover my sense of self after a terrible experience. I was on meds but wasn't drinking or smoking weed during this period too, so it's not as if I can find an easy point to blame for my malady. I started hearing voices and seeing weird stuff by this point. Within 2 weeks I was back in west Wales, and seeing a UFO for the one and only time in my life. How I managed to navigate this period in my life I have no idea. Within a 3 week period this all happened.

1 I broke up with my 6 year Girlfriend
2 I lost my job.
3 I lost my flat
4 I lost my mind, my sense of self.
5 I hallucinated that a giant tarantula was trying to eat me in the night.
6 I nearly drown myself trying to escape this terror.
7 I get arrested and sectioned for my own safety.
8 I get hospitalised in a house of crazies for 2 weeks.
9 I see a UFO for the first time.

There's basically a whole lot of context and detail that I will provide in my future posts. The summer of 2004 was devastating for me. Just how I managed to pick myself up from the floor to continue to live life after all this is I guess a testimony to the human spirit, not to mention the benefit of having a supportive, loving family. Anyway, this is just a preamble to the schizo years that I will chronicle in future posts. This is murky territory for me, I don't think I've ever truly understood what happened to me that summer. So I'll be learning with the process as it unfolds from here too. In lieu of having a decent therapist these days, I kinda have to step up to the plate and take some responsibility for how my life has transpired. So there's a lot more to come in future posts, thanks for reading about my very weird life.

i find your tale is very interesting, and i believe writing it down will help you. i am looking forward to your future posts, since we are only in 2004...

 

[SlipNet]

i find your tale is very interesting, and i believe writing it down will help you. i am looking forward to your future posts, since we are only in 2004...

Thanks! It is proving to be very helpful in putting all the pieces together and plotting a line through the ages. So far I've covered 1974-2004, so like you say I've still got 20 years of life to account for. These are the years when I really began to grow up and face my problems head on. I'm in the process of putting my thoughts together for the next period, which I'll kinda call 2004-10, I think I can manage that. Suffice to say however a LOT happened during those years which forced me eventually to face myself, warts and all. My journals from this period is a goldmine, lots of very interesting insights and drawings. I'm looking forward to putting this period into the archive in the next few days.