The Unconscious OR How to freak yourself out Ele - style

Sometimes it's useful to explore an idea without being concerned about the truth of it. At night time, its truth swells.

PART 1.

I went to bed early last night, and so my mind was a little overactive. As I was drifting to sleep I had vivid thoughts that I won't call dreams, because I was still in control of their flow. I'll try and describe them . . .
They initially linked to a dream I'd had ealier this week, in which I envisaged this strange and vague character - a silly old man, a little flamboyant, sat on a swing. (I think he was called Henry). Another voice in my mind told me that he was a part of my unconscious and it was about time we met.
Last night seemed to continue from this. I was faced with an image I find quite frightening; I was swimming in the sea, underwater, just below the surface. It was do deep that I was surrounded by black and I had no way of knowing what might be lurking below me. A female voice - a prickly, grating voice - spoke to me then, accompanying the image. She said that this was my unconscious I was facing, that this was where my writing came from. Without the use of words, I conveyed to her the fear I felt, and how sinister this blackness seemed. She passed on the understanding that this blackness was simply a veil that needed piercing, and would lead me to a deeper awareness, where I would no longer feel fear.
The haunting vision of the scene faded away then, and I was next presented with different characters, and the knowledge that my unconscious had divided in to these distinct personas. They h always been present, but I'd never 'met' them before.

The woman's voice was still present - she seemed to be guiding me and passing on instructions. She was organised, the 'organiser', obsessive, neurotic, mechanical (but evidently neccessary). Her voice quite repulsed me; the pitch seemed on the verge of crackling and breaking, like a hysterical woman. She was cold, bitter; the negative side of rationality - resentful and judgemental. She was perched upon some filing system like a school teacher and dressed formally, her features indistinct.
My feelings of repulsion were readable, yet her response was not agressive. Instead she  showed me her purpose - that my thoughts need a cold manager in charge of ordering and editing them. The rationalized bitterness that flies out of my mouth are sometimes a neccessary to break or cut at or provoke. I associate her with the word ond colour violet now.
 
Other characters were introduced in turn. The man on the swing - that I'd dreamt about previously - came back again. And he was no longer named Henry but 'Uncle' Henry. Further detail was added. His swing was on a hill in the soft moonlight. Nothing else could be seen around him, and he was completely alone. He seemed like a wise yet commucal drunk. Maybe he's the 'fool' (I read that in plays, it is the fool that havs more of a grasp on the truth).

After Uncle Henry, I was shown a man who was especially sinister. I only saw a close-up of his face, as if he'd loomed in solemnly to make war between our eyes. The top half of his head was like a moon, or as if half of the moon made a white helmet. And then he had a black band of makeup streaked across his eyes like a dark coal smudge. It wasn't a neat line but dirty and patchy. His eyes were penetrating and blinked at me with sweaty eyelashes - reminding me now of the guy in 'Apocalypse Now' who says “you must make a friend out of horror”.

I can’t remember the others. And I’m not sure why my unconscious is presenting itself in this form, but I feel like I have to pursue this in case I benefit from ‘them’.
Whether these dreams have underlying truth, or whether they simply give me a new format of interpretation / a useful and believable lie, what does it matter?

I'd like to add that the unconscious can only live and grow through the experiences and thoughts you feed to it. Sometimes you have to sacrifice things in return for the ability to muse– as if it / they were gods. You need its power on your side.

 

PART 2.
Here is a further addition to my unconscious:
I'm sure that one of the personas is a male doctor who is extremily corrupt, but never reproached for his crimes. He sometimes deals with naive young girls, about to be married, who come to him in need of instruction for sexual matters and the possibility of contraception or abortion.
All who approach him are virgins, and most are ignorant about what intercourse entails. They rely upon him, and plead for any knowledge he can pass on to prepare them for married life and pleasing their new husband.
He insists on examining them for disease or abnormality. Often he inserts his fingers and becomes very aroused. He has also invented various unneccessary contraptions he pretends are medical - but they are designed to satisfy his sexual impulses and curiosity. (If it is a dumb girl he might attempt intercourse, and claim that she must practice, or that the first penetration would have caused her husband pain and 'widening' was urgently required).
The girls lie still and endure it, knowing no better, and are always grateful when they leave. In fact, they talk fondly of him publically and recommend other female friends.

 

 PART 3.

I have been talking to an interesting French man - I will refer to as 'Necrophonie' as that's his Myspace title. After a prolonged discussion online via messages, this creepy enigmatic soul began to share his beliefs about a higher form of communication, and the possibility of a group that can link minds / an egregore.

I'd been having strange dreams of late, where my unconscious divided in to distinct personas that introduced themselves to me, and -without words - conveyed the understanding that each was a drive/idea/force that I perhaps tune in to or call upon at different times. Often they are the creative voices within my stories. It seemed appropriate to confide these strange dreams to Necrophonie. I had judged this well, and he responded by describing his own similar experiences. However, he went one step further and claimed that he believed them to be actual people who had passed on. The way he explained it didn't seemed to mean that it wasn't reincarnation - but the notion of certain mental visitors that may possess you.
This intrueged me.

We stopped communicating for a few weeks, and my dreams - although never venturing back to the realm of the unconscious - were nonetheless portentous. I had two dreams where the theme seemed to be 'enlightenment'. One dream directly involved Necrophonie. In it, the dream world was bland with the exception of a complicated and colourful painting. He instructed me to stare at it and by doing so I was to reach enlightenment. I informed him of this dream.

Since then we have stopped sending written messages but he will send me a picture occasionally, and I know that they are meant to be symbolic of a greater meaning. One picture had the word 'telepathy' printed at the bottom, and I took it to mean that he was inviting me to correspond with him on a different plane. I decided to put my interpretation to the test and reply with an image. I sent an image of a tree and a parked surrounded by night-time. It's particularly invocative to me, and I can clearly imagine stories unfold from this image of the magic of meeting a stranger there. I decided that this image would be fitting, as a place for both of us to focus on. Beneath it I wrote ''This is where I'll be'.
I felt that this was a risk to take, and I wondered if we were understanding one another. I send the picture yesterday and felt excited.

Last night I had a nightmare. It was a string of images that made me uncomfortable and I couldn't seem to be able to rid myself of apprehension throughout. At one point in the dream I sought my lover's arms, but even then I felt unsafe.
There was a dog, a small scruffy thing on the pavement - a stray. He must have followed us home because he was suddenly cowering under my bed. When he came out I got a better look at him. I felt pity. It had a vacancy to its eyes as if it were ill or soulless. Then I noticed that he was deformed or injured in quite a surreal way; his neck had twisted round and round and the skin there was all bare. I felt immense revultion and tried to leave the room, but it followed me and probed me with its mouth. I couldn't bare to have it touch me, particularly its mouth.
In another scene I was excited and energetic so I climbed this rusty metal ladder that was embedded in a rock crevice of a mountain. It looked Welsh - all the plants were rusty shades too. As I reached the stop there was a great wave of fear, the kind of fear you have as a child when you think there are ghosts around. I could see the brown moors and emptiness, but the air felt thick and full of forebodings so I decided to climb quickly back down the ladder. I slid down, only holding on by my hands, but I couldn't seem to slide down fast enough as the feeling of fear continued to grow. My feet and legs seemed to be falling slowly away from me, as if they were weightless. I couldn't see them below me.

When I awoke I felt intense fear. I saw eyes in every pattern and shape. Reality seemed to be made of a new substance that was crawling, alive, and dark. I wondered to myself - if I open up some gateway to my mind, then ALL kinds of visitors could get in. I ran downstairs and sobbed a little whilst my lover held me. He said "I'll protect you. Do you have faith in me?"

Today I received a set of images from Necrophonie. Some were beautiful pictures of the sea, dark and hazy pictures (there is sea between us). Next there was an image purposely similar to the one I sent, of the tree and the car in the dark. Underneath is were the words "So this is where I'll try to come" (again, in reply to my own).
 

 

Reviews

[The Thracian]

I'm very, very envious of this you know. I understand the whole vivid state of mind but not lucidly dreaming mention at the beginning, I have them too. Mine tend to be in the morning though, as if my mind is awake but my body that is so habituated to not doing anything for so long that it doesn't feel the need to wake up. It's rather annoying because I seldom have such vivid images in my mind, and usually when I realize it's happening, I wake up out of excitement. I also identify with the fear of open seas, more so the darkness below and not knowing what lurks in it... I feel like I'm reading my own words in some respects.

She was perched upon some filing system like a school teacher

This just made me laugh.

Maybe he's the 'fool' (I read that in plays, it is the fool that havs more of a grasp on the truth)

This reminded me of the donkey from animal farm. My name in my father's native language is synonymous to donkey and YAR, I'm like a comical hobo at times Don't tell the general public that though, you'd be wasting your time... I make it my duty to dress/act like it.

Part 2 reminded me a bit of Handmaid's tale, or a book of similarly formulated title. I actually never read the book, but my friend did and I helped her greatly with writing the report for it.. so I grew to know it very well. It isn't the same context as your doctor, but it does involve a patriarchal society, where women are abused for their ignorance without consequence.

Part 3 seemed like a tangent. I felt some hostility reading the words 'my lover' but I guess that's just a childish whim. Necrophonie, or what would be necrophony in english. My first idea was to dissect the word when I read it to try to understand something about this character... Necro - death, pretty obvious. phony can go two ways in my mind (keep in my that I was developing these thoughts before reading the rest of part 3, even though I am currently aware of more), either 'phone' as in spoken word, speaking out or whatever, or 'phony' as in fake. Isn't interesting? should I have gone with the precedent I would've guess his dark secret. Although, without your story I wouldn't have made an apparent link, but none the less. Well, I will try to express why I feel like I've read my own words (in some parts).

Firstly, sometimes I open my eyes (not necessarily after waking up, sometimes just after a blink) and I feel like the world around me is more clear, more organic... I feel as if my eyes have become more aware of what's around, like my body is more in touch with something that weave through everything. As a consequence of that, if I am in a dark room when it happens (as I've been up in my bedroom sometimes) I feel like I can see movements in the darkness... and I don't think anything else has encouraged my fear of darkness like that 'illusion' if we may call it so, has.
Secondly, I sometimes encounter reoccurring characters in my not so asleep dreams that seem like they're outside of my bubble, outside of what my infinite power to control encompasses. I seldom pay attention to them, as they often involve some kind of childish dandy.
Here's another bit of detail. I was extremely sleep deprived one weekend because I had just gone through a week of being used as a guinea pig for a caffeine laboratory. The saturday of that weekend I had to stay up as I had a friend coming in from far and I didn't end up sleeping before 4 in the morning.. and the next morning she woke me up at 8 because she was too excited to let me sleep. Well, the idea is that I'm extremely sleep deprived, now add to the equation extreme emotional elation leading to a defecation of all said gratuitously positive emotions, engendering some kind of trauma (it's hard trying to be objective about these things..). Product of all this: I walked around for a week with a feeling of having a hazier perception of the world around me... but in exchange I could focus on images in my mind a lot more clearly, and they were much more vivid than what I what used to. For example, I would walk by others and I noticed them a lot more than I did on a regular basis, and in one instance I saw myself turning around and punching one man... It all felt very real, but when the images stopped I was give or take twenty yards up, waiting at a street light. The interesting feature of this occurrence is that I didn't control the images, and they proved themselves to be more revealing vise a vise my personality.

Wellll yeah. I feel like I'm burdening you with unnecessary details here so I'll stop. Maybe you should take the time to reread this, think about your own ideas... And correct some of the grammar and typos.

Do you 'review' your work, or are you the type to just write as you go?