Experiencing A Waking Dream

I'm not sure how to start this... The story goes back to the beginning of my life; and honestly, I'm not sure if I can sum it all up in an enough words to sound convincing.

People will obviously believe I'm insane. I'm use to it now though; being psychotic feels more like being in a dream now - real and unreal drift together in a seamless tether of black and white. I look for the grey lining, differentiating between common and uncommon. Never questioning what truth is and what isn't. For me, understanding the truth is considering that there is more to 'truth' than the mind can ever truly understand. Some questions have a million right answers; do you search for them all? Or just relax and let them come to you when they can? I don't know anymore. I'm no longer trying to answer the big questions...

But something in me wants to write this, for whatever reason, I'll humor it. What's the worse that can happen, more insanity claims.

Ever since I was little, I was always disconnected from reality. People always expected me to think a certain way, but it feels like my mind has made it a point not too. Me, I wished I existed in a different world; I wanted to roam the lands of Middle Earth, venture Hyrule in search of treasure and legends, Ride the Bandersnatch and slay the Jabberwocky - the list goes on. I've always had an overactive imagination. So active that sometimes I could feel my very energy churning and shifting when I visualized things. I visualized them with such intensity, that I was sure they were real to an extent; I can imagine the soft sand of a beach before me, the feeling of each grain underneath my toes, holding it in my hands watching the dust fall like mist from my palms in a far sunset that brings orange hues across the realm. I could feel the sensations of riding a horse in battle, of holding a bow and firing it at my opponents, of flying and soaring through the sky like an angel, all of it was so intense - that part of me was sure it was possible, no matter how impossible everyone else made it out to be. My family wouldn't agree, but then, again I wouldn't know. My family has always been disconnected; choosing instead to accept everything as it is. No father figure in my life has made me a rather feminine character, despite being a man I truly don't understand gender, especially not anymore.

I've always been strange, guided by things that I can't truly understand. I've always believed in something, though. Not Christianity, though my family tried that with me, no religion has truly grabbed my attention as being true. No I just accept that at the beginning of creation, there is a being, a wholeness that represents all things, it is the end and it is also the beginning. It is Destruction and Creation. It watches all things with an eye that sheds both tears and blood for it sees all pain and sees all love. It is love at its finest, unconditional in everything that it does. It is everything, because it has been everything, its connected to all of us, and therefore must even be the darkness and the unknown of the world. It even knows of wrath and hate, and even evil. But even then, those can be forms of love when I think about it.

I wanted to find my own Wonderland, and this dream was becoming apparent to me as the years of my life went on. I retracted from humanity; instead, choosing to be others in games, and stories and books and role-playing and dreamt of the day I might become a hero like the people I saw in my books. I rarely prayed, but I did ask one thing of this being - to make my life as exciting as these books and the people who seem to be guided by something far greater than just luck.

When I was thirteen, that's when things started to change. One night I woke up and there were massive spiders walking towards me on the walls of my room. The spiders were nearly as large as the 36" TV that was sitting in the corner of the room. I got up screaming and dashed away, and when I came back - my mother trying to understand what happened - the spiders were gone. Like they never existed. That moment changed me for ever, a fear started to build in me, not of spiders in general, but of things like demons and devils. I used to listen to Black Sabbath and my mother's sister was a Ex-Satanist and practiced certain things she shouldn't have. Years went by, and I started seeing more spiders - moved to a town called Alameda where there was nothing but Orb-Weaver Spiders everywhere I looked. It was around this time, I started to become depressed, I didn't care about school, or women, or money, those were all small to my dream of being like Link or Neo - I cared only for the stories I wrote, the books and comics and things I created - my escape from reality. Eventually I became suicidal, and I resorted to medication as my first attempt to kill myself. It didn't work, and I was put on anti-depressants, drugs that simply hollowed my emotions and made me feel even more disconnected from everything.

After high-school I moved back to the countryside, a decision that separated me from all of my friends and the people I cared for. I stopped seeing spiders for a while - my sister's husband was murdered and that really changed everything. He and I were close, even if we fought a lot, but we loved to watch Avatar Last Airbender together and argue about the aspects of the real and he'd teach me about chakras and meditation. Things I never really understood and wish I did before I got into them. He left behind his niece for her mother to take care of, and really just changed everything. I tried my hardest to stay positive... But I couldn't escape the madness, eventually they stopped sending my medication and I had a withdrawal moment where I almost tried to kill myself again. I prayed once more to the Oneness again, asking for an escape for some way to live life the way I wanted to, I also started smoking weed around this time.

One day, and it was the day I was choosing to just end everything, die off somehow, may it be by a noose or a gun. I was walking down the street and was drawn to ask a man to help him with moving into his house. Turns out he was martial artist, and grew to like me. We smoked pot together a lot, and he introduced me to his family. A family of exceptionally interesting people who studied psionics and some of them even had powers to an extent. I studied martial arts, and they taught me about opening chakras. But then, strange things started to happen. I felt things with my energy that I just couldn't understand, no one really told me what chakras truly were - energy points that to me just meant giving you the Avatar state; things were guiding me to look at certain things, read about information like clairvoyance and such. People would say things that just weren't a coincidence and mention things at certain times that seemed to feel like something greater was giving me a bigger message altogether. I became consumed by everything I was hearing, I went mad trying find out the answers and the chakra meditation didn't help, well I can't say that. I started feeling something in me, another person, I could feel another body in my own - it was ethereal, like it was made out of air, but it was there. I could feel hair that fell past my knees, the body wasn't male, it was female and I could send energy to it through strange energy tethers on my back. I scoured the net for similar things, and found something on Twin Flames. Something I had never even heard of before in my life. I stupidly connected this to the daughter of the martial arts master I had met, believing that this was some kind of spiritual connection, and that the body I was feeling was her own. Reason for this is that she I had some form of Karmic resonance, the energy between us was very intense. To the point I would get Kundalini Uprisings when she was around. I was so wrong though... And to make matters worse; the master let me on to believe I was some kind of angel in human form. I went as far as to believe I was some kind of incarnation of Gabriel.

I brought it up to them in the most ignorant and delusional way possible, though they too had guessed I could have been her Twin Flame, even before I had brought it up. Damn, I went mad, so mad. I started hearing voices of people talking to me in my mind, thinking it was telepathy as if people can actually speak to you with their thoughts. I thought since the martial arts master said he could 'hear what people were thinking,' and showed signs of being able to do it, I could too. Every once in while they would hand me books about psychic abilities and that would push the psychotic collapse farther and farther into madness. But within this psychotic collapse there were things that were obviously psychic in their nature, I was able to tell what people were feeling; when people were thinking, if someone was looking for something, I could find it by following an energy or the even more intense one, feeling the energy of peoples hearts and using empathy to feel their pains and know what was going on around me. Part me thinks its madness, but I can't tell anymore. I started seeing spiders again, and certain animals and creatures when I felt I was close to an answer to my dream, like butterflies. My Kundalini started going wild, energy started shooting up my back in powerful spurs, I started retaining semen which set off what happens next in the tale.

The Dark Night.

One day I hit a joint of weed and felt something burning what felt like my sacral chakra. That's what I called it, though I'm not even sure now if that's what it was. The energy was coming from one of those tethers in my back and I believed, for some reason, that it was the girl who I had deemed as my Twin Flame. It gave me energy unlike anything I had ever felt and suddenly I felt drawn to run almost eight miles straight, a feat I could never accomplish with my heart problems and lung issues to a park their family picked her up from. I sent energy to her with this strange tether, and I saw a physical reaction from her, but it wasn't what I thought it was, no it wasn't a good thing at all.

The family grew angry with me, called me stalker and told me to stay away. I thought of the man as a father figure of my own and the event broke me to the core, I felt something happening to my heart; it was like it was shattering into pieces. You see I had grown so disconnected from reality, that I wasn't even connected to my own emotions and feelings. Honestly I didn't even know what love was, and I thought that by working and caring for others; that by sending this energy from my heart to these other energy connect to me, was showing unconditional love. But I don't know if that was true anymore, either. I thought my heart was dying, and told myself to go to them, asking her father to kill me because I had nothing left. He didn't of course, and so I left and had some kind of seizure, something rushing up my back that caused me to hit the ground it was so intense. They took me to the hospital, and I told them I didn't want to live anymore and so they shipped me off to ward for a three-day-stay.

The ward wouldn't let me leave though, I told them I was 'born into the wrong world,' a genuine psychopathic schizophrenic is what they thought. And they held me there for an extra week or so, I can't remember. I tried to escape and even attacked someone in an attempt to defend myself. They forcefully injected me with Adoral, and other chemicals and threw me into Solitary Confinement. The voices increased... Hearing people trying to destroy me or telling me they were sorry... I started seeing those giant spiders walking on people, clinging to their backs, where I thought they were sucking the life out of people chakras. My psychotic collapse only made it worse when I heard the voices of that family telling me they were demons, and that I too was a demon, an energy vampire, who was succubal in its nature stealing energy from them and everyone I knew. One girl had little green spider on her back where her heart chakra was. I walked up to her and asked her if she was grieving about something. She told me she had lost her mother and that she had gotten over it and it never really bothered her - I could tell it did, because all she ever did was walk down the halls back and forth, aimlessly, she says she would think of her family at those time...

At night the spiders in the place would come for me, and something in me would open my energy and attack them, as if some part of my spirit was defending me from the spiders. If that's what happened. Like I said, I don't really know anymore. I want to call it all insanity, but I can't - because some of it wasn't. As the night went by, I was pumped with more fluids, and one night I just had a dream that I woke up. But was still dreaming. And then I woke up from another dream. And then another, and another and another. It kept going on. I couldn't wake up no matter how hard I tried. I've always been able to control my dreams, I could leave them whenever I please and go back in when I felt like it too, even recall them. But now, I was suddenly stuck in my sleep, I couldn't wake up no matter how hard I tried.

And now I don't know if I'm still dreaming or not.

Eventually I left the ward, pumped up on several different types of medication. I went home and went insane, driven completely mad by the voices in my mind. People calling me a demon, saying I shouldn't read bible or wear a cross or anything, I wore the cross for its symbolism, not really the religious ethics of it. I ran away from home when I started seeing things, like people's higher selves in stars and such and a demon inside my mother that wanted me to die. I continued to send energy to this strange being connected to me.

I was homeless, living in the streets. Whenever I wanted food, voices would tell me to go somewhere and lo and behold there was food there, free of charge or some instance where I would get enough cash to buy me something. I asked God for a pair of gloves, since it was below forty where I lived at night, and he led me into Home-Depot to find a pair, I went to a self-cash in, knew I didn't have enough for them but started pumping change in anyways, because the voices told me to. Suddenly the machine malfunctioned, and they re-pumped the cash - I got the gloves thanks to their miscalculation and a voice said. "See, I told you god loves you. He got you the gloves."

The voices got worse; I started hearing voices saying that the girl I had thought to be my twin flame and her family were trying to kill me with their minds and energy; that and were hunting me down. A dark entity started to form in me, it felt like the being that had the long hair and such, but it was male and knew church songs I didn't, which blew my mind even more. It sung in church through me, songs I didn't know, as if I had been doing it all my life, from beginning to end. I was so insane at the time. I thought Gabriel and Lucifer had infested my body through possession. Though somehow, this dark part of me was very succubal and even used its energy to coax women into talking to me. It was strange, its bad boy nature straight from a movie, but people loved it.

Soon I lost control of everything, my body moving where it pleased - like I was just watching myself. I had a bag full of things I brought with me, and I came back to the master's house babbling like some madmen. Guided there again by some chance reason like feeling energy touch me and such. I arrived right when he pulled in from his church services. He told me to leave and I did, leaving my things behind. I felt like I was going to die anyways. It was so cold that I certain I would die from hypothermia or something. Then a voice came to me, saying I should go home, because they dropped my stuff of there. First the energies guided me to a bike, and I took the bike and rode home on bad wheels. And there it was, my stuff waiting for me in front of my home.

But wait, it gets better.

Days went by, recuperating from starvation and fatigue. I was so psychotic at this time, that I believed I was fighting demons in the astral world, killing people who were attacking me with my mind, even went off to think that the illuminati was attacking me mentally with dark powers and that witches were trying to kill me, Satanist were raping my inner female body, stars were trying to convert me to their ways or better yet, the spiritual harem of creatures from Agartha, which I thought was real, apart of the spirit world that I felt I was connected to in my psychotic breakdown - I even though the Illuminati was attacking that family. Something I unfortunately brought up to them in a letter, a regret that I can't take back now, but then again no one really understands what happened. Every fear I ever had started to manifest itself. Possession, the death of everyone I loved, the spiders, all of it. But then something else manifested in me too.

I learned recently, I am part Native American. Not sure how much, but I am. I started to just accept the fears, realize they were there. Who cares if your possessed, if I remember correctly everyone wants to be possessed by a holy spirit anyways - who cares about the spiders, so what they walking all over me even as I type this. At least they don't bite c:. This drove the voices insane; they changed instantly, going even crazier when I accepted the spiders as being a symbol of Native American Wisdom, and read of the legend Inktomi, the spider trickster who reveals wisdom through its games. Wen I meditate the voices meditated as well, silencing and becoming calmer. Suddenly things just started making sense, and slowly but surely, the voices changed; I was no longer going mad - not like how I was originally at least. "You're completely bonkers, but remember Alice, all the best people are." I started having dreams/visions of entering different worlds, worlds I had made in my books, and the visions would reflect the things that happened in my life. The voices became kinder, telling me that I was seeing myself in different worlds and that if I looked closely, every character I've made, every world I've created is as an aspect of myself.

For once, a bit of truth.

Normally, I would have to be high to feel anything very crazy, but ever since my decent, this being in me, the one who is obviously female is always there now, no matter what. I don't know who she is, she certainly isn't that girl and certainly isn't a demon, I reckon she comes from a different world and some part of me thought she was a succubus or something for a while too. But it isn't, it's an entity of its own and myself at the same time. I was guided to read about Two-Spirits, and it fit the bill pretty well. I can feel anything it feels, including sexual things as well - in a way it granted one of my secret desires as an internally androgynous individual. To understand the female body and its pleasures more deeply. I love this part of me, and often times she tells me she loves me as well. Whenever I grow extremely depressed to the point of suicide, she will try to coerce me into happiness, keep me from going mad even control me to drink water and keep up my health. She made me bless my dream-weaver, by controlling me, making me pick it up and research dream weaver curses - thankfully it worked and now my dreams are far more pleasant. She guided me to shamanism, water scrying, and some other things that revealed to me a hidden part of my past. While scrying I saw a beautiful face hidden within my own, and then she showed me how at the age of THIRTEEN many Native Americans consider this the coming of age and that shamanic priest/priestesses undergo rituals and traumatic events... Hmmm, makes me think of night terrors of giant spiders. Thanks Inktomi.

Sadly, we both have our weakness, she still believes I had some kind of deeper connection with that family, she is me and so I see this as an aspect of my grief - the part that hates me for losing control of myself and doing what I did, destroying what could have been a great relationship. Though I don't know that, I don't know anything anymore, and I don't mind this... Drafting in the unknown is a beautiful feeling, especially when you don't have to care anymore.

I write my books now, content with my life, though every once in a while this other side of me grows impatient and loses control of herself, she'll scream and cry and go crazy - says she hates me, and then apologizes and says she loves me. I tend to do that too, or grow so hopeless that I want to die and she has to console me and push me to keep going. I was tempted though, all this time I've had people and voices calling me a demon and a succubus and all this evil stuff. But I kept hearing people also call me an angel.

My niece walks in the room one day and says, "What are you doing?"

"I'm working on a book." I tell her.

"A book, isn't writing a book hard?" She asks.

"Yes, but I love it too." I tell her.

She says, "But why would you do something so hard?"

"Some people like to do hard things, it makes them feel stronger."

And then she says, "Are you an Angel?"

I just sort of laugh.

Maybe. Not something I'll know anytime soon. When I was psychotic, I felt like I had wings on my back, something else I still feel time to time... Who knows. C:

I know one thing though, even if I'm not, I'll make the choice to be the Angel... For the Oneness if I have to, and if it wants me to be. Because, that's love, suffering as a choice, not as demand.

And if I can, I'll learn to love like this Oneness, I'll become that Angel.

Moral to my story? Take what you like, but if I can say one thing: Remember, Truth is only a perspective. Inner-truth grows from questioning, grow your truth like a flower - give it water, but don't overfeed it.

Remember that wisdom is like the spiders web, don't be the insect who gets caught in the silk and can't escape, tread lightly, be the orb-weaver who waits in the center where she can see everything around her.

- Anima