Fiction, Delusions, and Art

So I have come to a point where I can accept that I do have a mental illness.

There are things I wonder about, though. Like, I wonder what it would be like if I just wasn't on any meds. I kind of think it would be easier to ease off some of the meds, and then take the challenges as they come.

Some of the things I experience I think stem from some sort of contact with the spirits. But, my brain gets confused about what is going on, so I receive information and then there are elaborations that aren't true and it spins out of control.

When I am delusional, or at least, when I am having an episode, I am having the time of my life. That's the thing I don't think people understand. My parents say, oh, the worst is behind you, it can only get better from here. They don't understand that having an episode is like the freaking coolest experience of your life.

I sometimes wonder if it is weirder than drugs. Contrary to what other people seem to think, I really haven't done that many drugs in my life. I haven't done any hallucinogens besides one hit of DMT, which didn't really do anything, and cough syrup. Cough syrup was fun, but the difference between being delusional and doing cough syrup is that when you are delusional, you are a bit clearer in a way. Like, you might believe things that aren't true, but you don't feel fucking stupid. You get caught up in these plot lines that are intelligent but lack basis in reality.

And I think that that is the major difference between drugs and delusional episodes. Delusional episodes are all about fiction. I don't know what happens with other hallucinogens, I am curious but I would be scared to actually try something for fear that it would mess me the fuck up. Like, I'm sure I would come down eventually, but it might take way longer to get back to normal than for most people.

But this is what I don't understand. People tell me, why does it matter? Why do you think about your delusions? They are delusions. Not true. Well so is Harry Potter, and Twilight, and Star Wars, and most television shows. I'm not saying my delusions are fictional masterpieces, but my point is, what's wrong with fiction? Fiction is cool. People like fiction.

It's kind of artistic in a way. That's how I look at things now. Like art.

But I'm sitting here down on Earth now, and I can see that the way I think when I am delusional, while not illogical, I believe things when I am delusional, everytime I am delusional, that would never ever be true. Like, I could never ever be the second coming of Christ. No one else would ever believe that, unless I started doing something like performing miracles, which I know would never happen.

I don't even want to be the second coming of Christ. I never did. Why did it keep coming back to that?

Brain Damage and Thinking on Repeat

So I haven't blogged in awhile the thing I wanted to talk about is about how I HAVE BRAIN DAMAGE.

It's being corrected through neurofeedback, the zapping of the brain with electrodes. This isn't electroshock therapy or anything like that, this is helpful not harmful.

When I listen to my iPod, I like to listen to the same song on repeat over and over again. When I think thoughts in my head, I (used to) think the same thoughts over and over again.

Thoughts wouldn't get old! Funny things don't get old! I laugh at the same funny things OVER AND OVER AGAIN!

When I do this around other people, they are like, "Okay Rachel, it wasn't THAT funny."

So the neurofeedback is improving it. But thoughts are powerful! Thinking the same thought over and over again has consequences.

So I got stuck in a loop of thinking about the girl who put puke in front of my door in college, Weird Zombie Girl. "Yeah, I smirked at you. YOU WERE LOOKING AT ME FUNNY!!!!!" Over and over and over and fucking over again.

So I explained this on my facebook page. I would think about this all the time, this thought on repeat. Then suddenly it was like, "Cute little itty bitty sweet young soul. Sweet young soul. Sweet young soul." Which is a reference to a time when I thought more spiritually about everything, and I thought this girl was a young soul. That thought occured to me one time.

And so I replaced the YOU WERE LOOKING AT ME FUNNY with "sweet young soul." My energy increased, and she stopped receiving my angry bad energy. It was a win/win situation!

Since that thought played on repeat, it was draining my energy as well as hitting her with bad energy constantly. So, the spirits intervened, located the place in my memory and thought that, and replaced my bad thought with a loving thought.

Thing is, I used to think of the guy I had delusions about on repeat for years and years and years and years. I would think of funny things I had told him and laugh. And laugh. And laugh. And send that energy to him. On repeat.

The question is, what effect did this have on him?

WHAT KIND OF ENERGY AM I SENDING TO PEOPLE??!?!?!?!?!? It gets multiplied when you think on repeat!!!

Anyway, the doctor said I have less repeat thinking going on in my brain now thanks to the neurofeedback.

A Shattered God

So I think something people who read my blog should know is that I don't really read all that much. So, I don't usually know what is written on the topics I discuss on here. I read sporadically. It is rare for me to read a book from start to finish. I pick up a book and read parts of it. And I read stuff on the internet.

So, I am going to talk some more about God.

One thing I am thinking right now is, God is capable of error. Because if God was incapable of error, that would limit the range of things he was capable of doing. Thus limiting his power.

Maybe there are reasons why this isn't true. Like, God is CAPABLE of error, He just never would make a mistake, because he knows everything. But that is not my personal belief. I believe God knows everything there is to know about this present moment, and all past moments, but not the future.

Because people have free will, what they are going to do is not predetermined. God can predict with good accuracy what people will do, but His predictions are not foolproof.

So, God as a whole is not perfect. The Christian belief about God is that there is one god, but there are facets of God, as in the trinity. So, what I think is, facets of God are perfect. God as a whole represents completion, but not complete utter perfection.

The reason is, it is better that way. It is better to fall slightly short of perfection. As humans, we want to strive as much as possible for perfection, but miss the mark slightly. We don't need to purposely miss the mark slightly though, the truth is we always will.

Because if we were to strive for perfection, and acheive it, there would be nothing left to strive for. And some of the greatest joy comes from trying to attain something. It's like how the say, the fun is in the journey, not the destination. Or whatever the hell it is they say about that.

So, what I am thinking now is, God in his entirety IS perfect, in all sense of the word. However, as God was sitting there in all his perfection, He knew that there was great joy in strife. So He created the Earth, and humans, and put a piece of Himself in each human. And perhaps in other non-human creatures/spirits as well, like in angels. I'm not sure.

So now that God is split into pieces, the father God in heaven no longer equals complete perfection. But that's ok, because now that God is split, it creates the possibility for strife, and there is great joy in strife.

So now that God is not complete, the God in heaven is no longer completely foolproof. And, He no longer is completely satisfied. He longs for a relationship with the souls he has created, the pieces of Him that have split off, that are now on Earth.

All of this is just me speculating.

Spirits Come Before Truth

So I am going to take some time off from writing my book for some of my spiritual musings.

I am just making this up. It may or may not be true.

In the beginning, there was nothing but consciousness and awareness. There was no physical world. Just a massive being that just was, and knew that it was, and had the power to create. This being is God.

There was no inherent truth. There were no facts. There were no lies. There was no fiction. Nothing but infinite possibilities.

Since the being had the power to create, it made a decision. Because it could do that. It can create ideas. This is a being of creation. The decision it made was to split.

So it split into a bazillion little specks of consciousness. And this is the only truth there is. That the massive being split into a bazillion little specks of consciousness. Each speck is a soul. Each speck contains the powers of God.

Each speck by itself is a god. But they are all separate and feel each other's absence. So they create the physical world, to forge a different way to connect.

By themselves, there is no inherent truth. Each soul creates its own truth. But together, they must make agreements to share a reality. There is no physical world in the absence of awareness. Nothing exists in the absence of awareness.

There is no linear time. But things are not static.

The spirits made agreements to share a reality. And concepts were shared. Everything was shared, to bring each other closer, to be separate yet together in the physical realm.

All truth is created by spirits. Spirits create truth.

Separate specks of consciousness unite to make a shared consciousness. They cycle through ideas. Truth isn't important. It is the effect that these ideas have on consciousness.

Mystery is Fun

So sometimes I think about life. And I think about the fact that there is so much I don't understand about the spiritual state of life, and the nature of life, and the nature of existence, and the nature of spirit. On top of that, there are a lot of things I don't know about myself. About my own spirit, and my own past lives, and why my current life is the way it is.

But what I figure is, it happened on purpose this way. That us spiritual beings incarnate as physical beings, and there is so much we don't understand. And as physical beings, we don't understand why we are here or what we even are. And some people think that there is nothing to life beyond the physical. And that existence ends at death. And that we only get one life, and that is it. And that they don't have a spirit. All they have is a mind, consisting of electrical impulses and chemicals.

But we are spiritual in nature. And we don't know about the nature and history of our own souls, or of existence itself. And it is this way on purpose. Because, quite simply, mystery is fun.

For some people, some people such as myself, they embark on a journey. And sometimes, secrets are revealed. These moments are amazing. But if you knew the truth all along, you would never experience this amazing moment. You always knew everything and so any particular fact is no big deal. That's why when we incarnate as physical beings, we enter into a state of ignorance. Because mystery is fun.

So I wonder if as spiritual beings, who can exist in many different states, in many different spiritual dimensions. I wonder if in one of these states, we do know everything there is to know. Like God. But as humans, not only do we not know very much, I think we are also incapable of knowing the nature of the universe. Because I doubt there is an explanation for the universe and all of existence that someone could explain to me, and that wouldn't result in more questions. And even if they did have answers for these questions, the answers would create more questions. And this would go on endlessly. This is because of the way we think and what makes sense to us. Our ability to understand is limited.

Also, maybe, ignorance aids spiritual growth.

A Spiritual Worldview

So I tend to identify with the New Age movement. At the same time, I think a lot of aspects of it are hokey. For example, the belief that when the Europeans first came to America, the Native Americans couldn't see the ships. But I've already discussed this topic, in an entry I posted not too long ago. What I'm trying to say is, I get the impression that a lot of New Age people are ignorant about science, or the actual implications of science, so their "science" is a joke.

So the reason I am writing this entry is to discuss my worldview.

According to my worldview, the physical world was set into motion by a spiritual force. You can call this force God. You and I may or may not have been present at creation. I tend to think we were.

We were a part of The Source, and then we incarnated on Earth to be separate from The Source. When you are united with The Source, you feel love. Because The Source is love.

We come to Earth to grow in spirit. I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of growing in spirit is. There are some things I don't know. You create a life plan before you incarnate, choose your personality traits, and the family you want to be born into.

Along the way, you have spirits which help you. They may or may not make their presence known to you. Mine have made their presence known to me. I used to look down on people who didn't believe in spirits because they had never had certain experiences happen to them so they were ignorant, but now I don't care because I realize I was once like them. It just annoys me when people who are ignorant act like I am somehow deranged for believing in these things.

The degree to which your life is planned depends on what you decide before you were born. With me personally, there was part of my life that was very structured, in that it was planned out. Right now I've gotten to a point where I am supposed to publish this book but ultimately it depends on me and my actions. If I screw up it may not happen. However, I highly doubt that I'm going to screw this up.

Part of you is aware of your life plan and the major events that are going to happen to you. There are moments of foreshadowing, when something happens that bears a resemblance to something that is about to happen and it feels odd.

You've lived past lives. Some souls are older and more mature than other souls. Not all souls mature at the same rate. More mature souls typically deal with more complex issues. However, younger souls may choose a plan to help them mature faster by dealing with more complex issues earlier on. When I learn about peoples' lives I get a sense of how old/mature of a soul they are. I don't know if my feelings about this are correct, but it is a belief that I have, however unsupported it may be.

I believe that prayer can help, but ultimately if you pray for something to happen that's not meant to happen it's not going to happen.

I believe in God but I don't think that He is all-powerful. There are certain scientific rules that are in place. He can use supernatural forces that will overcome these rules on a small scale, but on a larger scale He can't re-program the universe without starting over. So, for example, He can't wave his magic wand and make it so that global warming is no longer a problem, because of the way the Earth is set up.

I don't believe God is all-knowing either. The reason is because we have free will, and God may have a basic idea of what we will likely do with our free will but ultimately the decision is up to us.

It is ideal that you love all other souls unconditionally. But as I've stated in previous posts, this is extremely difficult when people do things that are hard to forgive. We are all connected but separate on Earth, but by loving one another we become closer and more united, and unity with other souls is the single most rewarding thing you can have. Don't judge others for their actions, even if some action seems completely backward you assume that you are ignorant. However, there are people who are not good people, but don't jump to the conclusion that someone is not a good person too quickly. As for myself, I've known bad people but there is only one person I know who I think is truly evil. But for the most part, you need to be accepting of all different types of people.

Things are always more complicated than you think. Always. It is okay and unavoidable to simplify things in your own mind in order to understand them, but keep in mind that things are always more complicated than you think.

If you notice, some of these things have similarities to Christian beliefs, but they are different. This concludes my discussion on my worldview, for now.

Upcoming Writer's Conference

The psychic at the holistic fair told me I should go to writer's conferences (actually, she said I should meet the literary agents in person, which means writer's conferences). I don't think I've mentioned it on here, but I was looking up writer's conferences and I found that there was one, IN PORTLAND, during a time I was already going to come home, August 3-5. How convenient!

So I wrote out my pitch and practiced it, both in my head and out loud, both in the living room and in front of the mirror in the bathroom. I did it in the bathroom so I could watch my expressions and connect with my little spiel to see what I should emphasize, what gestures I should make, etc. I wondered what the neighbors thought of me talking to myself about being the second coming of Christ.

My dad suggested I get an idea of the scope of the audience for my book is. I mentioned that you are supposed to assume 1% of the target audience will buy a copy. He said everyone who is bipolar, plus five to include people close to them.

I actually don't think that is the audience. I think the audience is people between the ages of 16 and 35, with people who have actually been delusional showing more interest. So, maybe people between those ages plus older people who have been delusional. When I saw the psychic, she mentioned I had written a children's book. I'm like, "No..." She said, "I meant, a book for younger people, not children." I can actually kind of see that, as the people who I have given my book to who have been younger have seemed to enjoy it more. By younger I mean late teens and twenties. The psychic said it would be popular amongst young people, and popularize some of the things I believe in amongst young people. By the things I believe in, I think she meant like spirits, tarot cards, and past lives.

So I've mentioned I revised the part where I explain my delusions. I think I mentioned that if I get people to understand my delusions, it takes it from being a pretty good memoir to something that is really memorable, because this story that I imagined happened is powerful. I was thinking about this a few weeks ago. I was really picturing this story in my head, and I realized that if it were a movie it's the kind of thing where people would be crying in the movie theater. People cry pretty easily during movies.

Anyway, so I printed my book off, thinking I would give it to someone to read. I used the equivalent of an entire package of paper, because I forgot that the last time I printed it off with my dad we used a two-sided printer, so it was twice as thick as last time. I divided it into two sections, three-whole-punched the first section one or two pages at a time and put it in a binder. I haven't done the second section yet. I realized I don't know who to give it to.

Actually, I have an idea of someone to give it to. It's this other guy who's in the program, in aftercare like me, who I see often. He believed he was the messiah at one time too. For some reason, I think that he would really appreciate my book, more than other people would. So I wanted to give it to him, even though I don't know him very well. I keep thinking I'm going to ask him to read it but every time I'm around him I don't. I was at school, talking to the staff who does study sessions when he came up and asked me if I had an off switch. He didn't mean it to be mean, I don't think. I think he just meant I was full of spunk. I don't really know what he meant. I told him my off switch gets flipped when I take Klonopin at night. Then he went to class. And I didn't ask him.

The Akashic Records

So my urge to be spiritual has been waning a bit. I feel it being replaced by this urge to work on getting published, which right now means preparing for the writers conference. I mentioned that I revised the place in my book where I describe my delusions. I realized that there was no way before that the reader was going to understand based on the way I explained them and I was expecting way too much out of the reader. I feel like if I get people to picture these delusional events in their heads like I picture them in mine, that's my ticket to freedom. Because that's what makes my book stand out. I imagine it like it's a movie. The weakness of the movie is that the climax is basically a guy looking at words on a computer screen, which isn't really action packed, but the power of it is the meaning behind the words.

But anyway, I was back on the spiritual message board that I've been on. Enough time had passed that I could request another psychic reading, so that's what I did. There is a person on the board who does Akashic Records readings. Basically, the Akashic Records are records of each soul who has lived on Earth and their lifetimes, everything that's ever happened to them, every thought, action, etc. is recorded in the Akashic Records, according to people who are apparently experts on them. Apparently, something like the Akashic Records is referenced in most religions, in Christianity/Judaism it is the Book of Life. I asked for a reading, I asked to know a little about my past lives, plus I asked for some sort of direction in this life, like what I was meant to accomplish or what career was right for me.

The reader had me forward my full name to her in a private message. Then she forgot several times about the reading. Finally, a few days ago I got my reading. So apparently, the "Recordkeepers" don't want me to know about my past lives. She just said I did a very good job and completed them admirably. She said that perhaps in this lifetime I have learned patience with people, like forgetful little old ladies. But I haven't been paying enough attention to the wisdom that can be gained from talking to the elderly. She said I should put myself in situations, like a volunteering situation, that involves the young/old at least once a week, and once I do so I will begin to grow and have more ability to connect with the Spiritual Guides/angels/loved ones. I would imagine by loved ones she meant those who have passed. She said I couldn't continue on this current path for much longer, whatever that meant.

So, there is nothing in this particular reading that proves to me that she is really psychic. I sort of lean towards believing her. At any rate, this isn't bad advice, and regardless of whether or not it really came from some higher source it wouldn't be bad to follow it. I asked a follow up question, I asked what she meant by young, like young as in my age, or young as in children. She responded and said she felt around the ages of 4-6, and what she had heard during the reading was "out of the mouths of babes." I googled this phrase to see what it meant and it's an expression used when someone really young says something that exhibits wisdom beyond their years.

I don't know if I've mentioned on here but I used to volunteer with the elderly but had to volunteer somewhere else. So, yesterday I was at the Human Right Education Institute, gluing together parking permits and cropping pictures of food from different countries and the descriptions of the eating habits of these different countries and pasting them on pieces of construction paper. Apparently one of the United State's favorite foods is sesame chicken. News to me. Anyway, I couldn't help but wonder if there was something more valuable I could be doing with my time. I thought about asking the lady if I could volunteer with children, but I decided against it.

Maybe I'll ask next time.

Tarot Cards

Dammit, I wish I could find my tarot cards. I'm at home right now, I thought they were with my old college stuff but I failed to locate them. I have questions I need answers to. Oh well, instead of playing with them I'll write about them. I hope my mom will buy me a new deck.

I first met my deck of tarot cards my senior year of high school. My boyfriend at the time brought them to school. He was reading peoples' fortunes, and let's just say he didn't know how to use tarot cards. Of course, I didn't either, having never used, touched, or probably even seen tarot cards before in my life. But I felt damn sure that I was a hell of a lot more fit to draw cards than he was, for some reason. So I took the deck from him, pulled a random card from the center of the deck (which was what I had decided was the right way to use tarot cards), and handed it to him without looking at it. He turned it over: Lovers. Thus proving I had tarot card talent.

I took the deck from him and held on to it. Now it was my own. Dammit, I wish I could find it. We were at lunch during my senior year, and that same boyfriend wanted me to draw a card to represent the future of our relationship. So I did: Desolation. He got upset, told me I had somehow rigged it, and wanted me to draw again. "Dude, you don't just dismiss the answer and draw again just because you don't like the card you got." Anyway, I did draw again: Change. This one didn't upset him as much. We broke up a few months later, so I guess you could say both desolation and change were correct.

Another time, I was talking to a girl on IM when she started yelling at me and insulting me. So I started drawing cards for her, trying to read her fortune. Except, I think I was actually reading my fortune instead. I drew despair and conflict. I was in a conflict that actually deeply upset me.

So when I went off to college, I took my tarot cards with me. Actually, I think I brought them back to college with me after winter break. At any rate, I had them right before I was kicked out of my dorm. I was worried I was going to be kicked out and I definitely didn't want that, so I was drunk and I was drawing cards. Being drunk may inhibit psychic abilities but it doesn't seem to hinder card-drawing abilities. So I was sitting in my dorm room, drawing card after card after card. Every single card I drew was a card I considered to be negative. I did get kicked out, so I was consistently drawing the correct answer.

Right before I became delusional, I was consistently drawing cards that told me the same thing. Then, when I thought the special event had happened but I didn't know for sure, I was drawing cards, over and over again. More often than not, I would draw domination. I took that as a sign that it had happened. It hadn’t happened, but the spirits wanted me to believe it had. Still, I wanted more proof. The story ends with me going crazy/being taken over by a spiritual influence.

After these events, I would draw cards. Yet, I started to feel that whatever cards I would draw were just purely random, and not influenced by spirits at all. And they probably were. The end.

Interference With Free Will

The question of whether or not we have free will is one of them philosophical questions that has been widely debated. I'm not going to discuss that in this entry. Today I'm going to tell you that you have free will, but it is tampered with by spirits. I know this, because I have all the answers, of course, being the spirit girl and all.

I have been told and I have read that spirits/angels/whatever are not allowed to interfere with your life unless you ask them to, via prayer. Not so, not so. No, I don't have all the answers, but I believe that that statement is false. Spirits have the potential to influence you in ways that are massive and huge, without you asking them to.

I don't want to get into book info in this entry. But, part of the reason I believe that I was influenced by spirits is the way in which things fitted together. How, I've said in the past, one spirit-induced event led to another spirit-induced event (when my mom read the entry where I said that, she asked me if by "spirit" I meant alcohol, haha). Actually, I'll give a vague, small example of this from my book. Spirits can tell you to look at things. Sometimes, they tell you to take certain fortune cookies. This happened, I took the fortune cookie, it got me thinking, led me to do something, and that led to other stuff. If I had never done this, I would never have become delusional, never have gone to Innercept, none of that shit would have ever happened. So I felt influenced to do something, and later I was able to see why I was influenced to do it.

The thing about when spirits influence you is, sometimes you notice, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you are able to look back and see that when you did something in particular, it was unnatural. Most of the time, you don't notice. You think it's coming from inside of you. It is coming from inside of you actually, but that's because the spirit has gotten inside your head. Most of the time it's subtle, and you don't notice. Then, it tries to get you to do something you really don't want to do. This is when it screams at you, and it is obvious now that you are being influenced. It convinces you it's on your side, and that something good will happen as a result. And you trust this spirit, because you think it's your friend, and that you were somehow blessed with this special friend inside your head. Then, it leads to badness, and magically awesome supernatural messianic experiences. Dammit, I've gotten into too much book information. And I know to a lot of people I sound crazy. If I cared about sounding crazy, I wouldn't have even probably started this blog.

Anyway, they can tell you to do something harmless like merely look at something, and you don't even think before doing it because what harm can come from looking? They can suggest things to you, put ideas in your head, and usually you think they are coming from your own brain. They can affect your emotions, which in turn affects your actions. They can affect what you say and write and the exact way you word things. They can make you hear things. When I heard things though, it was always very obvious to me that they were inside my head.

But that's all I'll say about my personal experience. Now onto more theories. It's because of the power that spirits can have over you that prayers have the ability to work. You can pray for something, and as a result a spirit/angel may take action, devising a plan through influencing people to do things that lead to a  specific outcome. Prayer isn't just magic, and spirits aren't all bad. A lot of times people pray for things that require action on someone else's part. That person never asked to be influenced, but they can be influenced. So, it kind of interferes with their free will.

Ssss.... pirits.

The Supernatural

Oh, dating websites. This is where I am reminded that most people bore me. I see the same thing over and over and over again: "I'm a pretty laid-back easy going dude. I want a real relationship no drama no bs no headgames. I like to hike, fish, spend time outdoors." Everyone in Northern Idaho/Spokane likes to spend time outdoors. I'd like to see something a little more original.

My profile is original. I basically copied and pasted what I said under about me on facebook onto my POF account. Yeah, stuff about spirits. Some people think it's cool. Some people think I'm joking (I'm not). One guy told me: "You're too cute to believe in stuff like that."

This is the kind of comment that would piss me off if I cared about what other people said. I don't, but I'm going to say what I think anyway.

Some people think it's naive to believe in stuff like psychic abilities and spirits. I think the people who don't believe are naive. First, let's discuss what naive means. It means you lack the experience to understand how the world works. It's not the same as immature, which is an emotional state. Naive is more about knowledge gained from experience. These people have not had experiences like me any many other people have, the experiences that make you realize that there are forces at work in your life beyond those you can see.

Now I know what a lot of skeptic types would be thinking now. They have probably encountered people who are overly superstitious in their thinking and resort to the "it's a spirit" or "it's something supernatural" conclusion too quickly. I feel these people on this. I remember this one time, I was looking at some sort of metaphysical website. There were some photographs some people had taken of supposedly supernatural things like orbs and shit. In this one picture, there were two kids, one with their hand out and then some massive "spirit" thing coming out from their hand. The person who had submitted the picture had written that the lady who took the picture just had this talent for capturing "special things" or whatever in her pictures. Well, I know what it looks like when a strand of hair gets in front of the camera lens, and I can tell you, that "spirit" looked an awful lot like a strand of hair. I was thinking this lady probably had frizzy hair or something and that's why she was able to capture stuff like that in her photographs. I don't know if that's true, but that was the conclusion I came to. Anyway, my point is, some people are too quick to label things as supernatural, and that's where I think a lot of the skeptics are coming from.

I didn't believe in anything supernatural when I was younger. I thought the whole idea of someone being psychic was a joke, and everyone knew that, I didn't think that anyone took it seriously. Because, obviously, you can't look into someone else's mind or someone else's life, how the hell is that supposed to work? Supernatural stuff goes against what one would think would be correct. But here's what I don't get: Who are these people to think that they understand the world, existence, and consciousness SO WELL that that kind of shit just could never possibly happen? These things aren't understood very well at all. But while I do believe in psychic abilities, I don't recommend spending money on psychics, because they are unreliable. That's why psychic abilities haven't been proven.

And the thing about spirits is, if you lived my life, you too would believe in them. It used to drive me crazy because when I would talk to people, no one understood how crazy stuff from my life was, they would just brush off everything I told them. Then I realized something: these were just the doctors, therapists, and my parents. When I talked to other people about it, they seemed to think it was pretty crazy as well.

Stupid Western Culture

Sometimes if I think too much about the culture we live in, the inconsistencies drive me crazy.

So I live in conservative Christian north Idaho. I own a bible. I read my bible, usually nightly. I attend a two and a half hour bible study on Tuesday nights, and church most Sundays. According to facebook I'm a born-again deist. I change my beliefs from time to time, and whenever I change them I'm a "born again" something or other.

I don't know if that's even relevant, but the point is I listen. I see value in acquiring information and then using my power of reason to reason my way through it, to decide what I believe and what I don't believe.

Trouble is, I'm not allowed to come to my own conclusions about things, unless they are consistent with other peoples' conclusions. If they don't match up, I am labeled unfit to make my own decisions.

It's because of the culture we live in, stupid materialistic western culture, that thinks that everything is physical and chemical.

Anyway, what got me started on this was that the night before last I had a bad dream about malls. It may have been about malls because I died in a mall in a previous life. This is a subject I won't get into. Anyway, it felt as if my mind were under attack. I was wondering about this, and looked up "psychic attacks" on the internet. I came across some interesting pages. I can relate to the symptoms of being influenced by a spirit. I can relate to the feeling of being "drained." It's not a feeling of being hungry, tired, or even depressed, but just like the life is sucked out of you. It's not like you're coming off a drug either, I know what that feels like. When I was feeling "drained," I felt this other person inside of me and I was worried that they were going to take me over completely. I was scared.

It's culturally accepted to believe in the bible. In the bible, Jesus drives demons out of people. But today, that kind of stuff doesn't happen. Or maybe I'm getting two different cultures mixed up. There's Christian culture and then there's atheistic culture.

My mom talks to and trusts psychics. The same psychic she trusts told me that my "mental illness" wasn't just a mental illness, it was a psychic thing, but that my brain was adding to it too. She also said that it's not just in my head that a spirit is messing with me, there is (or was) one pestering me. But my mom likes to talk to psychics to contact the dead relatives. I read on the website yesterday that dead people aren't really a good source of information because they don't necessarily have any more information than they did while they were alive.

At any rate, I don't even know why I'm posting this, as it may make certain people think that I am unfit to make my own decisions.

The Spirits vs. Your Own Brain

A few months ago someone told me in a dream that a certain thing would happen before I was 25. It's interesting, because it appears to be happening. This is the first time recently that the people in my dreams have predicted something correctly.

Actually, when they told me it would happen I thought they meant before I was 26. They clearly said 25, but in the dream I was thinking 26, so I thought that's probably what they meant. But maybe they actually did mean 25 after all. So this puts the idea in my head that maybe I should heed dream messages.

They have inaccurately predicted things, like that I would be represented by the one agent and that a specific bad thing would happen in November. They predicted that back in July, and right afterward I took preventative measures against it. Still, I don't think it was because of the measures I took that it didn't happen.

I believe spirits can communicate with you in your sleep. They have told me things in my sleep a long time ago that ended up being true. Trouble is knowing what's a spirit message and what isn't. Sometimes when the spirits talk to you, there is a certain unmistakable quality to it. They feel very knowledgable, and very caring, like this is your best friend in the entire universe. But then I started having dreams where people would talk to me and it didn't have that unmistakable quality to it, so I didn't know. But one thing I know is, there are two good things that they repeatedly tell me. One of the things is that my book will be published. The other, I won't mention.

Spirits are often present when you are awake, too, but you are often not on the right frequency to receive their messages. But, sometimes you are. Sometimes, they tell you to look at things. One time, I was around a certain guy at college, and I was sitting at his computer but not looking at the screen. Something told me that he listened to a certain band I liked and it told me to look at the screen, and I looked and his music was up and I saw that he did listen to that band. Other times, they direct you to take certain fortune cookies. It's happened a couple times to me before. I'm about to select a fortune cookie, and I look at the cookies to select one and a certain one catches my eye, and something tells me "that one!" This has happened to me twice that I can remember, and in both instances I read the fortune and later figured out why it was important that I picked that one.

Sometimes, I can't tell if a thought came from my own head or from a spirit. I was talking to my mom, and she was talking about her cousin who died not too long ago and about how she visited her right before she died, and as she regretted not staying there longer because she thought she might have been able to help her. As she was leaving her cousin's place, my mom was asking the spirits or whatever to give her some sort of sign if she should stay longer, and she didn't get a sign so she must not be psychic. As she was telling me this, the thought entered my head that she wasn't supposed to stay because there was nothing she could do. I expressed this thought. I don't know if it came from the spirits or not.

Adventures in Dreamland

My sleep was strange last night.

In my first dream, I was deciphering something someone wrote about me on a message board (this so reminds me of high school, those days seem so far away now). They mentioned me, referring to me by my last name. It was a person I know in real life, but I won't say who. I was trying to figure out why they mentioned me, when without me really noticing, my last name changed into the word "right," like that was suddenly my name. Right, as in the opposite of wrong. Then I woke up, and thought about the dream, and fell back asleep.

This part was bad. I was naked in my room at home, and there was something in front of the door but the door was still open. I was trying to close the door. I turned on my computer but when I did it automatically loaded Starcraft, and I didn't want to play Starcraft. Actually, what I wanted to do was decipher the comment the person left on the message board some more. But this was supposed to be back in the day before everything was wireless, and when I looked at the wires hooked into the wall I noticed that the internet wasn't even plugged in, and the cords were all messed up and the wrong things were plugged into the wrong places. Other stuff was happening, that's all I remember though, and it formed a vicious cycle until I decided I wanted to exit this dream, so I held my breath. I woke up as I inhaled.

I fell back asleep again, but this time I didn't know it was a dream. There was a psychic fair going on. I was thinking about how the spirits were causing this madness and I wanted to ask the psychics about my issues. Talking to the psychics was free. I walked up to a psychic, it was a man. I didn't tell him what my issues were, I just asked about my problems, trying to be very vague. He told me they were caused by spirits. In the dream I was impressed that he knew this. The spirits were using me, creating issues in my life and feeding off the emotional energy they created in me. I asked how to stop this madness. He said I needed to accept Jesus Christ as my savior. Actually, at this point I think there were a bunch of psychics surrounding me all telling me this. I asked if there was any other way, this is where my memory fails me but I think the answer was no.

Anyway, I'm not sure about this dream. I'm not sure what the problems in the one part of my dream were supposed to represent in my waking life.

Shyness

So I've been thinking about how I diagnosed myself with selective mutism. I told my therapist today about it, she didn't argue but she said something like, "oh, well most people get anxious in social settings." But she wouldn't really know if I had the disorder or not. She didn't know me when I was younger.

There's something about knowing I have this disorder that makes me feel better. When I think about it, I see reasons why it could make me feel better or it could make me feel worse. The reason why it might make me feel worse is because it means I'm not unique in being so quiet, which sounds like a good thing, but let me explain. I remember back in 2006, I was at the Amen clinic where they were scanning my brain. They also do an interview to help with the diagnosis. It took a great deal of prodding because I had learned from past mistakes not to talk to doctors about certain things, but the interviewer got me to explain a little bit of my delusions, though not in great detail (come to think of it, I've never really explained them to anyone in great detail). The interviewer said there were a few grandiose things, so he asked me the question he asks everyone, which was: "Why you?" Why would this happen to you? Why are you so special? I knew why me, but I didn't answer this question. Because I'm the girl who doesn't talk. And yes, these were delusions, but as I've said before I've considered the circumstances carefully and I think there was something more than just a chemical imbalance, and so what I'm trying to say is that being unique supports my theory. Which is why I might not be happy about not being unique, but that isn't the case. Because being exceptionally quiet is by far not the only thing that makes me unique!

I don't really feel like ranting and raving about the reasons why there are spirits. Even if I did, I would just dance around the issue because if I were to actually give reasons I would be revealing book secrets. Back to the issue at hand: selective mutism. Now that I have a name to describe what I have, I see it as something more external to me and not a defect of my soul. I also realize that it can come with virtues, which I explained in a previous post.

This is weird and I can't stop thinking about it. I wonder if this has anything to do with why I've been feeling seriously funny lately. I think there's more to it than that, though. If I believed in astrology, I might say that the stars have shifted and they are in my favor right now. But I don't believe in astrology.

Self Diagnoses

So I've been watching my new favorite show The Big Bang Theory. Apparently there's a character on the show who has selective mutism. So I looked it up on wikipedia and I realize that's what I have. I determined this, keeping in mind that I am a hypochondriac. I even have the positive symptoms associated with it, like high intelligence, sensitivity to other's feelings, and a strong sense of right and wrong. Of course most people would probably say that they have these traits, but I feel that I know myself and my strengths and weaknesses.

Contrary to what it's like for a lot of people though it has gotten better over time. I got a little better when I entered college and I discovered that I could make conversation with people, though I still used alcohol to cope. It's gotten even better in the past 2 or 3 years. It's funny, because on the wikipedia article it says that some people talk to peers but not adults. It doesn't mention people who are the opposite. Of course, I'm an adult now, but I'm still a young adult. Here at Innercept, I see fellow residents as peers and the staff are like the adults (even though technically we are all adults). Talking to staff is like the easiest thing in the world. Seriously, I can go up to a new staff I've never talked to before and talk to them about anything and I'm not anxious at all. Talking to peers is different, I can talk to them too but I have to warm up to them, which can be a slow process. It's weird, because I can be shy as fuck but I think I'm an outgoing person at heart. I was outgoing when I was younger. It makes me wonder what the fuck happened.

But anyway, I think about this in the context of my more recent issues, or whatever the hell it was that happened back in spring break of 2006. Are these issues connected? Well, the fact that I didn't talk in school was part of my delusions, I mean it was significant in the context of my delusions. It doesn't mention there being a link between selective mutism and delusions, though I think it says something about schizophrenia but I don't have that. And as I write this, I am distracted by a sudden thought. Maybe I could talk about being a selectively mute person in my query letter. I'm not sure if this makes me more interesting or more boring.

Back to my delusions. They are the kind of thing I attribute to chemical imbalances when I forget the facts and details. Whenever I start really thinking about all the things that happened, I'm like WTF? There's got to be something seriously funny going on here. Basically, spirits.

But anyway, sometimes still what happens is someone does something that bothers me. At least, this happened once. And I got over it, and I forgave the person in my mind. But I became very conscious of what I said around the person, and when that happens it means I don't talk very much.

Spirit Imposters

One night last spring my spirit people came to me in a dream and told me I needed to leave Innercept.

I still believe that this was truly a message from the spirits. So I decided that when people directly tell you things in dreams they should be taken seriously. That was before the onslaught of the imposter spirit people.

One theory on why this is happening is because now I make a point of asking questions to people in a dream, thinking they are a spirit. Most people in my dreams aren't spirits, they are just a character generated by some part of my psyche. But I want answers, dammit! So I ask them questions, and if they don't tell me what I want to hear I ask someone else until I eventually get an answer I like.

Last night I didn't have to do this though. I don't remember anything about it except that someone in my dream told me everything that I wanted to hear, about the usual questions I would have asked.

Part of me still secretly (well, not so secretly) hopes that this was a spirit. But I have my doubts. People in dreams have given me conflicting information. Before I got the rejection later from the agent I sent my manuscript to, I had a dream where someone told me that agent would represent me. It's madness.

The problem is that right now my mind isn't regulating who can and can't enter my dreams. I need some sort of filter, with armed guards and metal detectors.

Life: It's All About Surprises

So I'm sitting at the library, and I really feel like writing so I'm going to write but I'm trying to organize my thoughts enough so that I can write about something and not have it turn out incoherent and all over the place.

I find myself confused. There are things on my mind that I really wish I knew the answers to, and then there are things that I'd kind of like to know the answers but I don't really need to.

Sometimes, you "just know" things. But the thing is, sometimes you "just know" something, and what you just know isn't so. Then again, sometimes it is, and when it is it's like, "wow, no one told me that, I just suddenly realized it and knew it was true and wow, I was right!" So how do you tell the difference?

One thing I've learned is to trust your past experience. Ask yourself, what does this experience remind you of? What happened then? Trouble is, sometimes what you're currently experiencing doesn't match with anything from the past.

I've got about a million things on my mind right now, but I'll focus in on one of them. The things that people tell you in your dreams. I had a dream a couple nights ago where I was receiving information from the great beyond. Actually, what was happening is my psychic sister was whispering information to my mom and she was telling it to me. She told me something that made me extremely happy. And I started freaking out! Like seriously, I was freaking the fuck out, because I knew I was receiving this information from a reliable source, and I had just heard exactly what I wanted to hear and I knew it was a dream so that means I was lucid but in most lucid dreams it can be extremely hard for me to stay asleep. I wake up very easily from lucid dreams. But I was going crazy in this dream and I still didn't wake up.

It's weird, because right now I'm staring at what I just wrote, and I've realized that the process of writing that last paragraph convinced me that the information I received was true.

I've said before that you should heed what people tell you in dreams. This is true. Except, they've told me conflicting things. See, I have trouble with my love life, or lack thereof. I have trouble finding people who are interested in me, and when I do, I'm not interested in them. I had a dream a month or so back where someone told me I'd never be in another relationship again. A couple nights ago in the dream I was just talking about, someone told me I'd be in a relationship again before I turned 26. That isn't what I got excited about, I'm not going to say what I got excited about. Later on in the dream, someone told me the thing I got excited about wasn't true. But that was later on in the dream, and the spirits may have left at that point if they had ever been present, as spirits can only stay for so long, because even in dreams mediumship requires you to raise your vibration and the spirits to lower theirs, and this is difficult and the connection doesn't last very long.

I was and still am fully convinced that the night the spirits told me in a dream to leave Innercept, I was talking to the spirits. I'm not fully convinced that the other night I was making contact with the spirits or my great infinite wise self or whatever. It might have meant something, but I'm not sure. Thus why I am confused. I'm also confused at why they told me something good and then took it back. But I feel it might be because they didn't want me to be too sure about this, because then it might not happen, and also because the future is supposed to be a mystery.

Life is all about surprises. Some people hate surprises. That's too bad for them, because life is about surprises. You've got to learn to live with it.

Psychics: My Professional Opinion

A few days ago I was looking at a Skeptical Inquirer magazine and I have to say that I disagree about a number of things. One thing I believe I know is that psychic abilities are real. I went through a phase that I'm not proud of where I would talk to psychics on the internet. I've talked to them in person too. So I consider myself experienced on the subject.

Yes, psychics sometimes know things that there is no way for them to know, even when taking into account that they might be talking to each other. They accurately predict things, but more often than not they predict things that do not end up happening. They can get things right when the chances of them guessing and getting it right are very, very small. They also like to decieve and scam.

I wish I had more time to write, but I have to go to class soon so I'll keep this short. Psychics aren't worth your time or money. Even if they somehow know things they shouldn't know, that doesn't mean that anything else they say is going to be right. They want to make the customer happy, at least at the time of the reading. In other words, they will tell you what you want to hear.

The worst time to talk to a psychic is when you think you might be delusional. No one wants to hear that they are delusional.

Predictions about the future are the most unreliable. Don't take any predictions about the future seriously.

There are some things that you aren't supposed to know until the time is right. Sometimes though, you need advice, and you need it from people who aren't living. At least I do. In this case, you wait for the spirits to talk to you.

But most people aren't mediums! That's not a problem. There's this thing we do every night called sleep. If someone not living really needs to tell you something, this is a good time. My advice: always take seriously the advice you receive in your dreams, if you do receive advice in your dreams.

You can waste money on psychics if you have a lot of cash to spare, but remember that if a psychic says something, it doesn't really mean anything at all.

Narcissism of the Spirit

First off, the reason I am talking about this is because it is something I personally struggle with. Here we have some of my perhaps incoherent musings on souls and existence.

Self-esteem is a tricky subject. If yours is too low there's really no way you can go through life being happy. But if you have high self-esteem does that mean you think you are better than other people?

Because let's face it, if you thought were merely average in every way, you probably wouldn't feel that good about yourself. Or if you felt you were above average in some ways but that the areas you were below average in outweighed the areas you were above average in, or they cancelled each other out, you wouldn't feel that good about yourself either. You need to feel like you are in general above average. Problem is, only half the population is above average.

In order to be healthy, you have to break the competitive mindset and focus on unity. You have to feel that you are a member of the group, the family of humanity, and that you contribute something unique to the group yet you are no better than anyone else in the group. But the tricky part is that you have to really believe that, not just say you believe it.

Because the truth is, or rather, my current understanding of the truth is, all souls are equal. Because your physical attractiveness isn't who you are, you're intelligence isn't who you are, nor is your sense of humor. Who you are is your soul and the knowledge that it contains. Not the knowledge that your brain contains, but that your soul contains, which transcends death. Some souls are further along in the process of knowledge acquisition than other souls. Some souls move along at a faster pace than others. This is their own choice and doesn't mean they're better. Being an old soul doesn't mean your soul is better. We are all merely a different piece of a shattered whole, and there is distance between us and other people and we strive to make that distance smaller.

But we have to be competitive to survive, and when you find yourself winning it's extremely hard to view all people and their souls as equals, because some of us have more advanced souls and we all have unequal temporary earthly traits. I know that I for one suffer from narcissism of the spirit.

And if you do suffer from this, you better not let it show. Because people don't like people who seem to think that they're better than other people, or who admit to it. Which I just sort of did. God dammit.