personal experience

September 25, 2013

On The Winter’s Morrow

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show. ~Andrew Wyeth

Winter Snow Path

 

Living outside, I would not say that I have control over my own life (for who really does? I give my will to the universe and move in the ever present Now, walking along the beach of the unknown), but I am much freer than when I lived inside, bogged down by some of the fabricated economic controls that are too often in the US used as fear-mongering. Out of doors, I am much happier and at peace outside of society’s box than inside it.
But what of the winter, I have been asked many times.

Two years ago, when we (my boyfriend, Stephen, and I) first walked away from our home it was still winter and the coldest we slept was 18 degreess, with no problem, and that was without a tent and only summer sleeping bags we zipped together. The average winter temperature is not very cold here in this part of Pennsylvania (for instance, nothing like Alaska’s or Maine’s winters).

Cold NoseI am looking forward to the winter, it will be beautiful to witness as the snow falls or to wake up to a mountain top of snow. Outside, one can see all of the changes, even the subtle ones, as the seasons merge with one another. For example, the official date of Autumn is September 22, but when you live outside, you notice that Fall begins well before that, usually around the end of July and beginning of August and lasts, in the tiniest, minutest ways all through August, even before the temperature changes in September. You can smell Fall coming in August. One day in August, we woke up and the sound of the wind in the treetops was different and we both knew right then that Fall was on its way. The sound of the forest changes, the animals behave differently well before the end of September. Everything PREPARES first for the Fall and you can see all of the preparation throughout August and September, something otherwise missed if living inside. You learn to synchronize with your natural surroundings. We would weather the winter as easily as the animals do.

SeasonsJust the other night, in the tent we listened as a thunderstorm began miles away in the distance and the reverberations of the insects’ calls danced off the still air and anticipating trees. Then we saw lightning, and listened intently as the wind picked up, starting at the tops of the trees first, before descending around their barks and rushing through the forest proper and down near the ground. We listened as the insects hushed, just slightly, as if they, too, were waiting for the storm. And we can hear it coming, we can hear the sheet of rain rushing towards us like the sound of a train. The sound is unmistakable. Last year and earlier this year, when we used to live near a stream, the sound of the stream increased as the storm approached. And when we walked about outside, two years ago, we were often caught in the storms and we were still awed by their beauty. We have seen colors of lightning that have dazzled us, we have seen the satellites shoot across the air, we have seen red lightning (called sprites, I think) that actually occur high above the clouds, we have been so close to lightning strikes as to feel its heat and notice that lightning actually burns a fire orange! Like looking at a string of flame, it was incredible! We saw the rare Strawberry Moon two years ago, we have watched the positions of the constellations change as the seasons and the earth revolve. Nature calls the spirit within humans. . . my boyfriend and I just answered back. We have never regretted it. We often wonder whether we can sleep again while inside. Although, one day, we will probably eventually return to the indoors , for now the Winter’s morrow bothers us not, and we look forward to exploring the seasons merge from one to the other, as humans merge from one phase of life to another, as the universe slowly moves on towards an unknown eventuality. We await. . . and we prepare looking for the mysteries beneath, looking past our physical eyes . . . seeking more to see.

*Image Credits (all work used with permission through CC license)–
“Winter Snow Path” by blmiers2
“Seasons” by Dawn Ellner
“Cold Nose” by Laszlo Ilyes
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September 23, 2013

Psychotic Episode (I Have No Ego)

I have no ego. . . my psychotic episode.

The schizophrenic experiences a stunning barrage of continuous, horrifying symptoms: auditory hallucinations, delusions, ideas of reference, paranoia, etc. The “indescribable severe torture” is unrelenting and can go on except during sometimes restless sleep, at whichtime the symptoms are even active when one becomes conscious at all. This experience is so overwhelming it is beyond the imagination. It cannot be conceived of intellectually. By its very nature it in fact necessitates the concept of religion in order to relate to it at all. This continuous experience of psychotic symptoms can be viewed as “spiritual exercises in perfection”. The effect on the schizophrenic is similar to that of monks when practicing their rituals in monasteries. When these spirited exercises become a lifestyle for the schizophrenic (lasting 8-10 years) with no real evidence given to the schizophrenic that he will ever recover, a fascinating thing happens to the psyche of that schizophrenic—he loses the perspective of “ego”. Ego consists of all his identifying factors in the world: his age, sex, race, religious affiliation or lack thereof, education level, social class, political affiliations, nationality, etc. He begins to see his environment with the eyes of a newborn, without the bias or prejudices, preconditions of his particular circumstances. It can be seen as a sort of continuous baptism by fire, a kind of purification, enabling him to see reality for what it is in actuality, rather than being viewed through the preconceptions of his individual mental, emotional, and behavioural repertoire instilled in him from birth. The schizophrenic in this condition is able in his interior to walk around in someone else’s moccasins with perfection. This can be seen as loving your neighbour as you love yourself, perfectly. I do not believe it is a condition that can be acquired by a “normal” individual by any method, because the horror of the symptoms of schizophrenia are unduplicable by man. (Religious persons would call this condition repentance for all one’s sins, e.g. “perfect repentance”.) ~Source

Recommended readings on the absence of ego in the SchizoAffective (schizophrenic) mind:

Features:
“What You Want”, “Bent and Broken” and “The Complex” by Kevin MacLeod, Incompetech.com
“Tech-No-Logic” by In[Perfektion] off album Perfekt Chaos, freemusicarchive.org/music/InPerfektion/
“In Suspense” by Psychadelik Pedestrian off album Nocturnia, freemusicarchive.org/music/Psychadelik_Pedestrian/
“Eerie Horror Scene”, “Strange Days”, “Hell”, “Spooky Water Drops” and “Pterodactyl Scream” sound FX recorded by Mike Koenig, SoundBible.com

*Image Credit (used with permission through CC license):
“walking on the razor’s edge in the underground train world : manhattan (2007)” by torbakhopper

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September 16, 2013

What is Schizophrenia?

EXPLORINGtheLATERAL

What is Schizophrenia?  

“A good question, with no simple, short, or straightforward answer, since each sufferer is unique and schizophrenia is a complex phenomenon. In general, schizophrenia is an extremely introverted, psychospiritual mode of perception, or way of relating to the world; or state of consciousness involving (what I have called) ‘extreme empathy’. This simultaneous blessing and curse is due to a fragile, fragmented, dead, or lost ego, or conscious personality structure. The normal, ego-enforced boundaries between the self and the world have broken down, such that schizophrenia sufferers – for better and worse – find themselves identifying with everything within their scope of perception. It is because of this ego loss, or ‘dis-integration’ that psychosis, shamanic initiation and mystical experience are so inextricably bound. The schizophrenic person may appear to family, friends and doctors to be lacking in emotion, but in reality is in a state of intense…

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September 13, 2013

A Look At The Absence Of Ego In The SchizoAffective Mind

DaydreamerThere is a point at which one becomes aware of deeper truths present in what one perceives as reality, and although scientific-management and the other social experiments exacted upon the world by those who seek to create come kind of rational human being, a superman from the nascent gene pool of human nature, attempted to insert in SchizoAffectives (although at birth it could not have been known that these particular individuals—true individuals and not the rugged individuals of whom Watts speaks—would resist this insertion by becoming SchizoAffective [or Autistic or even Schizophrenic]) this rational thinking process, the mechanism of the system, the SchizoAffective resisted, with his very life.

When a human being is born, he has no inherent thinking process; he has only sensation and awareness of those childhood-schizophrenia-symptomssensations. He lives only in the Now, he has no extrinsic concept of time, he has no ability of mind to predict behavior. At infancy, the human being is at his most mindful: all mind and no thought. All awareness and the glimmers of consciousness from his first intake of oxygen (and perhaps before). Through systematized familial relationships (whether that familial relationship be biological or institutional or on the street is irrelevant, for the etymological origins of the term family stem from the word “familiar”. Family is that which one is most familiar. That which one encounters and engages every day) a process of thought begins to supplant or replace that natural mindfulness and awareness. In Western Culture, rather than raise the levels of consciousness begins to break them down, to disintegrate them. Not necessarily out of meanness or malice or even evil, but out of efficiency and necessity.

*aLiCe iN WoNdErLaNd-SynDroMe*To disintegrate the consciousness and narrow the awareness makes for easier rearing of a child in an already systematized culture and society. Thus begins the Social Game. Without knowing the effects of such play, the familial institutions begin to prepare the infant for a childhood of systemized living: schooling, social interactions (rather than friendships), social communication (the forming of consciousness and awareness and sensations into rational, logical, linear thought, and thought into rational, linear, logical language). A schizophrenic meanders in speech, seemingly illogical, lacking linear capacity, therefore difficult to follow or comprehend. One thing does not naturally lead to another. It takes a path untrodden through the wooded fabric of his still intact mindfulness, awareness, and consciousness. Like grasping Alice’s hand and wandering thought Wonderland for a spell, visiting bits and pieces of nonsense. Like looking at the first layer of a highly iterated fractal. The SchizoAffective mind works (not processes) like layers of fractal chaos. It tessellates. Only making any kind of sense when the full pattern of the fractal can be seen from a higher level of magnification. As such, systematized society and its rules are traumatic to the schizoid mind.

Samsara + NirvanaThe schizoid mind is not fragmented by years of systematic abuse (that is AB-use, used badly or wrongfully) despite his speech appearing so to systematized society. His depth of emotion remains wide along the spectrum, not divided into sad/happiness, anger/contentment, crying/laughter. It retains its seemingly inexplicable nonduality and laterality: Cry-laughing-anger-smiling-sorrow-contentment-pensivity-stillness, etc. In effect, a chaos of emotion and mental associations that is like a quantum code. Every iterant absorbs the previous and results in a new iteration, which then absorbs, and so forth. Iterations can be understood to mean manners of speech, sentence structure, sensation, awareness, of environment, empathy of others’ emotions, words and meanings of others in their environment, and so on. Although, not an algorithm naturally, the mind of a SchizoAffective (and schizophrenic) behaves like one, more like IBM’s Watson, or higher level AI. The schizoid mind learns in this manner as well. Thus, he is a difficult addition to the social consciousness. He does not fit. He becomes the discordant (and contrariwise, society appears discordant to the schizoid mind; the affect to the schizo of SchizoAffective). Quite plainly, the social game can and does drive the schizoid mind into madness; hence his defense mechanism of dissociation, or isolation, or hallucination, or paranoia, or delusions.

Schizophrenia bisThe schizoid mind experiences intrinsically the external world like a person on LSD. His experience is psychedelic always, his awareness is synesthetic, his empathy almost like telepathy. What then of the socially constructed ego? Why is the schizo without one? Even if he were born with an ego, he would discard it out of preservation for his consciousness. The ego does not fit into the schizoid mind’s psychedelic experience and perception of the world about him. He MUST rid his mind of the ego; else, he shall not survive the continual and constant onslaught of the social order. In other words, the riddance and absence of the ego is a self-defense mechanism in the schizo.

*Image Credits (all work used with permission through CC license)–
“*aLiCe iN WoNdErLaNd-SynDroMe*” by caroline barberis
“treatment-of-schizophrenia-01″ by Life Mental Health
“childhood-schizophrenia-symptoms” by Life Mental Health
“Schizophrenia bis” by Gwendal Uguen
“Daydreamer” by H.Kopp Delaney
“Samsara + Nirvana” by H.Kopp Delaney

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August 24, 2013

Medicinal

“Medication Time! Medication Time!”

Fig. 1My music is a kind of poetical literature in instrumental form. In each piece, I attempt to tell a story.

This experimental, ambient piece tells the story of before, during, and after taking medication. In the past (a long ago past), I was highly against taking any kind of medication as part of treatment, as I considered medication a form of mind-control and I did not want anyone mucking about with my mind, despite the fact that, at that time, my mind was quite unfriendly towards me and regarded as monstrous. I explain this, to further illuminate the influence behind this particular piece and why I created it.

The beginning of the music portrays what triggers the (almost daily) psychotic episode (the affected part of SchizoAffective Disorder) and a depiction of the resulting mood and state of mind/consciousness (which is why the music grows from dark to a kind of chasing feel, as if the mind were chased by the impending psychosis). The middle of the piece/story portrays taking the medications (I no longer hold the same beliefs I did when I was younger about medication, I can now see its use and I now comprehend much more about the beneficial chemical effects it can have on the brain, which has an effect on the body and state of mind) and how differently the mind is affected and the semblance of peace it brings afterward (which sort of explains the lyrics in the middle, “Little did I know. . .”). But the medication lasts only a while and is not impervious to further triggers (shown in the immediacy of the return to the psychosis). The end portrays the return to the psychosis. . . and time again for medication. Basically, this piece illustrates the endless daily loop of life for a mind schizo affected (the reason behind the ending looping back to the beginning, although not exactly, because not every episode is the same).

This is the second track off the new album I am currently working on titled, From The Mind Of A Schizo, Affected. First track, Melvin, is here.

Features: (all samples are used with permission through CC license or public domain)
“Ghostpocalypse – 7 Master” & “Digital Bark” by Kevin MacLeod, Incompetech.com
“Awair — Forever Yours” & “Spooky Hallowe’en Sound 02 FX” from BeatsRoyaltyFree
“Traffic” & “War” sound effects from SoundBible
Free samples from ACIDplanet

Untitled*Image Credits (all artwork used with permission through CC license)–
“biTteRNeSS bEfoRE bREakFASt” by Sippanont Samchai
“Fig.1” by Vacon Sartirani
“Untitled” by Andres Yeah

August 22, 2013

The Guise of the Neurotypicals

Rain for 3 days changes one’s countenance. What one could have begun in high spirits after the middle of the second day (and certainly after sleeping two nights in the damp) one’s spirit have plummeted and take to finding any small not-even-an-imperfection worth bickering over. The bickering is not the humdrums, though; it is the sulking that can drive one mad.

heaven's glowI try not to sulk, although, I admit to becoming rather pensive and confused over otherwise simple matters. This is the effect rain, cold, and damp have over me. It is why I prefer the sunshine to any other weather because I love to be out of doors. To frolic with little clothing, bare feet, flowing hair, the sun warms skin burning in the ultraviolet, vitamin D chemical reaction (ah, but we are such waveforms, our lives the modulation of frequency), grass and soft dirt beneath the soles of my feet. The soles of my feet softened by earth rather than blistered and calloused by cotton and leather imprisonment—how I hate socks and shoes—skin perspiring and pores breathing oxygen high; there is nothing like the sun and its reaction upon me. I prefer the sun, despite knowing its illusion. I prefer the reaction of, the chemistry of it all.

How it affects my form, the same as the animals and the flowers and the earth, all but the buildings and pavement, which reject the sun, irradiates it back into the atmosphere like the hell it is. “Pollution” of excess heat, no absorption just toxic waste. I abhor that my chosen avoidance of neurotypicals would force me to dwell in the rain or snow just so they will not follow. But I am sick of the running, I am sick of their false power. They have none! No more or less than I. Why do I behave as if they are my superior, as if they are the determination of my choice?

fractal stock dg 11012012It seems as if I enact the predestined pre-determined whims of some unseen force always trying to show that I should milk the cow, to benefit from their (neurotypicals’) willed obeisance and their unconsciousness, because I have conscious. But my question always keeps me from this game. Why is that the only game in town available to a conscious being? Why must a conscious being consume the unconscious? Does that not make of me a vampire? Why is it only vampirism that is offered? Is there nothing else other than vampirism or escape? Is this the joke?

I do not think so. I think, no, I intuit that there is something more. That more than 2 exists. How can choosing from only 2 promise freedom? Was I not then forced to choose? What freedom holds there within? Would not freedom arise from presentation of any number? Or from the fields and folds of my imagination? What of this 2?! Who made it up?

owl fractalAnd this idea of happiness: why does it only arise from either of the two? What is this happiness? What probable unfulfilled promise is this? Who are the parties of this contract? Who is selling this dream? The same misery supposedly arising from the either end of the two? Who invented this will, and why should I borrow it? Why should I trade for naught? This is what I cannot comprehend about it.

I would rather live outside the 2 and the guise of the neurotypicals, forgo such commercials and happiness and misery and, live instead until I die doing as I will, always expanding, always genesis. What wrong comes from this? What expectations?

I have no expectation, great or small. I was once asked did I have expectations. I said I had none, why would I? How could I? I wait in the moment until another moment arrives, until then I have no idea what should transpire once there, and I have no judgment afterward; for every moment is fleeting. For this, I am called naïve. I do not know why really. I am also called autistic, I do not know why really. I have heard the definitions of such accusations and still do not understand. The terms are always rudimentary to me, as easily applicable to genius or wisdom as naïve or autism. Does that not depend only upon the beholder? As I have no such estimations of my own. I do not know why, yet, it seems that neurotypicals do have some kind of expectations of me, that pop quizzes are always laid before me that I inevitably fail. But my failure is not from lack of study, only from a differing version of perception.

It is if I am not expected to have ways of seeing unique to how I am, but must circle the correct answer on the test before I am permitted worthy enough to pass the next level. Will I never graduate from school?!

fractal stock 8I do not want schooling; see I dropped out of schooling (although, I possess both high school diploma and college degree, but these pedigrees are not what I mean). I will take my chances at autodidactic, thank you. I do not need a mentor, nor do I need validation in order to be comfortable with what I see and think. I do not care if no one believes anything I say or if no one cares about what I say. I am not in pursuit of celebrity or guru or other such nonsense. I do not understand why that is difficult for neurotypicals to grasp. I really do not care if neurotypicals and their guises think me stupid, intelligent, pretty, ugly, man, woman, disgraceful, pleasant, love, hate; why would any of that matter?

When I argue with such nonsense it is not the accusation I counter, but the premise presented. The argument is untrue, a contradiction, so I make the mistake of trying to unwind the contradiction, but I lack patience, sanity, and motivation to tarry effectively or very long. . . . because I really do not care, and more it drives me screaming into madness days required from which to recover.

So, the quiet is far more preferable than proof, disproof or thought. I want to live in the woods and the sun, not to avoid certain kinds of people or to escape industrial civilization, but because I wish for quiet . . . so I can think (intuit, i.e., thinking without words). So I can Be (i.e., chaotic stillness). So, I can share true conversation and swat these gnats from my mind.

A job or social security are both just banks to me, a place that deposits money to an account electronically. What difference does the name and architecture make? They are both symbols of bureaucracies, both ships steered by regulation and law, both subjects of the Ancient Ones. Why do I care the guise? Madness beats beneath each mask.

*Image Credits (all artwork used with permission through CC license)–
“Heaven’s  Glow” by PapayaPirate
“Lights of the Mind 0007” by agsandrew 
“Fractal Stock DG-11012012” by DsyneGrafix 
“OWL Fractal”  by dzikir
“Fractal Stock 08” by Ox3ArtStock

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August 19, 2013

When the Edge Is Near: An Outline of a Psychotic Episode

It is so easy it seems for my mind to be wrecked, thereby, wrecking perhaps an entire day, or an indeterminate number of hours of long, prolonged moments trying to piece my mind together. And people (the egos of Society) always say I am gaming or manipulating or faking or stupid or some other such nonsense to explain away the means in which my mind attempts to recover from its shattered state.

I would rather not have this happen; I would rather not be affected at any moment, like being stalked by a monster wearing your own face. Like being stalked by your best friend, whom only a second ago was still your best friend and not the lumbering, snarling, shrieking, screeching ogre stalking you. Knowing where all your favorite hiding spots are; using every secret shared; every years-discovered nuance; every shift, pitch and frequency of your voice; knowing with precision every line of your face and using that knowledge as weapons against you. Because it is your own mind that stalks, at any moment turning against you. Turning in on you, twisting and distorting an already upside down world, like an inverted stream of consciousness. A psychic whisperer so can use truth like lies.

A psychotic episode comes on like a holocaust, save there is no warning, no foreshadowing, no skepticism, no ‘wondering If’ before hand, nothing to have taken heed. Just at one second, friend, and the very next before the clock ticks completely over, monster. And it is worse when the break must be kept quiet else it may disturb others (egos in society) and cause further problems, which feeds back in on the break, pushing the mind farther towards the cliff. Suicidal ideations may be pondered and masticated in the mind, but the actual decision comes in an impulse, an instant. Because no one knows where the edge of the cliff is, so one does not know at which point one will fall, as such, suicide is an accidental decision. “It” just becomes too much and there is a knife nearby so you pick that up and rake it across your throat, without thought, without feeling other than desperation as if you are locked inside a 5 dimensional tessellated Schrödinger box. You just want. It. To. Stop. You want your mind to stop.

The misconception is that there are racing thoughts and voices forcing and compelling you. This is a bit of an oversimplification. There are no thoughts; thoughts at that point are not raw enough to embody such pain. Words cannot contain such concepts of horror. The abstraction of that kind of state of mind tessellates fractals, like a code you cannot crack, because it multiplies exponentially a new number to code with each attempt at cracking it. As if a hacker were trying to crack a password, but with each attack, the password randomly changed and used the hacker’s effort as its algorithm. Like tessellating a fractal into splitting dimensions. So, thought, the idea is like a joke. Thought could not possibly exist in this level of hell. Others assume there are only basic emotions, limbic system responses, fight or flight. This is another misconception. We are talking about a unique, personal, intimate, sensual, perfect, precise, tailored mental hell that is boundless and that changes and evolves faster than any “cure” or attempt to heal the gaping wound that SHINES its pain is so clean and perfect, like the most priceless of diamonds. We are talking about a spectrum of emotions. If you should see one registered on the face, then THAT is an external sign of an emergency, because that means that the internal hell is leaking out to the external, amalgamated reality, and that means the edge is near.

I wish I were at a place such that when these moments strike me I can immediately start making a song, like capturing its photography, like freezing light. Sometimes, that helps to get out the daemon. But when such avenues are ripped from you for reasons of social aptitude, it only pushes the edge closer. It only makes you wish for the edge. To need it, want it, love it. So much so that death becomes like a private joke within you. Only the laughter never ends.

No, not so much a spectrum of emotions, but a prism, so many occurring simultaneously that you cannot name them all. That you cannot possibly identify them, they are so subtle, so loud. To say that one is “sad” or “depressed” in this state is not only synonymous with sacrilege (in its wrongness) but also absurd to think that it was that easily named, that easily quantified. Madness has no hold here. Madness has come and fled before something far superior and far, far more terrifying. Satan has had his fill, Satan flees in terror, and this is Satan’s hell. His horror turned to reflect his un-ego.

That is what it is like to be in the throes of a psychotic episode.