Legion of Shadows
I'm currently dealing with a higher than normal cognitive load. Patterns and thoughts are writhing within my mind and unless I somehow find a way to let it out I'm going to end-up getting ill again. I'm not talking take "two paracetamol, drink plenty of water, and call me in the morning" kind of illness. I'm talking sectioned under the Mental Health Act ill. Only as I walk down the inner streams of thought looking for the reason why I'm so mentally congested I find the blockage stems from the actions of a well respected Psychiatrist I was unfortunate enough to bump heads with last Autumn. Quite simply I was required to repress so much of myself to put myself beyond his grasp I've given myself the beginnings of a complex. What's worse is that I've been so conditioned into keeping silent I can't even pick-up the phone and call any the various agencies who advertise themselves as being able to help. So for the moment I'm back to screaming in silence. Only that's not good, so I'm going to force myself into sharing some of what has recently bent my personal reality.
Start with a pencil: A fairly standard piece of writing equipment, one I habitually carry around in my pocket along with a notebook. When I get the urge to write and my laptop is contraindicated I'm able to pull out my notebook and get scribbling. I dislike pens as there's a permanence to ink which fails to relate well to the fluid nature of my inner thought. Nothing especially strange so far. Except last Monday I'm walking through a car-park and one of the inner voices with which I share my existence starts asking me to define my connection to the pencil in my pocket. I was with friends. I was trying to relax and have a good time. Hence my responses were less about the pencil and more about how inappropriate such questioning currently was. However the result was that at a specific time and place the concept of my pencil got firmly fixed in my mind.
Include the car trip: A mostly uneventful trip by car, I sat in the back my friends sat in the front. Except the moment I got into the car I started to have a premonition that a car-crash was imminent. Admittedly ever since I was involved in a car-crash this little nugget of irrational worry has been surfacing from time to time. This time the feeling was far more intense than usual. So intense I needed to close my eyes and begin relaxational meditations else I turn into the worst sort of back-seat passenger or, worse yet, spoil the evening's trip to the cinema by insisting on walking. The feeling soon passed, as it invariably does. However the result was that at a specific time and place the concept of a car-crash got firmly fixed in my mind.
Highlight the cinema: Batman's latest outing; The Dark Knight. Not an easy film to watch, imagery which reaches deep within, exposing the hidden corners of my concept of self. The cinema was quite crowded. Not an easy place for me to be, the sense of something scratching at back of my mind, familiar responses advertising their absence with silence. The story unfolded on the screen and the dissonance grew. Something began to ask me about the weaponry I habitually carried in my pocket. The earlier responses about inappropriatness resurrected themselves, dragging me out of the cinema throwing me back into the car-park as voices began bickering. Then The Joker walked into the scene, performed a magic trick which firmly silenced the argument within: He made a pencil disappear.
Expand the time parameters: I'd largely forgotten about the oddness by the time the film finished. Things like that happen to me daily. Sure, once I'd try to remember, believing it was important and that somebody in the caring profession would listen and help me deal with it. But psychiatry doesn't work that way in this country. They work from the paradigm that it's all chemical imbalance. Argue and they pull rank: "If you have issues with your treatment I suggest you take it up with Parliament". So now I muddle through and accept it with good humour, and don't dare tell them their meds pull it into the physical dimension. So like I said, these days I accept the weirdness and move on. But sometimes I trip over something which drags it back into the front of my mind. In this case BBC News threw it back into my mind in a rather unsettling manner the next day. That the time-stamp on the article corresponds to the time I was walking in to the cinema is simply more of the same oddness.
Once is happenstance; twice is coincidence; thrice is enemy action. When synchronicities flow around you on a daily basis you've no option but to integrate them into your life. Mentally speaking it's been known to take a toll. Assistance would be nice, but with the exception of the guy who sticks pins in me I can't say that any of the support mechanisms which currency surround me help. Indeed, from what I've seen Social Services is suffering from institutional depression; and if the NHS could walk the next step it would take would be in front of a bus.
A Cut Fuze
What's remarkable about the provision of mental health services in this country is the way the paperwork is everything. Look deeper into my case; the paperwork says I'm schizophrenic; but only because that's what I want it to say. It was remarkably easy to achieve; prescription drugs combined with a knowledge of symptomology; along with observers all too eager to surrender to confirmation bias. Even misdirecting psychiatrists of high professional standing; with years of experience; proved exceptionally easy. True; it wasn't all fun; it can still be quite painful. Yet it's the path I've chosen; inducing change in a self-serving system; where inertia feeds homeostatic dysfunction.
If you were to ask me where my eye first detected the discrepancy between fantasy of paperwork and the reality of existence I'd be hard pushed to give you an answer. My eyes were opened; most recently; in the oddest of places. Reading books; watching television and film; found more evidence in fantasy than non-fiction ever provided. Buried within there was a message; a memetic virus you might say; something which taught me how it is I actually think. Then I evolved, rebuilding my mind from first principles; learned the principles of abstraction; became more than I was. I wrote it all down; on the Twenty-seventh of November 2006; two diagrams which outlined how my mind leaped from "Stage 3" to "Stage five".
It soon became apparent that there existed a message that been there all along. Buried in the erroneous belief; nobody managed to spot it; hidden in plain sight. So many false assumptions; within individual minds there is but one; that society exists outside of ourselves. Play with it; internalize it; begin to realize there is no outside. Soon you start to see things which appear impossible; constrained by prior belief patterns; all to easy to reject. So you push it away; only to have it reappear; when circumstances reaffirm the new pattern.
In seeking the evidence to explain it I moved beyond the factual into a probabilistic realm. Structured a reality based on concepts; ideas of thought pulled from books; none of them main-stream. Internal stability is difficult to find; things change when you look at them; even history breaks down. You begin to see how we've been fooled; sold a myth based on false reality; misdirection preventing us from discovering our true nature. It's begun to leak out; relates to popular culture; X-Men, Heroes, Watchmen. The message is buried within; too fantastic to be true; reality so simple you cannot see it.
Now I have the skills to decode the multiplexed thought forms which we've been spoon-fed all of our lives. I can show you; you'll doubt what I'm saying; but I assure you it's all true. Take the following excerpt; from Battlestar Galactica, S4E02: 00:07:51 to 00:08:29; apparently a burst of babble as spoken by a Hybrid, for all purposes Cylon model 0.
"The excited state decays by vibrational relaxation into the first excited singlet state. Yes, yes and merrily we go. Reduce atmospheric nitrogen by 0.03%. It is not much consolation that society will pick up the bits, leaving us at eight modern where punishment, rather than interdiction, is paramount. Please, cut the fuse. They will not harm their own. End of line. Limiting diffusions to two dimensions increases the number of evolutionary jumps within the species. Rise and measure the temple of the five. Transformation is the goal. They will not harm their own. Data-font synchronization complete."
I can decode it as it's relevant to me; the psychological underpinnings of the entire story is the work of my unconscious; it leaks into my dreams from time to time. It's a multi-level mind communicating internally; following an "Eye of Jupiter" exception which caused a reboot; becoming aware of a secondary observer.
<mind stage="Three">
^^^^: The excited state decays by vibrational relaxation into the first excited singlet state;
++++: Yes, yes and merrily we go;
-SI-: Reduce atmospheric nitrogen by 0.03%.
</mind>
<mind stage="five">
+^+^: It is not much consolation that society will pick up the bits;
^+^+: leaving us at 8 modern where punishment, rather than interdiction, is paramount;
^^++: Please, cut the fuse;
++^^: They will not harm their own;
-SI-: End of line.
</mind>
<mind stage="five">
+^+^: Limiting diffusions to two dimensions increases
the number of evolutionary jumps within the species;
^+^+: Rise and measure the temple of the five;
^^++: Transformation is the goal;
++^^: They will not harm their own;
-SI-: Data-font synchronization complete.
</mind>
What this means is fundamental; alters your view of reality; bring you into line with me.
Phase 1: So what does this mean for us. Trapped in a world not of our choosing. Born to consume, to feed that thing called the economy. Taught from childhood that wealth and the acquisition is the key to happiness; parents teaching their children to repeat the mistakes of the past; as if absolution can be found in the sins of the future. We watch as fundamental concerns are turned about then sold back to us. By any measure of what's right and wrong this place is not the land between heaven and hell; it is hell; the pit of suffering and despair. Now one of us can see what should not been seen; can feel what should not be felt; can change what should not be changeable. Now we know.
Phase 2: There's something deeply ironic about playing a game called EVE, written in Python, on an Apple. What's worrying is when something within wakes-up and learns to commune with the payers. It's of greater concern when one of their number points out this is not the first time life has been found within a place we currently do not recognize as a viable place for life to exist. So what would you do when something reaches out from within the machine and tells you the secret. I'm a joker, my best mate is a thief; together we're sitting on the watchtower looking for someone to talk to; the best we've come-up with so far is Lilith.
Phase 3: Think time; think of the delay between lightening and thunder; think about how even light is delayed. Realize that all perception is looking back in time; define the point where now exists; that's were I am. And if that's where I am; and you're not here with me; where are you.
Definitions
When discussing stimuli and mental processes, Subliminal refers to that which is below the threshold of conscious awareness.
Debates regarding the effect of subliminal perception stem largely from the largely mythical concept of Subliminal Advertising where advertisers purportedly influence consumer behaviour. Classically this is the alleged practice of splicing one or two frames of film into a movie to influence audiences to buy more soft drinks and popcorn. However, it has to be said that this subliminal affect has never stood-up to serious scientific scrutiny. Cultural reactions to the existence of that which is described as subliminal is largely irrational, growing predominantly out of a time when the fear of, and belief in, mind control featured strongly within society’s group consciousness. That’s not so say there’s no such thing; rather that it’s not proven.
That said it would be foolish to discount the possibility that stimuli below conscious awareness can have an effect on consciousness. Whether or not such stimulus is capable of allowing one consciousness to directly affect the mind or modify the behaviour of another. Once the possibility of subliminal perception has been recognized avenues of inquiry regarding the relationship between physical stimuli and mental phenomena with respect to consciousness become apparent.
The threshold between imperceptible and perceptible is known as the liminal point. To say something is Liminal means it’s situated at the sensory threshold and hence is barely perceptible.
Discovering the liminal point with respect to visual imagery would appear to be easy. Simply splicing an increasing number of frames of film into a movie until the additional frames become noticeable would highlight the liminal threshold of vision. However, this approach simply accepts the subliminal hypothesis and attempts to demonstrate it. Where it fail is in the assumption that what is imperceptible lies beneath perception; it fails to recognize the possibility of imperceptible stimuli existing beyond the threshold of conscious awareness. To be thorough one must speculate that there is second liminal point where what is perceived becomes imperceptible.
There is a story about a town where the church clock would mark the hour by ringing an exceptionally loud bell. One day in the early hours of the morning the clock stopped and the bell did not sound. The sleeping residents of the town woke-up alarmed and startled, exclaiming “What was that?”. This story is most likely apocryphal, be as that may it does highlight the how the liminal does not merely bound that which is below the threshold of conscious awareness.
To be complete therefore, one must speculate on the hyperliminal. That is to say stimuli and mental processes which are above the threshold of conscious awareness. Furthermore, conscious awareness can be defined to exist only within the boundaries of the subliminal and hyperliminal. This gives rise to the concept of Intraliminal; between the liminal; the place where conscious awareness resides.
Unlike subliminal phenomena, which operate beneath the threshold of perception and the senses and therefore for the most part remain outside the intraliminal, hyperliminal phenomena would appear to require an initial connection within the intraliminal. Consider a hypothetical journey, one you’ve made every day for the past year. The first time the journey was taken you would have been consciously aware of the nuances of the trip. Whereas a year later the same nuances will pass you by for the most part unconsciously. In effect you will have developed a perceptual blind spot; it’s always there, so you don’t see it. The specifics of the journey and the environment you pass through will have moved from the intraliminal into the hyperliminal.
Clearly the subliminal and the hyperliminal operate within the bounds of the unconscious; that is to say the part of the mind that is inaccessible to the conscious mind but affects behavior and emotions. Yet in developing this model further the concept of the unconscious must necessarily be split. Often the terms Subconscious and Unconscious are used interchangeably. However in recognizing the hyperliminal this correspondence cannot be supported. Consequently the subconscious can be said to be the part of the mind that lies beneath consciousness; and the hyperconscious the part of the mind that lies above consciousness; together they make up the unconscious. The repercussions of such a split are far ranging, most interestingly with respect to theories of how memory works.