Music of the Eyes

Lukas Allen

Writing is about enticing a mind into a certain structure, a free range mind into a comfortable abode, or a horrifying cage, or even somewhere the mind has never, ever seen before. Writing is about leading this mind down a path, whether or not the mind rambles down the path at their own pace or follows the directions completely and loyally. This pathway is sometimes followed by other minds as well, or even contains shades and wraiths of past, present, or future. Sometimes we, writers, have a certain agenda to propose to this mind, but sometimes we just want to walk down the road with them, and see the sights that we transcribe.

I personally write for myself above all others. Even if I dedicate a work to someone, or name a certain character after a friend or relative, I wouldn’t be writing if I did not enjoy the writing myself. In this nature I may never find a job for writing other than as an independent writer, but for me it’s purposeful and pursuable like this. I can’t even begin to describe how writing has changed my mental health for the better. It’s been a very long journey for me with writing, and the journey isn’t even close to being over, if I at least survive long enough to put just one more book out.

As a reader, stories take on different shapes and sounds that may or may not be something the reader has seen before. Sometimes when describing a room of a friend the room is instantly and vividly opened up to the reader. This location changes with the reader’s own experiences. It could look like Grandma’s house, or somewhere the reader has lived before, or perhaps it is a combination of places that only slightly represent what the reader has seen before, or perhaps wished to see before.

The voices of characters are silent, but we can hear them so clearly. These words I am writing right now have their own voice in your mind. Words are directly linked to voice, a transcription of sound. At least it is that way for people who can hear. I will never, ever know what someone who’s never heard a sound before hears when they read this, and I wonder if it is a truly magical experience of reading not of sound, but of form, shape, color and feeling. I will never know this, because my mind already attaches sounds to words.

Becoming a writer is easy. All one has to do is pick up the pen, type on the keyboard, and never stop. Same as reading, one just has to exercise that literary muscle in one’s head and keep on strengthening it, never stopping. Do not tie yourself down with words written, pages read, or some other limit, for I’ve learned as a writer these are all imaginary borders in one’s writing. I can reformat a page, change the book length and style, and the length will be changed as well. Usually when one only writes for length, they do not produce very good writing. The limits should be set only by one’s own endurance, whether they’ve written what they want to say or not, and not to fill time or space. There is a key purpose to every writing, and it is up to us, writers, readers, to produce that purpose and live in it. One can write a masterpiece novel if they only even write a sentence a day.

Now, every writing is seen differently, and that is why I find it important to find the meaning, as a writer, for myself first. What could be boring could be exhilarating for the next. What could be over the top could be exciting for others. What is mundane may not be for a different experiencer. Find the purpose to the work, even if it is only up to one’s own measure.

I will continue this work, at least as a vow to myself. Writing can help one cope with reality, horrible or great experiences, and allows one to mull over a thought, create villains that must be defeated, or even make friends that one wishes they had. I will continue, as I obsess about THE BOOK, no matter if I may never finish. It is a way I can substantiate my own dreams and desires, and finally… walk on the path of written words and feel the music of the eyes.

Muses and Monsters

Lukas Allen

Belief can clarify or obscure, as demons haunt the mind and muses dance across the page.

My own fictional demon has haunted me for a long time. I say “fictional” because of course it’s not real, even though I can think of it, hallucinate it, and write about it. It changes every time I do. This being, my own monster that possesses my footsteps is a being known as the Lich.

There are many “liches” in fiction. Adventure Time has a Lich of their own, there is the Lich King from World of Warcraft, and other slighter liches interspersed through fiction. My Lich was a drawing based around a Magic the Gathering card, “Phylactery Lich.” I was inspired from the art, and drew my own unholy visage during a study hall in high school. After I showed it to a friend beside me, he said that it looks like something a schizophrenic might draw.

And whaddaya know, I became an actual schizophrenic years later, with this ghostly Lich coming back for seconds. At first it started as an obsession. I kept on drawing it, and drawing it, and drawing it, trying to make it perfect. There was no reason to this, and could be seen as simple artistic inspiration. I started thinking of it, thinking what it actually could be. I stole a necklace from a mall, I have no idea why I was there, and when I ripped off the packaging, I accidentally cut myself. It was a necklace of a skull. This necklace exploded in my mind during a hallucinogenic experience, after I took a few Hawaiian baby woodrose seeds in a hallucinogen testing.

After that crazy trip of mine where I learned the truth and broke the window, the Lich continued, being drawings of mine and in my thoughts and mind. Far later, when I started hearing voices, one of the first few voices I heard was the Lich, usually paired with the Devil. The Lich was constantly changing its origin, being a dead serial killer in the basement, being EVIL incarnate, and always, always antagonistic towards me. He sometimes spoke in rhymes, sometimes was the monster entering the room in the dark, and was the symbol of my darkest experiences.

This Lich I wrote about in The Nameless Knight saga, my first books written. The Lich was a symbolic being of the voices I hear, and my characters and I fought against him in my fiction stories. In the end of the series I prevailed against the Lich, leaving him locked up and imprisoned, in a fairly nice place actually. I have since forgiven this demon of my mind, and he is a welcome companion now. He used to always be devouring my soul and taking over my mental imagery. I eventually released him from imprisonment, and he pops up again in some other stories, a very enigmatic figure with multiple agendas.

When I hallucinated the Lich and the Devil, they were very unpleasant together. That’s at least the minimum I can say about such experiences. I waged my own fictitious war against the Devil as well, and I can only say that now he is put far and away from me, where he can’t harm me or anyone. Of course, this being as a religious demon means that he is never gone for good. For every ten souls Christianity gains, there is at least one who falls to the Devil, no matter how they believe in him. He is obscured in lies and truth, and while some believe him harmless, others take very real fear of the Devil. I’d say it was a shame that he takes such reality in such a roundabout method, if I did not also fight my own battles with this Prince of Darkness. Coincidences make too much sense, the silence holds too much whispers, and the darkness is ever all consuming.

I’d classify it as a haunting, dealing with these creatures, if I was not now so wholly a skeptic. In spiritual terms it ranges from fascination, which is an unnatural interest in the spirit, to obsession, which is unwanted spiritual presences. As one who hallucinates I could fully rely on these terms and understand what they mean, but I also understand that I hallucinate because of an illness, and not specifically because of spirits.

I could even say I’ve been possessed, and been lucid of the experience. This event of possession happened as I hallucinated two other people in me, although strictly speaking they were telepathic connections and not spiritual. It’s all a roundabout of spiritism, which I prefer to label instead as artistic obsession, and an urge to understand whatever the hell is happening to me as I hallucinate on all fronts.

There are people who believe every word of the Bible be true, but do not believe in mental illness. They attach their own meanings with the help of religion, and blindly ignore psychiatric medicines and study. This is a tragedy as far as I’m concerned, where the beliefs of a dusty old book with many dusty old stories blinds progress. There are the flat Earthers, the people who believe the world is 6000 years old, and others who make up their own interpretations despite research explaining otherwise. It’s a shame, is what I’ll say.

I do know that belief is powerful. I’ve believed in evil incarnate, and evil incarnate appeared. When looking for something, something to hope for or something to fear, then eventually you will find it, no matter the interpretation. Belief is that powerful, and faith can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on what you believe.

Every one of my characters have been inspirations of something or other. The Nameless Knight happened to be inspired from a deceased family member, Yule Tidings a Christmas creation expanded upon for the people I care for, Mary Jane, a devillady romance of what I truly desired. These creations are my muses, as well as people I can count on no matter what, even though they are all fictional.

Belief can help or hurt, from muses of creation, to obsessions of demons, to religion grand and divine or humble and meek.

Dogma Review

Lukas Allen

My past homeroom teacher just loaned me a whole bunch of DVDs to watch. I just got my DVD player in the mail, since I needed one that hooked up to HDMI instead of the old red, white, and yellow cords. DVDs seem so old now, in a world where streaming is available at your fingers from handheld devices called phones. The age old practice of popping in a DVD (or VHS tape) and relaxing on the couch for cinematic entertainment has become obsolete. I grew up on DVDs and VHS tapes, even if physical media is slightly a hassle at times, where the disc or tape can get damaged and break easier. Whole segments of the movie became unwatchable as the damaged media produced static over the picture. VHS tapes always got eaten up, but did have the power to record shows on antennae TV, something we don’t seem to do anymore, record things for later viewing. Some of my favorite movies were DVDs or VHS tapes my family owned. We probably watched them hundreds of times, and my absolute favorite movies from those days from those old devices would be The Castle of Cagliostro, Shrek, Harry Potter 1 and 2, and The Thief and the Cobbler.

The DVD I just watched from my old homeroom teacher’s stash was Dogma (1999). I actually couldn’t find an actual spot on the internet to watch this movie, so DVD was the only chance to see it. I was impressed by all the old actors that were gathered up for this movie, some who definitely have garnered much more success and fame since those days. Names I definitely knew were Chris Rock, Matt Damon, Alan Rickman, and Alanis Morissette, where I’m sure I’ve seen the other actors before but couldn’t quite place. Kevin Smith was the creator and director, and I liked his Clerks movies. A couple of characters from those movies even popped up in Dogma, Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) and Jay (Jason Mewes).

Dogma is a religious comedy, a mix of irreverent humor as well as genuine reasoning and rationalizing of religion as a whole. Questions like could God be female, could Jesus be black, and could reality be erased if God is wrong pop up throughout the movie. The whole conflict of the movie is that two fallen angels want to go back to Heaven, but by doing so would prove God wrong and unmake existence. Just by showing that they could get back to Heaven would show God as fallible, when religious dogma states that God is always infallible. A few characters team up to stop these angels before they destroy existence.

I enjoyed the in depth theological explanations in the movie, even if a lot of it was personal adaptations. Religion is mostly personal adaptations anyway, no matter where you look, so it is fitting in this way. However, some of the religious adaptations were leaps of faith, and did complicate the plot in some ways. All and all it was entertaining though.

I think I most enjoyed just the questions put forth by the movie. Why are angels the servants, where humanity gets free reign to do whatever they want? How come Jesus doesn’t have any recorded siblings? Is God female? Is Jesus black? These are wonderfully skeptical questions, that would surely mess with the classic Bible thumper’s white Christ beliefs. Of all the nationalities, Jesus being black, or middle eastern, are far more likely than a blue eyed white Jesus. Religion should be questioned; we should ask questions of such commonly to allow belief to grow.

My favorite subject in the movie are all the different classes of angels. There are seraphim, Grigori, angels of death, muses, and other such beings. I like to write religious fiction, and also do enjoy putting my own take on religion is well. Thus Dogma is a fitting movie for me, and inspires me to write the next round of religious fiction, and expand my repertoire. The one seraph, Metatron, played by Alan Rickman, points out that God’s voice is too powerful for any mortal being, and I never had the idea that God would need a speaker for himself/herself, and it makes some sense. Angels have no reproductive organs in the movie, which also is a strange thing, but makes sense since they do not need to reproduce.

I personally believe that God is omnipotent despite not acting on omnipotence. In fiction like Dogma, it is easier to have God become more tangible by actively seeing religious forces and characters, where some in real life aren’t as visible. In the end, is religion no less fictitious than movies like Dogma? What can humanity put their faith in? Is there a point to any of it, and does that point make any lick of sense?

It is up to ourselves to find the faith and belief. Maybe, just maybe, Dogma too is part of God’s plan, and by tuning in, God is working through the viewer to produce the next bit of His plan. Maybe even just this long winded review has meaning under God’s light.

I will not give any ranking or classification for Dogma, however I will now list my own likes and dislikes of the movie.

The characters are bizarre and fun. Just seeing Matt Damon whip out a pistol and kill sinners is crazy enough, seeing Alan Rickman produce his wings was cool, and the two “prophets,” Jay and Silent Bob, were crudely funny enough to keep interest. The religious discussion that is the whole movie in essence is good for a long thought or two, and it’s interesting seeing what other beliefs there could be. The plot was slightly overcomplicated, and could probably use less characters actually. There were a lot of characters from all across the board, and not every one of them was entirely necessary. I was not insulted by the movie, even being Christian myself, and I suggest if someone is insulted by this movie, they reevaluate their faith to figure out why they can’t accept or tolerate even just a joke about faith, faith that is not only theirs but others’ as well.

My favorite joke is that the angels had to experience eternity in the worst place of all… Wisconsin. I recommend Dogma to the faithful and nonfaithful alike. It’s good for a long thought or short laugh, and if you can find the movie anywhere, on any device, call it a good omen and enjoy.

The Luck of Life

Lukas Allen

In that random chance, in that special number or perhaps finding a four leaf clover, we find good fortune. Chance is really not good or bad, and is completely relative, for if someone who didn’t believe seeing a four leaf clover is lucky, they would attach no meaning to it at all, and it would neither be fortune or misfortune. If someone finds a lot of four leaf clovers, in perchance some hidden, lucky grove, then four leaf clovers are less lucky than someone who’s only ever encountered one of them. Perhaps somewhere else three leaf clovers are lucky. But this is all a metaphor, for luck is only given its polarity by the experiencer.

If someone wants to find four leaf clovers, I suggest looking for them. The clover isn’t going to randomly pop up, usually for most people, and figuratively rolling the dice and looking for them in the grass is the usual way to find four leaf clovers. Seek and yeh shall find, and all that.

The world is filled with strange coincidences and odd chances. Rather than subdue ourselves and believe it luck, or out of the ordinary, or maybe just plain old impossible, we should accept that chance is a fundamental part of the world, and embrace the luck in life.

We as Homo sapiens alone are living embodiment of this chance. Out of any of the planets and systems we have taken a glimpse at, only we remain as intelligent and structured life. Life! What a grand sentiment. We are lucky to have lived.

Our own conception is fair chance as well. What are the odds that our parents would meet up, that one sperm would meet that one egg, and we would be the result? Even our mix of genetics are completely new and unique, a completely new roll of the draw.

If we were all the same, no deviance, no chance or luck, it would scarcely be an enjoyable life. Uniform clones would be our existence, with nothing changing in any way. Without chance, without that wild, imperceptible volcano of randomness, we, besides being flat out boring, would not survive either.

We, as samples of evolution, are the embodiment of chance. Life needs to change, it needs to adapt, mutate, and evolve, or perish amidst the same and same, in a frozen stasis. Chaos is the way of the world, ever since the Big Bang, and with chaos there is life.

The entire everything is drawn to stasis. As the world becomes balanced and unchanging, we inevitably drift around the sun, until the sun eventually dies and we return to the cold and dark. We are beings of eternal chaos, and as we fight to live, chaos must reign, lest we become that cold, dark, death.

Lucky us, no matter how hard we try to fight it, stasis will prevail. At least for us in our current lifetime, as we are delivered to death’s door. The next generation takes up the fight again, and the next and the next until no more can contend. Even if by some bizarre chance humanity lives past the sun’s life, the fight against stasis will be eternal, as living agents of entropy and chaos.

We probably won’t even last past the Earth’s lifetime in itself.

We could also look at our lives as order. There is a strange rigidity in life, a same way of doing things in uniform in an out of uniform way. Physics will not change. Our heart beats in rhythm, or we will die. In these ways our existence follows a certain code and tune, and chance is given its chance to shine. It is ordered chaos, a structured way of destroying and creation, a wild dance to a strange yet familiar tune, that can only ever end.

Forget about It

Lukas Allen

Memories stick with us for some reason. Some of the stupidest, useless memories that ever were become attached to us. I wonder why that is.

I still remember when I was in kindergarten and a girl accused me of cheating on something. There were objects in a bag and we had to name the objects from feeling the shape. It’s nothing difficult, to anyone at all, but the girl still said I was peeking with eyes slightly open. She told a teacher, and the teacher simply told me to stop cheating, and I wasn’t able to defend myself.

What’s the point of that memory? It doesn’t teach me anything worth remembering, but it’s there all the same. Then some memories are stuck to other memories, and it becomes a long chain of remembrance.

I remember the boys all hanging out in the tiny cafeteria bathroom. I remember a girl I had a crush on called me mellow. I don’t like grade school memories, no matter what they are. It simply wasn’t a very pleasant place in my life.

There’s an avenue of thought, waiting just out of reach. It is my memories. In a way I don’t want to remember the good or the bad, because I’d rather forget the bad altogether.

Who am I without my memories? Am I me without them? I wish I took more lessons in how memories form, and perhaps I can do some solo research on it myself, but I’d rather forget the whole thing altogether.

I try to sleep, and am awoken by a bad memory. I never spend time trying to recollect every memory. It’s not like the memories are super terrible, nor super great. The past takes away the power of both aspects, and what I’m left with are random shorts of memories that pop up here and there.

When I describe myself, I won’t be banking on my memories. I wouldn’t say I’m the guy in kindergarten who was accused of cheating, I would describe myself as who I am day to day.

I don’t like to give myself compliments or anything. I’m a skeptic by nature, and I absolutely despise my disability. My disability, schizophrenia, gives other people a chance to describe me based on other descriptions that aren’t akin to me at all. They judge before they even know me, if they somehow learn I have schizophrenia, and it doesn’t feel very fair at all.

I suppose I should write something good about myself. I can handle crises fairly well. I know when to ask for help, although will try my damndest to figure it out on my own first. I have a sense of humor, and I’m prone to use it when things get bad to keep my or others’ hopes up. I love too much sometimes, but I’m just another skeptic when it comes to love as well. I am very tenacious, which is evident from all the shit I’ve had to live through.

I just want to forget the whole thing.

What is Evil?

Lukas Allen

(An excerpt from the Press of Evil, a newspaper in the Evil Kingdom)

What is truly evil? And more, is it harmful?

We at the Press of Evil often wonder at this distinction, what is Evil, what is not. It’s part of being in the Evil Kingdom. But one must express either concern or at least gradient unease at being labeled as such, no? Here at the Press of Evil, we will finally put an end to such variable conceiving of the word Evil.

Evil, in many cases, is taking what one wants and keeping it. This can be taking of valuable resources, military strategic points, or even something as simple as love. Evil takes, while the so called Good gives. There is a distinction where the Good are praised for such acts, while the Evil are condemned.

But, if one saw food being given away to some who do not need it, is it not right to take it as one who does need it? Good is oftentimes accidentally mistaken for compassion, where more often it is greedily and gluttonously giving to its own supporters, and ignoring the rest. Applaud the individual who takes what they need, what their family may need, rather than the good who hoard for only their own and their supporters.

Evil is cunning, and sometimes cruel. Evil is efficient, where some as Good would try to endure suffering, Evil does not take such conflict, and finds the best, quickest solution to suffering. That is, end it, at once. Evil does not tiptoe around mercy and justice.

Good is often blurred in strange moral justifications. Whole societies enact injustices as “Good,” forgetting what Good even means, if they ever knew. For example, a cult takes upon violence against non-supporters, believing in all its heart that what they, the cult, are doing is correct and Good. They beat around the bush, making false explanations like divine calling or chosen believers, while really, they should just cut to the chase and call themselves Evil, for that is what they are. By resisting Evil, they show the faultiness of Good.

It is the so called Good which are deluded. When one accepts that they are Evil, and that Evil is necessary, they can use it to their advantage. It is alike taming an awful beast, a horrid predator and ultimate foe. When one aligns with this beast, they realize it never was our enemy, our enemy was ourselves, and the labeling of self as Good.

We must accept our dark sides as ourselves, the hidden urges and intrusive thoughts. They are only us, and to deny and suppress them is wrong, and ultimately unpleasant. We have freedom to let these urges be known, and the power to act on them or not. One need not act on every urge, simply allow the urge to show itself. It is up to us to follow ideas with our action or inaction, and even if that may be called Evil, breaking society’s taboo on such thoughts, it is freeing in its finest act.

Let none take away your dark side! Let none shroud the Evil in us all. For by understanding the term Evil, one may also understand the term Good, and therefore be able to act freely for one or the other. Evil and Good have fought for millennia, in stories and songs of our entire history. Be both, if necessary, and find peace.

We have the power to make ourselves great, every one of us, as our leader, the Evil Dictator King, does as well.

We, at the Press of Evil, wish for the reader to find their own terms for such entities as Evil and Good, for only in our own search for meaning can the meaning become purposed and worthwhile.

Locales of a Dream

Lukas Allen

There are different recurring locations in my dreams. There’s the Museum, where anything is possible, where friends and foes congregate to see the wonders within. There’s the Bar, a hip, cool place to be, a place filled with people all drinking and having fun. There’s the School, a conglomerate of grade school and high school, at times even having college linked in, which I usually am not supposed to be in the dreams, as I dropped out of college. I dislike being trapped in such a place, and I am usually trying to escape it in some way. Sometimes I am in the City, a vast, mazy, impossible to navigate city filled with strange people. The Basement is always a source for monstrous characters, monsters from the far below. Sometimes I’m in Dream Europe, usually being somewhere in Holland.

There are different characters that populate my dreams. There’re the bullies in the School, who I am always beating up and trying to force away, but they tenaciously always hound me. I’ve been seeing them less lately, and that’s for the better. I’d say they are three certain individuals always, two short and one tall, all pesky obstacles for me in my dreams.

Jesus sometimes appears in my dreams, and he is as helpful as always. He reassures me, wherever he is, the Museum being the last place I have seen him.

When the voices make their appearance in my dreams, I am sure it will be hell. Sometimes they control my lucid dreams, and force me into a fright, laughing at me as I cry for help.

My cat, Hippie, is often in my dreams. My old cat, Donnie, and all other cats I have known, can talk in my dreams. Hippie, a small orange cat with white details, appears as many cats, all Hippie but a lot of them.

In the School, I am usually “trapped” and believing that I need to take an extra year of school, no matter what kind of school it is. The middle school teachers are usually monstrous, making strange scary faces and chasing me. My old homeroom teacher is always helpful in my dreams, being a slight refuge from the rest of the School. With her I can leave my trombone and my backpack, my possessions I always must defend to keep in the School.

Sometimes I am back in my mother’s house, in a dream. The Other Mother, like in the movie Coraline, is a monstrous dream character. I know she’s not my mom, and never could be my mom, and when I do point that out to her, to the Other Mother, she scares the shit out of me. She abuses my dream family, doing things my real mother never would. I don’t think she is a symbol of my real mother, and believe she is something else entirely awful.

I’m always lost in the City, but I never really have anywhere I’m supposed to be. It’s dangerous sometimes, and I avoid the thugs as I make my way through. Sometimes the City goes into suburban areas filled with impossible dream houses, sometimes the City goes into the slums of my dreams.

The Basement was a very scary place for a long time, going endlessly deep and with endless monsters bursting forth from below. There would be monsters in the house, coming from the Basement, an eternity of darkness below it. Sometimes other dream characters would be down there, trapped like I was.

I like to drive my car, my old 2000 Toyota Camry. She’s a good car, and it’s always nice taking a drive with her, as she is gone in my real life.

Sometimes, Jane, my devillady character, appears in my dreams, advocating sin, but loving me and supporting me.

Dream Europe is a wonderful place to be, where I can do almost anything in freedom. I go to shows, I smoke weed, and I wander the music festivals and giant churches. A lot of times I am there because I “teleported” from the U.S. to Holland, with my Dutch grandparents there to greet me.

One place, a Hobbit’s hole, which is actually a very nice place and not much of a hole at all, I was taught by Bilbo himself some magic words to help confidence and give luck. The words, Figaro, Fadaro, Pigaro, Padaro, was taught there, and are nice, silly, lucky words to help my self-esteem. It was awesome seeing Bilbo how I pictured him from books, in my dreams.

If I think of any other dream places, and am able to remember them, I will list them again.

Weight of the Stone

Lukas Allen

I have so much work to do. I feel manic and stressed. It is 1:00 in the morning and my brain is screaming, “WORK NOW!”

I don’t know why I feel this way. I don’t know how to get out of it, besides do as it commands. Lately I’ve been hearing voices in the evening, but not tonight, nooo not tonight. If I was, I’d be even worse off.

I just gotta do something. Anything! I can’t let this energy go, I can’t get rid of it!

Just gonna listen to music, and ride the feeling until it’s over.

Therapy doesn’t help! In the last few months, I’ve had one session stands with therapists, where they mysteriously dip off the radar. I don’t believe it’s some conspiracy against me, but it sure is irritating. How many times do I have to tell my sad traumatic story again and again?! I thought it would get easier with each telling!

It sort of does, but every time I am forced to relive it again and again. I don’t even want to open up my work on this subject, since every time I’ve got to look at it, again and again!

I’ve taken my meds, but all they do is force me to shut down. There is no definite fix to schizophrenia, and there is no way out.

Trapped! Every time I relive something like that, I’m trapped again! With nobody but myself to talk to! I spit it over and over to myself, spill my guts out on page, but the most sure listener is myself. Why doesn’t it just go away already? Am I forced to live with all my mistakes forever? That wouldn’t be so hard…

If I could forgive myself?

If I could find restitution?

If it just wasn’t always there, whenever I feel that way again?

Something or other, something like that. There’s not even any goddamn solution, just words on the page.

Trauma never gets easier. It only grates away, eroded by time, to seem to be something smooth and easy, beautiful perhaps, but never easier. The stone will always weigh the weight of the stone.

I sometimes wish I could let it drop away, to cast it off as something forgotten. Would I be myself without the weight? Would I stand up straighter, feel more proud, and not only wish I was happy?

I don’t know. I wish I did!

Anxiety and Side Quests

I feel like there’s not enough time! I have to do this, I have to do that, so instead I procrastinate and do nothing. I’ve been binge watching Star Trek Voyager for a long time now. It’s a good thing that each episode is about an hour, and that there are a lot of seasons. Keeps me busy, when I really should be busy on something else.

I suppose it’s anxiety. Anxiety, for me anyways, is also tied to depression. I get so anxious that I start beating myself up and get depressed. Taking an anxiety med around these times help. Is it just a placebo effect? Or does the med help calm me down? I’m guessing it’s a bit of both.

I smoke a lot to deal with anxiety as well. Taking a nice big puff of tobacco smoke seems to help, although I fear I’ve been smoking too much lately and will never recover from that smoker’s cough.

But I want to do this, and I want to do that, and I can’t do all of it quick enough! Where does the time go? I wonder what deadline I am specifically worried about, and I suppose the answer is ALL OF THEM.

There shouldn’t be any need for a race against time. Sometime I feel like I’m just getting too old for things. What if another psychotic relapse happens, and sucks up a good seven years again? Or I get into trouble somehow, and have another four years sucked up by legal troubles?

It’s already been seven years since I started hearing voices. In an instant, years are gone as I struggle to survive. What do I do now?

I sometimes still hear them. Sometimes they’re self righteous and snide, saying what I should or shouldn’t do, but other times they seem like the fight went out of them. No way I can’t stop taking my meds, however, because I know it can easily get much worse.

Maybe… Maybe I should just let the time go. Perhaps it won’t feel so pressing, then. Maybe that’d work. I’ll just watch Star Trek and let the time go, listen to some music maybe instead. I’ve been getting into Ghost lately, a cool metal band.

I remember when I first stopped hearing voices so heavily and was glad to just be bored. I never had a chance to be bored when hearing so many voices attacking me. It was a marvelous feeling, just not having to do anything at that time. I should try to experience that feeling again.

Just gotta breathe. Take a break and let the world pass. I just gotta let go for a second.

I’m going to list down some things I want to get finished.

The Heroic Adventures of Frank
This Autobiography
Cheesus
Maintain myself and surroundings
Figure out my problems and solutions with the therapist
Socialize, I guess? Go exploring the town

These are the things that mostly stress me out. The first three are only stories I am writing. I think I need to take a step back from them so I can take a step forward with them. I don’t have any deadline for these stories, but I want to finish them and sometimes that want consumes my natural drive.

Just gotta let myself know I can do it whenever, I suppose.

Man, I gotta get some cheese curds. Gonna have to make a quest to go out and get some. New Side Quest: Go into town and get cheese curds, or maybe get a Philly cheesesteak.

I don’t have a car so I gotta get around with my feet or by bus. I can do it, though. I just need to remember there’s no time limit to do this quest, and that I can do it later.

Just gotta keep myself focused and productive in slight ways, and not worry too much about the time.

Types of Hallucinations

Lukas Allen

Hallucinations are a main symptom of schizophrenia. The theory of why people with schizophrenia hallucinate is that people with schizophrenia have too much dopamine active in their brain. There are many different hallucinations, even differing categories in between the five senses, with hallucinations differing for each unique individual. Hallucinations can even be interpreted differently for each person, some experiencing positive hallucinations, like a passed on loved one speaking to them, and some experience negative hallucinations, like the vision of a monster invading the room.

Hallucinations from schizophrenia are different than hallucinating from hallucinogens like LSD. Someone with schizophrenia, unless they are properly medicated, may never receive a rest from the hallucinations, with no drug use needed to hallucinate. Hallucinations from hallucinogens end eventually. Hallucinations, from my own personal standpoint, are absolutely awful. They make one misinterpret reality itself, and can be so stressful that it can make one want to kill themselves just to have an end to them. All five senses can be hallucinated, and each have their own unique way of manifesting.

There are numerous types of auditory hallucinations. For me, the most common type is where it feels like someone is “speaking” inside of my head. This perceived being is not imagined or controllable, and has their own unique characteristics. There may be more than one at times. Another type is perceiving a sound that was never really there, like hearing a notification on a phone, someone call my name, or other slight, short sounds that grab attention. This type is irritating, but not unmanageable. Just have to pay attention to surroundings and recognize what is there or not. The last type I have come into contact with is where sounds become warped by the voices to sound like the sound is coming from outside of me. Like a bird chirp instead calling me scary, or some other background sound telling me to kill myself. This is terrifying, when even my physical setting seems to turn against me.

Smell and taste hallucinations are similar, probably because the actual senses of smell and taste work so closely with each other. Sometimes a taste is suggested from something, like from the voices, and the taste and smell are immediately in the senses. This can lead to some rather unpleasant sensations. Even if it’s not an unpleasant smell like rot or manure, the pleasant smells are unwanted and can be just as unpleasant.

Tactile hallucinations, or hallucinations of touch, make one feel like someone or something is touching them. This can be like a short tap on the body, or maybe like bugs are crawling on one’s skin. Sometimes I attributed short muscle spasms to the voices and their personas, and it felt like they were touching me. This sort of hallucination, which bridges the gap from ethereal to physical, can make all sorts of hallucinations and delusions feel ten times more real. It can make one feel like they aren’t in control of their body, or that their body will betray them at some point.

Visual hallucinations are probably some of the most frightening hallucinations. Actually seeing the monsters immediately alert oneself of danger, and these hallucinations can be chillingly intricate. In some ways the visual hallucinations are like looking up at the clouds and seeing a shape, or looking at a background pattern and seeing something that isn’t really supposed to be there. There are these types of visual hallucinations, and then there are other types. Sometimes the character that one is visualizing is sitting right beside their bed, either as a faint outline or full on visualization. Sometimes visual hallucinations are only very vivid visions, like imagining ten times more and not wanting to.

Hallucinations happen more in the absence of whatever sense they are disorienting. When it’s dark and quiet one can hear much more hallucinations as well as see them. The answer to avoiding hallucinations can be listening to music, keeping a lamp on, and not attributing the hallucinations to otherworldly beings. They are only tricks the mind is playing against itself. The hallucinations seem clever and unique because the mind is just so clever and unique. It is important to not let the hallucinations get out of control, even if one is having hallucinations constantly. It may seem real, but it is not, and sometimes all one can do is keep telling themselves that.