I had a dream last night.
Now – I don't often have especially vivid or memorable dreams. Not only do I consume a lot of THC, but I prefer to not have them. Dreams, that is. But last night, I had an extremely vivid and real-feeling dream that feels like it lasted my entire sleep cycle. That's probably indicative that it was many dreams over the course of hours, but I had been drinking a lot of caffeine before sleep.
Which – apparently – can cause vivid, memorable, and often stressful dreams. I'm no scientician, but you don't have to do even a good Google search to find these claims.
Anyway, I don't actually remember as much of the dream as I'd like, if I were going to talk about it in detail. But I don't really want to. What I do want to talk about is one particular part of the dream that's stuck in my head and has me feeling some kind of way.
I met Jordan Peterson in my dream. We were talking, and he came into my home with a lady colleague of his. And the conversation and the feel of the dream was that he and I and my dream-girlfriend were going to have, like, a dinner or whatever. But what I remember is being in a porcelain bathtub, a bubble bath, and the four of us are very naked and in the tub.
Peterson is asking me really difficult questions about my work, who I think I am as a person, what I'm trying to accomplish by being alive; and I'm answering them the best I can. I don't remember the questions or the answers, but I do remember stopping at one point, being unable to find an answer, and asking him a question, instead. He stops, praises me for answering the question, and he and his lady friend stand up out of the bubbles.
So I look away, and when I look back, they're both dried and leaving. And I remember feeling very... unsatisfied. Like there was wisdom I thought I was going to receive from the dream but didn't.
On waking, I found a pit in my insides. Some inarticulable void.
I've mentioned “my” goddess in disjointed and incomprehensible passing. It's difficult to talk about Her when I don't really understand what She “is”. She is that She is. Yes, I get that, but it's not helpful in deciding what to do with it when she doesn't speak to me from literal burning bushes.
So instead, let's talk about my Trickster.
Oh, yeah. I've got one of those, too.
When I first decided I was going to dabble in magick as an adult – it was maybe three or four years ago – it was after hearing Richard Hatem talk to the Astonishing Legends guys about the book, The Trickster and the Paranormal by George P. Hansen. I read that book, and then I was reading Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons by John Carter and Robert Anton Wilson, and I'm thinking, Well, shit. If it works for these guys, I bet I could make some weird shit happen for me. Let's see if I can make contact with Mephistopheles – maybe I can get him to make me some offer and I can test my resolve in denying it. Yeah, that sounds like the kind of foolish thing someone does to begin a horror movie.
Let's do it.
So I did. I reached out with my mind, absent any kind of ritual or circle of protection or whatever. No crystals, no oils, no charms, no nada. I wanted to see if I could make contact with the force of my personality alone. And, boy, did I.
At the time I was working third shift at United Dairy Farmers – alone. So between 11pm and 7am, I was the only person in the store who wasn't a customer. And let me tell you – there weren't often many of those. So, at night, it's 2, 3 in the morning, and I'm listening to podcasts like Astonishing Legends' Black Eyed Kids or Monsters Among Us; or I'm listening to audiobooks, authors like John Keel and Andrew Collins. You know, studying the important things in life.
I saw some seriously weird shit a few times. A black cat— You know, the kind of stuff that's completely innocuous but doesn't feel innocuous. The kind of stuff where if you tell people they think you're just crazy or stupid or both. But it was the stuff I saw at home that really cemented for me that something strange and very real was going on in my life.
For those among you who know that the manner in which I said I did this thing is very foolish and things are about to get unsettling and dangerous in my life: you're right. But I didn't mention my stipulations. Cus that's what you're supposed to do, right? Stipulate the Contact. I told the Trickster I was trying to get to talk to me that I would dismiss him if he tried to scare me. No jumping out of shadows, no half-images in the dark, no touching me. I wanted a conversation – specifically, I wanted The Seventh Seal: I wanted a civilized dialogue with the Other Side.
Yeah, that's not what I got.
Peitho talked about it a little bit. Scott and Forrest are talking about it increasingly. But when a Spirit wants you, there are probably multivarious ways that it can get you. But the way that mine came for me was the way they do in horror movies – in hauntings – in demonic inhabitation. In that Communion-type scenario (because of course I read Whitley Strieber's work during that time – not Contact (I just can't open that cover), but the newer The Super Natural)....
You know, I was about to tell you what the things want. I don't know what the things want. I know what they are trying to do. But why? To what end? I don't know.
In so many of these scenarios with The Other, they are trying to break down your psychic barriers, to tear down your resistances to Them. They're kind of like a pathogen in that way. Like a virus or an infections bacteria.
An Intellectual Contagion.
And, see— Before I was into all this stuff – whatever that means – I tried to give myself a true and thorough Skeptic education. I spent years with podcasts like The Skeptic's Guide to the Galaxy or MonsterTalk. I really wanted to understand the world as it's understood by the scientific worldview before I gave myself over to exploring The Other Side of the Coin. Maybe you can know about me by now that I take science and its Method very seriously. I feel like you have to, if you're going to look at the Other Side – Nietzche's Abyss, right? - and you want to at least try to maintain your sanity.
I wonder whether I weren't wrong about that. I'm not... what's the word I want? Regret. I'm not regretful that I spent those years tempering my mind against the falseness of my senses both material and immaterial. I love knowing that it's the flaws in our material make-up which make us what we are. I also love knowing that I am not limited to being the combination of my flaws, of my failings, and of the feelings other people put in me.
So, what I'm trying to say is that I think that most – maybe all – “demonic possession” situations are psychosomatic. A mind besieged will manifest all sorts of behaviors to protect itself. It can be shown that demonic possession is cultural, as far as the behaviors demonstrated; and it can be correlated that the person is “acting” like they think they should.
And you can totally see it, if you ever watch a performative exorcism.
It's exactly the same phenomenon as the martial artists who can knock people over without touching them.
Belief is powerful shit.
That is to say, nothing can be happening. There may very well be no demon. But a person is still possessed by something – some obsession in their mind. Drugs, alcohol, guilt over masturbation or their porn habit, maybe they killed their wife and hid her in the floorboards – whatever it is, the exorcism ritual is no different that the confession ritual. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin: If you confess you are less likely to be tormented.
That's the idea, anyway.
Well, do ya got it?
It's difficult for me to say that I think my ex-girlfriend cum contentious roommate was possessed with an evil spirit. She was. Objectively she was. I felt it on more than one occasion. But does that mean that it was real, or does it mean that I was sensitive to the changes in her, in our relationship, in me, and I was manifesting my disdain for it all as some sort of possession?
I don't know.
But I'm going to end today with the story, because it feels right. And maybe it has something to do with what was going on in my dream.
I have a habit of falling asleep wherever I am when it's sleep time.
Look, I don't have a healthy relationship with sleep. I'm not sure why, it's just a thing.
My ex hated it. It was a thing throughout our relationship, but especially at the point I've been talking about all day. We would watch TV together and I would fall asleep and she would go to bed without me and it was a whole thing. Whatever. That's only important if you want to ask me after the story, Well, are you sure this isn't some sort of guilt manifestation for falling asleep again and again when you knew it would make her upset? Probably. That's why I'm tortured by it, why I'm thinking about it, and why I'm wondering whether “Jordan Peterson” weren't my Trickster.
And why is he visiting me now, after so long silent?
Gods, I feel insane.
Anyway, one night I'm sitting there on the couch, she's already gone to bed, and I'm starting to drift off – like I do. I'm trying to fight it, because I know I need to get up, I know she's going to be upset if I don't— And I feel two hands gently but firmly press on my shoulders as my head tilts forward – and hear my name inside my ear. Like, behind the drum. Vincent. Wake up. A woman's voice. A woman I know but whose voice I don't actually recognize.
Intuitively, it's my Goddess, right?
So I get up and go to bed.
The next night, the same thing happens.
Well, after a week of this, every night, as I'm nodding off, her shoving me in the chest and telling me to go to bed— I'm sitting on the couch. By this time, I've moved my sleeping arrangement into our spare bedroom, The Office. Where I used to have an adequate studio setup for recording audio. Haha Ah, how life changes.
Anyway, it happens again. An eighth night in a row – but this time she's urgent. She shoves me hard – enough to hurt. It's not a simple reminder to not be here. I need to Move. Now.
With zero hesitation and a pit in my stomach, my skin electrified with fear I don't understand even a little, I get up and go into the Office. It's not but a few seconds later, when I'm trying to orient myself and understand what's really happening with me - you and I both know that our brains act totally crazy right as or right after we've fallen asleep. I feel it. There is an indescribably dark energy in the hallway which runs between the Bedroom and the Livingroom. I am in the room between them. And I can feel it.
I'm sure there's a movie that's done this. It feels like a cloud that's sucking all the light out of the dark hallway – like, if the lights were on, it would explode the bulbs in a fantastic spray of sparks and darkness as it made its way to devour me on the couch.
I'm not on the couch. I'm standing in front of the door to my room. And I— I can't explain it, and frankly I feel a little stupid. I knew better than to be feeling the kind of fear that I was. But I wasn't opening that door and looking. Are you out of your fucking mind? I feel it stop, right? Like that moment – I'm telling you, it felt like a horror movie. Like the damn monster was right on the other side of the door and the only thing stopping it from coming in is that there's less suspense for your movie, that way.
Then I feel it move along, into the livingroom, up to the couch. And then it dissipates like fear.
I don't have any more answers about what that was than what my dream was. But they both mean something.
They have to.
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