muflax65ngodyewp.onion/drafts/temporal_lobe.pdc

% Temporal Lobe Experiences

Personal Info
=============

Something about me. 

Interestingly, my left eye is about 0.5 dioptre better than my right, just like
my fathers eyes. 

Most Recent Seizure
===================

2010/05/13 at 21:05. 

It was day 3 of my caffeine withdrawal. The headaches were already over, but I
was still very irritable (one little inconvenience and I'd write a 5000 word
rant) and could barely think. No memory or concentration whatsoever. The best I
could do is read some funny websites and eat strange cheese.

The first thing I noticed was that the upper part of my inner left mouth felt
weird, as if a bit of fluid was oozing out of my skull, soon followed by an
actual, but faint sound of bone-on-bone movement. If that sounds very confusing,
that's because it was. I first thought, alright, probably just my jaw moving in
a weird way or something like that, when I spaced out a bit. I just relaxed and
lost all mental content for a bit, but was still aware what was happening. I was
not sure at that point if I was actually spacing out or just pretending to. A
minute later, I remembered the experiments I wanted to try.

First, I focused on the area to the left and behind me, trying to feel a
presence. There was a vague sense of something being there and a few images
rushed me, but I was underwhelmed, so I tried another one. I closed my eyes,
focused them right at the point closest to my face I could do and then, without
moving them, looked up.

A bit adrenaline, some light, a bit of colors, but that's not more than I see
when I just press my eyeba.. WHAM.

It just fired. I didn't know what *it* was, but my eyes moved wildly, I began
shaking and there was definite rumbling going on at the front of my head. I
snapped out of the meditation and laughed uncontrollably. I jotted down a short
note of the time in my log and ran of to the toilet, pouring water over my face.
I had the wild *I just saw god* face, eyes wide open, still laughing, getting
happier and happier. I ran back, grabbed my rosary and started praying. If
prayer can ever work for me, then now!

I was shocked once I started. That's not *my voice*. It was completely
different, as if there were many voices, whispering and very fast. I seemed to
speak whole chunks at once. It was still *me* speaking, but certainly not in any
way I recognized. I began laughing more and more. After 15 minutes and the first
3 sets of the rosary, the effect finally started to disappear. My voice returned
to normal and I noticed that I found it quite a bit harder to speak. Language
was definitely harder than normal. I still decided to finish the prayer.

Afterwards, I got up and noticed a changed consciousness, as if I was *more*
present or complete than before. I tried thinking, but messed up the words, so
the other I just said, "Just listen. Don't speak. Just listen. Don't speak."
for a while. 

(I'm a big fan of dissociation, so I do this intentionally. I'm very aware that
I have many "modes" or "drivers", sometimes competing, and I like to play with
them.)

For some reason, I felt the urge to stand on one foot. I first
tried the right one, but lost balance (which I always do; I have horribly
balance). So I switched and could, somehow, stand perfectly fine, one leg bend
backwards at the knee and both arms stretched to the side. Even pulling the arms
in and moving the right leg around didn't throw me off. That's *very* unusual
for me. Normally, I can't even put on my shoes standing without falling down.

After a bit, I just sat down and was happy for a while. The world shifted for me
and started to *glow* again. Not really literally glow, as in became brighter
(although colors seemed more intense), but more mentally glow. Glow with
meaning. This was very close to the DXM afterglow or how I felt after coming
down from Ayahuasca. Very happy and *aware*, all senses a bit sharper than
usual.

That was either a temporal lobe seizure or the most psychedelic cheese in all of
Europe.

Ghosts
======

As a child at about the age of 6, I had a strong experience of ghosts. I was
sitting on the toilet, when quite suddenly I felt surrounded by a group of dark
grey entities, maybe a dozen or so, each about my own size. They hovered around
me in a circle, located in a mental realm closely related to the one in front of
me when I close my eyes.[^realm] I immediately knew that they were friendly.
They communicated to me, though they never spoke, that they are a kind of
guardian and that I could trust them.

I didn't feel disturbed by this or in any way upset. It seemed perfectly natural
at the time. I started to talk to them occasionally, telling them my thoughts,
similarly to a self-monologue. I stopped doing this after some time because it
started to feel weird, like I was not supposed to be doing this kind of thing.

They didn't reappear until I was 18, when I experimented with *psychedelic
mushrooms*. At that time, I had drug experiences with *Caffeine*[^caff] (but not
alcohol until about a year later), *Argyreia Nervosa*[^argy], *Nutmeg*[^nut] and
*Ayahuasca*[^aya] and *DXM*[^dxm], in that order, but in none of them did I ever
encounter another entity or presence. However, that summer I had just grown my
first batch of shrooms and ate about 2 grams of recently dried ones on toast
with honey[^honey]. 

After a few minutes, I felt a powerful sense of joy and lightness. I danced
around and strangely really enjoyed juggling objects, like my water bottle. I
felt I could slow down time and gravity slightly, making it a lot easier to
catch something. After about half an hour I was overcome by a bright light and
sense of bliss. I sat down in my chair and closed my eyes, when I had the
impression to face a great Pyramid in Egypt, bathed in sunlight.  Suddenly, I
was connected to the whole human species (and maybe more).[^6th] The Collective
Unconscious[^coll] was available to me. I believed that my true purpose in life
was now clear to me. (Although, to be honest, I never exactly *knew* what that
purpose actually *was*. It was more a feeling of complete trust in fate, without
ever knowing any details.) Soon, I felt the presence of many beings. I was
consciously aware of maybe half a dozen, but knew that they were legion. I
recognized them from my childhood. I asked multiple questions, mostly about
future choices and when thinking of a possible answer, got an powerful emotional
response. I was being showered by pure love when I thought of the right answer
and pulled away from any wrong one. 

I do not remember anymore if I felt asleep for maybe half an hour or not, but
the experience soon faded away and I started to play Katamari Damacy. While the
most intense part was now over, I continued to feel full of energy for the next
few days. The personal connection with fate is still there today.  

However positive the first experience was, all future shroom trips except the
last one were much more negative. I would inevitably encounter the ghosts again,
but they were disappointed in me. They made it clear that I couldn't handle the
experience and shouldn't come there anymore.

Being Haunted
=============

When I was 17, I had what could be called a psychotic episode. I was depressed,
worried about many things in my life and was still dealing mentally with my
former girlfriend (more on that later). But that's not the real problem. That I
could deal with; I knew that I would one day be able to overcome all those
problems. (I was right. It took me about 3 years.) However, it got worse when I
started feeling haunted. It started with a general sense of unease once I
entered my room, but after a few days I started hearing voices. At first, I
heard noise on my speakers that wasn't there. I could even turn them off
completely and there would still be barely noticeable noise. Soon, that noise
whispered to me. *All the time*. I couldn't make out anything it said, not like
a schizophrenic who hears commands (although I thought at the time I was one).
It sounded more like ominous, satanic chanting. 

Especially at night it sometimes got so bad that I couldn't sleep at all. Once,
I was woken up at around 4:00 by a sudden, bright and incredibly loud mental
*flash* of a pentagram with Baphomet on it. I was terrified and scared for my
life. My sleep didn't recover for months. I tried dealing with it by meditation,
but I couldn't concentrate at all in silence, with the permanent evil
whispering. I also tried doing an demonic incantation (no result) and an
exorcism (which temporally worked!).

The voice was physically tied to my room (but not to anything in it).
Interestingly, our neighbor was an astrologer and big believer in the
supernatural. I never told anyone about my experience, but learned that she
recently had done a kind of seance with some medium and found out that the
basement of our shared house was cursed - exactly where I lived. She had her own
exorcism scheduled, but luckily we moved out, leaving the presence behind. I
never encountered it again. Within weeks after we left, the whole basement was
flooded because of faulty architectural design.

Note that during the whole time I didn't *believe* in ghosts, demons or any
supernatural entity. However, at the end, I sure had my doubts about it!
Nonetheless, I still don't believe the cause to be an actual supernatural
entity, but I'm quite open that it was still a real experience. Persinger's
explanaition of such phenomena through magnetic disturbances seems like a good
candidate to me.

Romantic Love
=============

Sensory Shutdown
================

Bathroom. No sound at all. Voice bright, with very high contrast.

Anxiety
=======

Social Problems
===============

At first, I thought I was an autist. (I even have a tentative diagnosis for it,
but never followed up on it because I found enough evidence to disprove it
myself.) When that didn't quite work out, I went with ADD, mainly because of the
unusual reaction to caffeine, which calmed me down instead of making me hyper,
something typical for people with ADD or mania. But that didn't quite work,
either, as my ability to concentrate didn't exactly work like would be predicted
by ADD (I would often go into short bursts of high focus, becoming obsessed with
a topic for a month or so, and then switch to something completely different).
Also, there were too many unexplained symptoms left.

I analyzed my social problems more thoroughly. It's really not that I don't
*understand* social interaction. If I watch others, I know very well what they
are doing and why. It's not mysterious at all to me. But when *I* am supposed to
act, I simply... draw a blank. There is no memory, no idea, nothing. My mind
goes entirely silent and I can only stare. I'm perfectly aware of this all the
time and desperately try to fix it, but just don't get any answer inside.
However, that only happens with *some* people. With others, I function
normally and probably talk quite a lot. That way, almost everyone either knows
me as silent or talkative, but not much in between. There is no connection to
sympathy - I shut down with plenty of people I like a lot, but because it is so
incapacitating, I tend to only become friends with the people I *can* talk to. I
still can't tell in advance whether this will happen just by knowing something
about the other person. There is no connection with topics, gender,
intelligence, age or anything else I could think of. It is very consistent,
though, just seemingly random in who I'm open to and who not.

Another important puzzle piece is that I don't *care* much for social
interaction. This is atypical for autists, who tend to want to interact with
people (at least in some situations), but just can't, which leads to many just
"giving up" on friendship. This lead me to believe I was more schizoid, but the
emotional flatness that comes with it just doesn't describe me at all. Also,
*some* people I do care about. Instead of being more or less equally interested
in most people, with maybe a few spikes for close friends and family, as is
normal, I have zero interest in almost everyone, but strong devotion of
Kierkegaardian proportions to a select few. I still have a very positive
attitude in general towards people, which is not very schizoid; it's just that
most people don't seem to be as enjoyable as ice cream to me, for no reason I
can discern, but some are like ecstasy, at least some of the time. 

Eccentricity
============

It's not so much that I don't *know* what's normal, but more that I don't
*care*.


[6th]: 
    Basically, the 6th Morphogenetic Circuit, for those of you that know some
    Leary or RAW. (And you all should. *Prometheus Rising* is highly
    recommended.)

[^argy]: Argyreia Nervosa
[^aya]: Ayahuasca  
[^nut]: Nutmeg
[^caff]: Caffeine

[^dxm]: Dextrometorphan, DXM for short, is my favorite drug. It dissociates me
    from any negative or disruptive emotion, gives me immense concentration, a
    strong sense of wonder, makes me even more verbose and music... oh boy, how
    music sounds on it! I try hard to cultivate the DXM state as my normal
    mental state.
    
    I also like that it causes only my left pupil to dilate, making me look
    literally like this: o_O

[^realm]: 
    There are many experiential spaces. For me, thought is fundamentally a
    spatial thing and I tend to create a new space in which I arrange things
    whenever I analyze or organize something.  They are mostly 2- or
    3-dimensional, although I have been able to create 4-dimensional spaces,
    too.

[^honey]: 
    I chose honey because I had been told that I they taste awful and I knew to
    take such warnings seriously after Ayahuasca. Ironically, I came to really
    like their taste and now get really bad stomach cramps from honey (probably
    because of the high amount of sugar). 

[^coll]: 
    Although I don't like the term Collective Unconscious because it never felt
    particularly *un*conscious to me. I always thought it was closer to the
    Malkavian hive mind.