Eureka! My mind can do most amazing things! I will never be alone again. Only, I thought, did these things exist in the DSM-IV. I never actually thought that people experienced them. Several nights ago I was taken aback by a foreign but strangely intriguing voice, it sounded not unlike my own. I began to feel short of breath and mildly nauseous as I allowed myself to listen. Slowly it spoke to me, but not as another person would. This voice had a clear message, but spoke in a language that only I could understand. It sounded different because I was hearing it not with my ears, but with my mind. The voice came from inside.
It was too late to call anyone, and I was so afraid that I ran to the other side of my apartment to sleep in my roommate's bed. She had no idea why, I told her I was really drunk and kinda freaked out, urging her to go back to sleep. I wasn't really drunk, nor was I just kinda freaked out. My mind was actually switching consciously from one person to the next. I could physically feel the change inside my head, morphing from one point of view to one completely different. It felt like I was crossing my eyes, though I don't know how to do so. After a few minutes my sanity seemed to be restored and I returned to my wobbly, uninviting bed. It smelled of tanning lotion and old sex, I realized that it had been weeks since the sheets were changed. I peeled them from the bed and lay between two comforters, staring at the royal purple fresca that spanned the entire west wall. Slowly the nausea set in again, souring my gut like bad fish. My head once again felt cumbersome. Though I tried to fight it, I became increasingly suspicious of Dionysus, gazing down at me from the wall. I felt guilty that the fresca didn't adorn a picture of Jesus instead. The voice returned and informed me that the fresca was in fact possessed, that it poisoned my dreams at night and that I must take it down.
I then did what I always do when I catch myself in an alarming thought, I reached for a notebook and ink pen.
The change began to happen in intervals so predictable and so frequent that I could write to myself, in different penmanship for that matter. After writing one sentence, I could wait a few minutes and read it again, and it was as if I was seeing it for the first time. I played with this idea for awhile, asking myself questions.
This reminded me of something I had read years before. Like the Golyadkin in Dostoevsky's novel. Golyadkin Sr. felt sick and lightheaded every time the double came near. He didn't even like the double but lets him take control at times anyway. Golyadkin Jr. was better in social settings, so suave and likable-but physically identical to Golyadkin Sr. in every way.
There must be an upside to having multiple persons inside one's thoughts. The way I see it, everyone has them; however it must be that some people's are simply more audible than others'. How beneficial could it possibly be if these voices were to speak all at once in form of what they call a conscience? For most people, the voices of reason and recklessness confuse physical action. Why not rejoice in the fact that mine are polite enough to take turns?
2 comments:
I have felt like this before, only mine was when I was looking in a mirror. I always felt like their were many mes staring back at me, a good side, a bad side, but nothing so necessarily black and white. So many grey matters in between that made me feel as if I was constantly being watched; however sometimes i took this as my inner morals and values combating for control over my instincts and baser needs. Not entirely the same as what you wrote here but it reminded me of those times in front of the mirror, especially late at night when I awoke to feel that presence feeling in my room, like im not alone and someone is watching me, I would like to think its not my inner demons or selves, but something far greater and more benevolent.
As a survivor of Dissociative Identity Disorder, I must say, this seems awfully familiar to me. But then again we sometimes think that we are in fact the same person, but then again we can't ever really be sure. one thing i know, is that you and i are cut from the same mold, though we look nothing alike, if your dr. jeckel then i must be hyde, if your golyadkin jr. i must be the Senior. You, miss j'nae are an incredible writer and i hope you manifest all of your talents into something extraordinary.
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