Monday, October 1, 2007

Inconsistencies

You wake with a start into a dark room. You try to look around, but all you see is a single line of light in the distance. You don’t know what’s going on, or why you are here. All you know is that you have just awoken, and there is no one around you. There’s the sound of a train off in the distance. Crickets are happily chirping nearby. You start to notice that you are on an air mattress, covered by a sleeping bag. The only obvious explanation is that you were camping outside. That explains the crickets being so close. But what woke you? And why are you alone? That strange light. What is it? You can’t seem to focus on it. Well, I’m camping, so maybe I’m in a tent, and that light is--- Suddenly you realize where you are, and what you are doing. Suddenly, everything is clear.

What I just described has happened many times to many people. It’s a rather strange, and almost frightening experience. You wake in darkness, in a state of temporary amnesia, and try to figure out what’s going on. You know you can’t remember where you are or what you are doing, but you refuse to let yourself know that you don’t even know who you are. This state of temporary amnesia, I believe, is caused by becoming stuck between dreaming and waking. You are awake, so your mind starts to push back the dream, but you are holding onto that dream, so the mind has no similar memory to pull from. However, once you get your bearings straight, even on the tiniest detail surrounding you, you wake up in a state of enlightenment and recover all lost memory. Usually, the real world situation is nothing like what you thought was going on, but you can usually figure out the similarities. By the time you have everything figured out, and are clam enough to look at everything at once, you find so much humor in what just happened.

But can you image, what would happen if you never noticed that one piece that helped you remember? What if it didn’t help, and you were stuck in that state of temporary amnesia? What if it wasn’t temporary this time, and you really have lost all memory? You’d leave your tent, look around, see other tents, and other people, you might even hear them now, but no one would be familiar. You’d figure someone has to know you, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. But no one seems to know you, and you now realize that you don’t even know yourself. Now you have a whole life ahead of you, without a single idea about who you really are.

Not a very comforting thought, is it? Well, just think of it this way. As long as nobody tries to mess with you, you shouldn’t suffer too much from this.

1 comment:

Ginny said...

Bolt, this kind of thing happens quite often to people. It has happened to me. It's a good article, but you left me hanging.LOL