The Awakening # 2

Read The Awakening first.

I am a excessively superstitious person.

<= This black box sits next to my bed containing a mutlitude of magical talismans. About 30 Y shaped twigs. A Y shaped crystal. A Y shaped piece of coral I found in Thailand. A deck of Pythagorean Tarot Cards.
A sticker that Miss L found.

There are many things that harbour incredibly mystical meanings for me. Rainbows. Dolphins. The letter Y.

Most of it stems from my first accute psychotic breakdown. I have never denied that I was out of touch with reality back then. But I've also never relinquished the deepest belief that at that point I actually harboured mystical abilities to see things that other people couldn't. I clutch onto this belief in my deepest heart of hearts.

Ever since then I have been on the lookout for coincidences. Usually I see most when I'm approaching a manic phase. In fact, the mystical nature of events that unfolds when I am manic has always been defined by profound coincidences and my intense belief in their synchronistic meaning.

And so far my superstitions have always born fruit. Signs lead to events and more signs in incredibly strange ways. For 20 years now.

Last year when I had my most recent little flirt with psychosis some very powerful signs and messages came through. They've only revealed themselves to me over the months bit by bit , starting with a Tarot reading with the Pythagorean deck. Everything was pointing in the same direction, and last week I took the plunge and did what the messages had confirmed. (I will explain what the messages were, and what they said, in the next few days). It failed miserably. Which largely explains the shitty moods I was in and especially why so much doubt had crept into my life. The next day I tried again, a different method. Again: Nothing.

So by the weekend I had already started wondering about the validity of my bizzare superstitions. And for the first time I questioned whether this 20 year obsession with coincidences and subversive meanings has been doing me any good? They are without doubt the toxin that pushes me into Mania Land. Yeah, I've always enjoyed the ride, but what is the long term cost? And why this paranois about giving up these irrational beliefs? Is it maybe because if I do give them up, then I am faced with finally accepting that my 4 psychotic breakdowns were NOT a mingling of mystical abilities and overwhelming confusion, but plain garden-variety mental illness. Purely a brain chemical defect?

And what does my continuing faith in mystical forces do for me? It definitely doesn't help me synch with reality. No matter what happens in reality land I always have this undying belief that the Y's will swoop down from the sky and rescue and vindicate BPG. Is this healthy? And I'm always bored with pure reality, hankering after the fanatastical worlds of mystics and magic. A contributor to depression?

So with these questions and thoughts in my head, the dream I had 4 nights ago ("The Awakening") is hugely significant. Anybody with an inkling of understanding of Carl Jung will know that superstition, magic, synchronicity and myth belong to the domain of the unconscious. And dreams, without doubt, are the playground of the subconscious mind. So when you're in a dream featuring hostile signs and messages, and you overthrow those messages by knowingly awakening, then it is HUGE personal progress in breaking out of your dogmatic "slumber" and "seeing things as they really are". Truth be told, I don't think I could have scripted a better dream myself to symbolise the transformation.

Maybe this is the breakthrough I've been needing my whole life. Time to acknowlegde reality, instead of burying myself in self-concocted myths. Time to let go of the ghosts that are forever in the shadows. Time to heal.

It brings to mind a pivotal scene in the movie A Beautiful Mind. John Nash, the schizophrenic genuis whose role won Russel Crowe an Oscar, was plagued by subversive links and messages contained in otherwise normal things. In his most psychotic phases, the scenes of Nash connecting up cut-up magazine articles with complex threads of wool dominate. And finally, when the Nobel Peace Prize committee member goes to check out whether Nash is stable enough to receive the coveted prize for Economics, he asks Nash: "How do you stay stable". Nash's answer is telling: "I don't look too far or too deeply into the patterns I see."

But it's not completely over yet. As I said yesterday, the mystical world requires one last chance. That message that the Tarot gave me last year, and all the synchronisitc signs that have followed, needs a third shot. This time I'm gonna use a totally different method. Scheduled for Wednesday. Will elaborate tomorrow.

Who knows maybe this time it will be third time luckY??