h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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This is amazing! It must have been a weird experience for you... May I ask, did you have a part of your consciousness that knew when and where you *really* were?

I ask because I had a friend years ago, who spent months in a hospital and she said she was convinced she was a married woman, in her own home, but that on another level, she really knew what was going on. (I've always found that idea quite comforting, in case I should ever suffer such a "psychotic break" I am told they're called. There's a family history, mostly linked with substance abuse, so that's been one of the "worries" i mentioned when I was talking about my teen years...


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Vicky

Actually Vicky, given your predeliction for sci fi you would have absolutely *loved* having my manic psychosis.

I can't tell you it all now, but I will. It's a bit deep and traumatic to just tell you right now, as well as being completely far out.

I did have fun once imagining (when I believed in reincarnation) being reincarnated aboard something like the Enterprise... I built quite the daydream about the future of the human race...

Don't worry about telling me if you don't feel comfortable about it... That's okay.

Maybe later if you can.

>May I ask, did you have a part of your consciousness that knew when and where you *really* were? <

No I didn't. I'd been in hospital for 2 weeks, before I realised it actually was a hospital and not a spaceship in the far future. As the drugs took effect it very gradually began to dawn on me, but even then there were still moments when I thought I was half living in a kind of benevolent scifi thing. You'd find it interesting that after I was allowed out the ward after a few weeks and made my first journey to the local shops, I had to pass a church. It had a very big cross outside it. Looking at the cross was almost unbearable for me. It literally really physically 'hurt' my eyes because of the 'intensity' of it in some way? the shape of it? I can't explain exactly how, very strange. I must have ben passing it when they were having a service because all these people were suddenly milling around outside it and arriving. I had a strong conviction that they were 'aliens' arriving to take over the earth. Interesting irony I think.

In psychosis you lose the ability to think rationally or metaphorically about anything. Everything becomes very intensely literal, which you realise afterwards, but at the time seems real. I kind of compare it to thinking of a very young child, because you make all kinds of assumptions about the world without the usual preconceptions that we develop as we grow up.

Anyhow that was how it was for me. I'm not saying psychosis is like that for everyone. Also another point for me was that overall I had intensly positive and loving feelings for the world around me. But there were moments when everything would suddenly turn kind of evil.

I've written a personal account of the whole experience which is several hundred pages long. It really helped me to come to terms with such an extraodinary experience. There's loads and loads more I could tell you about it, but we'd be here all day...

Vicky I don't want to speak anymore about it. So don't ask please. I'm worried I've been far too open already here.

I'd like this thread to end.

I'm happy to talk to you on the other thread but not this one.

I quite understand... and I thank you for telling me as much as you have done, I really appreciate it. You've made yourself vulnerable, and I respect your courage in doing that.

Thank you very much! (It goes without saying that I shall never use anything you've said against you.)

Vicky