Extemporeality 3

~thebogboys

###EXTEMPOREALITY 3

After some unknowable time passed all of the weight of my symptoms were enough to placate me, and I had to just sit on (and definitely not 'in') the leather rocker. My mind was split. I was at this point at the mercy of my environment. I could not form a thought that was longer than a few words. Earlier I wrote that I was losing continuity, and by this point it was gone. I've been trying to find a way to describe this sensation for the months since this experience but even now as I write this I feel like every effort I'll make to ascribe this state to logic or the written word will fall woefully short. Bear with me, and keep an open mind with the imagination dials set to 11, and maybe you'll begin to see things from my perspective.

Time, inner monologue, speech, all of this was experienced as short, incongruous snapshots. The intervals of time may have realistically been spans of five or fifteen seconds, but they may as well have been hours, or years. Constable would mention to me that he was planning on going outside in a bit to collect some lake water to view it under a portable microscope he brought, and immediately any memory of this conversation was memory-holed. Oh, I can recall him telling me this, wasn't that a couple of years ago? I feel like I'm conjuring an old memory of childhood and not something that happened immediately in the past.

I was incapable of recording or tracking time. It was all alien to me, and I was a bug trapped in a gigantic black hole of "extemporeality" (roll credits!). Did this trip last even two hours? I really couldn't tell you, and thus any events in this segment and beyond should be treated with skepticism as to what words like "later" or "minutes" mean, because as far as I'm concerned, such concepts were ritualistic intonations from an ancient and long-lost tongue.

I'm going to try to demonstrate an example of what my inner speech (as well as the inner critical reaction to said speech) looked like in real time. My example dialogue with Constable:

C: In thirty minutes or so I'm going to go to the lake and collect some water to look at under a microscope. You're welcome to come with me if you want.

Me: That's cool, it'll be interesting to see what it looks like. Yeah, I might come with you. Let's see how I feel.

To the observer, this is perfectly average and relevant conversation. My tone is even, my reply is measured and follows applicable logic, and when speaking to him post-hoc, Constable said that no part of my physical or verbal mannerisms implied I was anything other than sober.

Now, how did I experience this dialogue? I will use a series of lines to show the succession of thought and {inner critique}. Parentheticals imply my "losing" thought and ellipses imply that anything prior to this moment has been completely lost.

C: In thirty minutes or so I'm going

(In thirty minutes or so I'm going) to go to the lake and

... (to the lake and) collect some water to look at

... (water to look at) under a microscope.

... (microscope.) You're welcome to come with me if you want.

{What the fuck is he talking about. Why is he getting water? I guess it's for his microscope, is it going to be from the lake? Okay he wants me to come with.}

Me: That's cool, it'll be interesting to

... (interesting to) see what it looks like under

... (under a) microscope. {Wait, look at what? I'm confused, why am I saying this?}

I don't need to carry on with the illustration. As I would listen to Constable speak, I would almost instantly lose the thread that came moments before. It was challenging trying to communicate, but what was really remarkable to me was that I didn't really NEED to try to communicate. I learned a valuable thing about our brains from this experience: for a little while, I was able to really grasp the difference between ego and superego. It seemed as though, no matter how inebriated my conscious mind was, flailing through the present with no hold on my history or on the forward progression through time, my unconscious was always in full control and seemingly unaffected by the drugs.

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evan@thebogboys.space