F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

To Be Human

Floating and Freezing

by

Luna Float Spa (Image, by Luna Float Spa)
Luna Float Spa (Image, by Luna Float Spa)

Floating

On June 4 I again visited Luna Float Spa, in Colorado Springs. This was my second visit. See this link for my first visit. On this visit, I used the larger pod…I think they called it “The Colorado”? In any event, it was larger than the first one I was in and I like have more open space in there to float around in, without worrying about hitting the sides….though I did notice that it seemed to take a while for me to stop “knocking around” inside. I don’t get claustrophobic, so that was never an issue. Actually, I find them both kinda cozy to be in. This pod also didn’t have the multi-colored lights. I like the blues and purples of the other lights for presentation…but once I’m in there, I turn all lights off, so it really doesn’t matter when the rubber hits the road.

Here are the sensations I had this time around:

  • Saw a tight “bundle” of vertical “pipes,” like either from an organ…or on a ship, then, immediately following that…
  • Saw a man standing and hugging an armload of newspapers! Like he held about a foot of them against his front, newspapers opened vertically*
  • Saw image of a bright blue “summer” sky above deciduous tree
  • Saw many flashes of imagery that I no longer remember, though some I do recall were about:
    • Different and multiple images of people
    • A partial conversation or two (I actually heard these partial conversations!)**
    • Bright lighting…like I thought the pod’s or the room’s lights had come on…but when I opened my eyes—nope, pitch dark
    • Dull yellows and some blue, only an instance or two of blue this time and one stark, bright, well-defined red
  • Jerking body, arms
  • Tingly and expansive-feeling in hands and body (typical mediation feeling)
  • My consciousness feeling expansive (typical mediation feeling)
  • Also near the end I felt like my thumb and index fingers of my right hand were holding a knob of some kind! Very odd! This felt so freaking real…I was moving my fingers…and even moving my fingers, it really honest-to-God felt like I was hold some kind of knob that was about 2 inches in length and about an inch wide. Of course, there was “nothing” there….

*This was probably the most intense imagery I had the entire time! This guy was as clear as day to me, standing tall, and “hugging” or holding-fast to a large mass of opened newspapers (draped lengthwise against him)! His garb was non-descript, but it happened so fast that I didn’t really get into what he was wearing—I was more curious about the danged newspapers! Who was this guy, I asked myself? Is he another me in another time? I never did get any answers…still don’t have any….

**There were at least two instances of flashes of actual conversations going on, though I couldn’t exactly make out the words…or if I had made out a word or two they were lost on me because of the sheer weirdness of hearing actual conversations going on in my head that I wasn’t actively partaking in!

When I was done, it was so danged hard getting out! My physical relaxation was so

The Luna Dreamwave Pod. (Image by F. P. Dorchak, June 4, 2016)
The Luna Dreamwave Pod. (Image by F. P. Dorchak, June 4, 2016)

incredibly “complete and thorough”…my entire body felt like concrete floating in water! Man, it took me a while getting up and out of there! I was so out of it, I actually had to pause on bent knees while still inside the pod.

But the image of the “newspaper” man! It was quite sharp, clear, and defined!  I kept thinking who is this guy? And the more I thought about the other images, I wondered if maybe they’re images from other “me’s” that I just seemed to sync up with. You know…when you find yourself daydreaming or drifting off…and you catch yourself and snap out of it—but for a moment you’re kinda “meditating” or “elsewhere”? I wonder…if maybe in this sessions I had made contact across other times and me’s during these hypnogogic/daydreaming moments. But, whatever it was, it was very weird, very fascinating, and I loved it!

Freezing

Then, after getting out and talking with the owners for spell, they told me about this new “thing” downstairs in their building that I’d noticed on the way up. It’s called Colorado Cryospa. It cites these benefits. The long and the short of it is that you’re stripped down (obviously in private!) and exposed to 2-3 minutes of up to -300 degrees of dry cold.

Yup. You read that right.

It’s like being “packaged” in dry ice! They give you booties, gloves and some shorts (I’m sure women get a top) and you stand in this vertical “tube” with a thermometer at head height and liquid nitrogen vaporizing all around you. You can see how cold you’re going. Then they lower the temperature and you can see the temps plummet! You only really need to go to about -175 or so, they say, to reap the…um, benefits…of cryotherapy, but I went to -250 degrees.

It was cool, pardon the pun!

You see all this “fog” forming around you just like dry ice! I was chuckling and smiling during all this! I mean, it was so danged weird! Then they have you turn every so often so the whole body is uniformly frozen. I felt like a piece of meat-on-a-stick being flash-frozen! And, surprising, it really wasn’t that bad! You’d expect frost bite, skin going white-then-blue-then black…remembering all you’ve been told about not touching dry ice (and I did—once…)…all you’ve ever been told about extreme temperatures and the human body and its tender flesh. But it doesn’t affect you in quite the same way.

It’s a dry cold.

(it’s a dry heat…)

It’s not actually touching you.

I never actually bean to shiver—and then, only a very little!—until we hit the -250 degrees. First my legs began the slight, sporadic shiver, then my whole body began to join in…but it’s nothing like you imagine. And the staff was right there with me. We were actually talking and joking around, because your head and shoulders are exposed above this tube. It just wasn’t that cold—as cold as I expected -250 would feel like—because it wasn’t moist cold. It’s exactly like that “it’s a dry heat!” joke. Think sauna but in the opposite direction!

The theory behind this is that when you go down to these extreme temps, your body goes into a “fight or flight” mode—I called it “the death mode”; I said just call it what it is!—and begins to shunt blood flow from the extremities to the organs, like when you really would be freezing to death. But since you’re only “there” for such a short time, and you come back to room temps quickly (you can feel the temp difference immediately, once it stops), your body gets (according to them) all these endorphins and “overcompensates” with healing stuff. It was originally developed for Rheumatoid Arthritis, but claims to have benefits for other issues. For depression, they say: “People who suffer from anxiety and depression receive hormonal benefits.” But, of course, you have to have multiple sessions, and close together. I only did a single, free session, because this outfit is new and had a thing going on with Luna Float Spa.

Apparently cryotherapy has been used in Japan for years. Of course. But, I’ve never heard of this kind of therapy before…or if I have, I’d long forgotten about it. It was cool, again, pardon the pun. But, it really just doesn’t interest me in doing, though it is actually kinda interesting in and of itself. The staff asks you all these health questions, have you review said questions and sign a waiver, then they take your blood pressure before you go in to make sure you’re okay to enter. So, be honest about any physical conditions.

And as I was actually going through it all, I couldn’t get this silly, fascinated grin off my face!

It’s just so…weird!

Seriously? I’m doing what to myself?

Oh, my wife is gonna really love this when I tell her….

But…I can’t say that I honestly felt any kind of “supercharged” afterwards…but I didn’t feel wiped throughout the day (Saturday, which turned out to be a long and busy day).

Now, I did on Sunday…I was extremely wiped and sluggish when I got up, and it took me quite a while to get my ass in gear. I felt drained. Sluggish. We had a thing later in the day-through-the-evening, and it took me the better part of that Sunday to get going…but I just didn’t feel like I was “shot full of endorphins,” like Morgan, one of the Luna Float Spa’s owner’s, said he felt like after he’d done this.

So…would I do cryotherapy again?

No. Doesn’t interest me right now, and it’s one more thing to pay for, though the rates seem reasonable. But it might in the future. See the “Local news link” link below.

Floating again?

Definitely! I love the experience!

But, go ahead, give them both a try, if you’re physically up the cryotherapy! Both are recommend for the sheer experiences of them!

Local news video link.

Luna Float Spa Contact information:

Website: www.lunafloatspa.com/

Phone: 719/309-6776

E-mail: Contact@LunaFloatSpa.com

Luna Float Spa First Blog Post

Address:

Luna Float Spa
202 E. Cheyenne Mtn. Blvd., Suite R,
Colorado Springs, CO 80906

Hours: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m., Mountain Time

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lunafloatspa

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lunafloatspa

Colorado Cryospa Contact information:

Website: www.coloradocryospa.com/

Phone: 719/354-2221

E-mail: coloradocryospa@gmail.com

Address:

Colorado Cryospa
202 E. Cheyenne Mtn. Blvd. (First Floor)
Colorado Springs, CO 80906

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ColoradoCryoSpa/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ColoradoCryoSpa

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Floating (fpdorchakrealitycheck.wordpress.com)

Night Drive

by

Drive Toward Your Dreams. (Image by By Wayne Wilkinson, Lost Highway 52 Uploaded by AlbertHerring [CC BY 2.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
Drive Toward Your Dreams. (Image by By Wayne Wilkinson, Lost Highway 52 Uploaded by AlbertHerring [CC BY 2.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)
This is an essay. A perhaps slightly Emersonesque meditation on the metaphysics of the nocturnal road trip I’d written in 1988, at the age of 27.

It details my philosophical musings as I took one of my quasi-frequent nocturnal road trips back in my twenties. I used to drive alone at night cross country, in my un-air-conditioned 1987-or-so Toyota truck. I loved (and still do) driving at night. As you can well see, I found (and still do find) a mystical experience there. I made my last such solo night drive from Wyoming to Colorado in November of 2015.

There is just something about the very air that changes at night.

The road.

Those you meet and pass…the distant lights of human dwellings….

One’s imagination runs wild…perhaps because there’s not much to physically look at, so our musings turn inward. However, in my case, my musings are frequently turned inward, I don’t need a lack of light to do that. But at night…it is something that takes on a whole new world…”gravitas” is the current term-in-vogue.

The essay, written in January of 1988, months after one such August’s night drive,  details the entirety of that trip on the dark roads of the West. It is a trip I still think about, perhaps my most fun—certainly most mystical—road trip ever.  I had driven from Colorado to Nevada to California. Stayed with family in Las Vegas (I’m not from there, but some family members lived and still live in the area), then continued on. Everything in here is as it happened…the musings of a frustrated 27-year-old wanting to reinvent his life.

I love this piece. Remember this drive. It was, indeed, a magical summer’s drive for me…one which I hope to always keep in my memory as Time continues its counterfeit, inexorable march ever forward. So far, I have.

I hope each of you has a similar Night Drive in your life…and if not, I urge you to do at least one! There simply is no other experience like it!

This essay has never seen the light of day. Please…keep it that way…and read it at night….

Night Drive

© F. P. Dorchak, 1988

I was engulfed by darkness.

A few minutes earlier, I had been sheathed by the warm familiar surrounds of city lights and sounds. Now, I had left them all, sneaking away into the dark like someone trying to leave a past behind. I was trying desperately to hide under the warm and comforting blankets of the dark. As my headlights raced ahead of me, I felt like—like a knife…slicing a path. A path toward a dream. A dream away from my work, a work I had come to hate, to abhor. Something that no longer suited me, that I no longer wanted to be a part of. I wanted out…to become a part of my new dream. I was in love with a dream…and on this August night, I was on my way to find it….

Maybe that was it, maybe I was trying to leave something behind, at least for the moment anyway. I had to get out and as far away as possible. I headed for the west coast.

It drizzled a little. It was a good thing that I had decided to bring a tarp to cover my belongings in the bed of my truck. The rain danced alive and taunting on my windshield, casting an eeriness I reveled in as the distances between me and the city increased. I felt a Beckoning….

The interior of the cab was dully illuminated by the console’s mild incandescence. The steady womp, womp of my wiper blades were hypnotic…comforting. I was propelled into a trance, a dream world of my own making…one I never wanted to leave and would many times since then, try to recapture….

My headlights cut a swath into the darkness, splitting apart the waves of black so I could find my way. A new way.

I just couldn’t get out of this state fast enough.

I dreamed about nothing other than how far I had left to go…but in a longingly way—anticipating. I was looking forward to the drive…of being out on the road while most were sleeping safely in their beds. I looked forward to driving through treacherous mountain passes at three in the morning…the eerie ivory glow of the moon bathing everything in its radiance. Few people ever really experience this mystical quality. And I don’t mean just a midnight’s drive through the city—though it too has its own mystique—no I mean driving on top of the world, totally and utterly alone…cliffs to both sides, hair-pin turns, fog, and the ever-present possibility of making a false move, sending you over the side, into the unknown depths of the deep….

It was something spiritual, though I have no ordinary religious beliefs. Something stirred deep within my psyche, releasing such a flood of emotion and feeling that are even now difficult to put down. As I passed through the somnolent towns on my quest Westward…the mercury vapor lamps breathing their own life into the night…I felt myself no longer separate from the night—I was part of the rhythm. I had become one with the darkness and their night songs.

I felt the orgasmic thrill as I rushed head-on into my journey!

All the times I had felt alone or lonely faded away as I drank in my by-my-selfness. I wanted to be alone. I looked about my cab…to my cooler filled with juices and sandwiches…and enjoyed being alone. Just me and my truck and the dark. There was no one else on the road.

So I hit Monarch pass.

I was so close to the heavens, but would later find out hours into the future, that I would get even closer. The clouds whisked above me…seemingly mere feet above my head. The moon was the eerie atmosphere I thought ahead to in my earlier hours. I wanted to stop, but felt that that might ruin part of the atmosphere…that I was to continue driving…that it was part of the whole process. Moving. I was moved by the dark argent of the night. How can this be explained? It can’t, it can only be experienced.

I spiraled up and up, trying to reach the moon. Wisps of clouds flew past my truck, wetting the outside. My travel seemed to not be of this world…but a travel into other dimensions….

At one point I had driven around and across Blue Mesa Lake. It, too, was ghostly…the moon glinting off the waters understood how I felt. Understood me and my intentions. I looked into the water trying to figure out what it must be down there now…in the darkness…and if there was any life form within those dark waters….

What it would be like if I were on that lake right now…alone…in a small rowing boat? Sitting out somewhere in the middle of Blue Mesa Reservoir just letting the current take me where it will?

I saw one or two campfires off among the hills…and at once tried to place myself there…to mentally see who and what was going on…and, at the same time, to not even be bothered. To let those people feel the same freeness and openness I now felt…without any intrusion whatsoever…mental or physical. I was, for perhaps the first time, truly in love with life and me.

Who I was.

Had been and wanted to return to being.

I continued onward through and past towns called Montrose, Ouray, and Silverton.

It was at these places that I became a ghost…a nonperson flying past in the dark.

I stopped at several 7-11s, both for gas and food. Teenagers were huddling about in their groups and cars, hardly taking a notice of me. And I thought back to the times I had made my way to such places at night for mundane reasons. I might hardly have taken notice of similar passers-by…not stopping to realize how much a part of life they were. That they have names too…loves…hates…bills and desires. And how they too might be thinking the very same thoughts I am now thinking….

It’s like you have invaded a protected reserve of some sort…being allowed to experience for a very short period of time…a slice of life elsewhere. These 7-11s have the same ice machine that “my” 7-11 has…the same blue-and-white metallic AT&T phone booths with the perforated phone on the side, placed neck high. The same Coke machines…the same No Parking fire lane out front, and the same red tape markers lining the entrance/exit glass doors to judge the height of criminals by. It was all the same…except for the location.

Even the empty refuse blowing around the stores’ grounds was alike.

But as I paid for my goods and pulled out, leaving the lights and life behind, I couldn’t help but think that it was all an elaborate, mystical setup…just for me!…and that as soon as I left it all, it would all shut down…close down…people stopped moving and the lights would go out…die….

That all that was just there for effect only.

Only there for me as I stopped and continued on in my night drive…my solo (but not lonely!) sojourn.

Then I passed the town of Telluride below me, heading up a steep mountain pass. This pass was to be higher than Monarch had been, I was to find out. And even more of a mystery. It was here that I got my inspiration of all this as my “religious experience.”

It was the windiest road I had ever driven, and I threw my consciousness into the future, imagining what the drive would be like in the winter…people attempting the drive to hit Durango…or Telluride for skiing. It would be impossible with snow, would it not? As I passed certain points on my excursion upward, I noticed things like gates across the roads. There was one just as I hit the base of this road heading up. These were the same I had seen from my previous ‘home.’ They were gates to close off the road, conditions life-threatening.

Up ahead, I saw a flashing yellow light. Every time I took a turn, the light ended up on a different side of my travel, my perspective to it constantly changing. I began to give up trying to figure out where the light was in relation to me.

Just before the light, I passed a vehicle alongside the road, uninhabited. I thought how lonely it looked, like a dog without its master. It looked so lost, its personality lying latent until the turn of a key. It sat off the road on a cleared shoulder which looped off the road.

I found the light, flashing at the mouth of a short tunnel, maybe 75 feet in length. As I approached it, I suddenly realized what it really was—not a tunnel at all, but a snow shelter. The yellow light was harsh and abrupt as it spilled all over the concrete and mountain, but at the same time warm and friendly. It was something active in the midst of inactivity…in the middle of darkness…and I seemed to strike up a brief but deep friendship with it as I passed it…similar to how one might feel were they the last person on earth and spied…met…another human…but could not stop….

I speculated how that it would still be flashing long after I left…unlike the microcosm at the 7-11s. This inanimate object was real…and everything else wasn’t. I felt lonely for it. Thinking how it must look in the midst of a snowstorm…covered and iced…the light forcing its way through the buildup of snow upon it….

My turns became yet tighter…more brutal…the moon grinning to itself, seeing if I was worthy of my quest. I grinned back defiantly—besting it! There were a few close ones, especially with the fog, but I proved myself equal to the challenge. The moon welcomed me at the top.

And here, it seemed like I had truly touched the sky!

It was a rush being so high, on tiny winding roads, in the early deadness of the morning hours, moonlight bathing the scenery before me. Looking out and across the chasms and gullies, I was hit with the ‘religiousness’ of it all. I am not religious, but my beliefs were at that point substantiated. Everything is connected, and it all does make sense if you just open your mind.

I…was a spirit soaring through the night….

I was feeling a sadness descend upon me as I began to leave the peaks, spiraling downward, now. I saw some headlights up away from me, and wondered if the driver or drivers within had experienced the same-or-similar adventure as I had.

I approached the Four Corners and Arizona, the mountains quickly faded behind me. The sky was slowly cracking with light in the east. Four Corners and I were shortly to meet.

The sky had brightened only slightly so, initial streaks of red and blue and yellow staining the air to my rear. I turned onto the Four Corners road, traveling down it about a quarter mile to where I saw the sign. It was a dark, heavy wood engraved with the words ‘Welcome to Four Corners‘ carved into it. Alone…the only one there…I stopped, got out and took a picture of the sign with my headlights aimed on it….

 

Morning now having a firm hold over the sky, I saw flashing headlights miles ahead of me. The Arizona desert had barely been up, few cars out on the road. There were many lights, it seemed, the brilliant lights of red and blue startling the empty, early morning.

Finally getting there, I saw that there were several state patrol cars and an ambulance parked to the side of my road…a desolate road out in the middle of nowhere…

A body lay on the ground…covered in a white blanket.

I looked as I slowly drove by…the indifferent looking patrolman waving my through. It was my view of an actual dead human being, though I couldn’t actually see him or her. It was just the body. In spite of the official cars around it, it looked so brutally and eternally lonely. How long had s/he (I got the feeling it was a ‘he’) had lain there? What happened to him-or-her? Who had found him-or-her? It seemed that even though there was an actual body there…that something tremendously large was missing. That there was a huge emptiness engulfing the area. The emptiness of the body’s person….

 

Leaving Las Vegas behind, I made my way north.

It was a paradise of the dark.

When you drive the desert, everything seems so much closer to you, especially at night. The light of your headlights seems to pull the landscape up and into you as you drive by. Literally bringing everything closer…it’s an amazing, metaphysical quality. You seem to see things clearer—the tiny cacti…the shrubs…any little creatures that might scurry across your path. The light that is shed is different from ordinary light—different from any other light. It is like there is no other land—nothing—beyond the borders of your illumination. All the terrain available is only what is lighted.

Then you come upon other drivers…and you feel that unspoken pride among you, as you realize that you are witnessing a part of life others are not or will never experience. It is a common experience shared.

I passed a group of motorcyclists, wondering how great it must feel to be even more exposed to the night and its elements. I almost didn’t even want to pass them, but finally decided upon it.

Ah the night!

It was truly a flat world we lived in!

As I drove I almost became convinced of it…that there was no curve to the landscape, just the flat terrain between the borders of my headlights. I passed several little towns and way-stations, totally mystified by the ghostly draping of light around their buildings. I passed one building where a door was open, interior light spilling out into the dark. There was a man standing around there, smoking or something, I surmised. I tried once more to project my mind there. It was sacred….

Moving, moving, always moving….

I needed gas, and stopped at a station up ahead in some hamlet of a town. Again, there’s something about the way light falls about a gas station and its islands at night, especially at stations in areas unfamiliar to the observer. As I stopped to fill up, the motorcyclists I passed earlier came to light at the same station, hair and beards windblown. I envied them and shared the pride and freedom they exuded from the ride. Whether that was all they did or it was just a summer jaunt, that was all they were doing then…and that was all I was doing then. We—the bikers and I—didn’t hold jobs…didn’t pay bills…had no responsibilities that outweighed our lives. No, we were road tripping into a glorious summer night…hours of late night and early morning.

I looked over at them, smiling, and said ‘hi’. They were a friendly lot, enjoying life. It was an exciting brotherhood I was feeling just then, in spite of how I normally feel about brotherhoods.

I never wanted this to end!

And for that summer, it didn’t.

I got back on the road, leaving them forever behind. California was still hours into my future and I was alive with ecstatic excitement! So, north I continued, landscape speeding by.

I let my mind run at breakneck speeds into imagination. I could do nothing but think about how magical my summer was…my best summer since childhood. The mystical quality was something I didn’t want to explain for fear of losing it, which I knew would never happen.

The road winded, threading its way up and down, through passes and around lakes, bits of habitation and life scattered here and there, but only us night drivers were the conscious ones….

 

Hours later I found myself needing another fill up, taking it at a major turn in direction for me. Now I would be heading directly at my dream, my goal. West. The lights at the station took on a new meaning for me, because my direction was now more direct. All I had to do was basically, drive ‘straight.’ Again I let myself get lost in the eerie aura of the station’s lights—an oasis in the middle of the dark night. I often wondered about the type of people who man these places in the wee hours. Do they feel the same way about the night…the darkness? Is that why they work those hours?

It was as if there was no reality outside of the illuminated confines. No other people. It all seemed to be a rather existentialist drama. Two people acting out some tiny performance for whatever god’s amusement…after which (since we really don’t exist) we simple go back into the ether of the universe. Patiently waiting-in-unconsciousness until called again to re-enact the same performance of events for yet another passing spirit in the dark….

I would have gladly given up my life to just that then! I would willingly live these same moments over and over again for Time Immemorial! This is what, I find, I live for—what my whole of existence was meant for. My Fate. And I welcomed it enthusiastically.

My God, how I didn’t want it to end! Ever!

I felt such emotion well up within me—even now, as I write this a couple months later. This is what I want my death to be! When my time is up in this form, I want to wander the night, doing what I was doing now. To become one with the night. There is only one Heaven in existence, and I was in it now….

I left the station, full of powerful emotion and sadness, knowing that this will indeed end…for with the coming of fall, there is the end of summer. Oh, God, why couldn’t I bring myself to die now! So This would always remain as it is now?

Oh, if only I could….

 

I drove onward through the mountains, through the likes of towns with the names of Yerington, Wellington, Markleeville, and Sonora. It was a hypnotic movement, going beyond the actual physical accomplishment of guiding a truck along a road. It was an opiating ballet of trance-like qualities. Yes. There was no vehicle, no road, no individual, no route. There was only but a collectiveness. A collectiveness of consciousness. There were no separatenesses—everything was intricately interconnected…becoming one intense moment…one united fluidity….

It was at that point that you knew…beyond all doubt…what your position in life was…and it wasn’t something you could adequately explain nor want to explain. It was something brutally personal…something you wanted no one else to know about you…yet something you wanted every ‘individual’ to experience for themselves. Maybe it was something that could most adequately be explained as a ‘tone of feeling.’ Something that defied ordinary explanation…ordinary words. It transcended them…using the realm of mind….mind tones….

As I weaved in and out of the passes…the approaching lights of the towns floated by…looking like space ships or space cities. The clusterings of lights hanging in the night air… seemingly suspended in the air by the dark….

Again, I thought of the type of people who must live among the mountains. So high up, and yes—even to some extent—isolated. Are they as me? Or are they as gods? I knew it was a silly thought, but as anyone knew who did much driving, things are not the same at night. Things change…the very air changes…people’s perceptions change. And it was this change that I was experiencing…thrilling in….

A few times along the route, I stopped, mainly to get my direction positive, as there were no light posts to light the turns that I needed to take. Few signs. It was like nothing else mattered. You would inhale the very night around you…it travelling down your throat into your lungs…the capillaries grabbing for it. It then shot out to every minute section of your being, revitalizing every facet of body and mind—

Everything made sense.

Wars, love, greed, rape…it all made sense…coming into a shocking clarity.

So onward I went again. I was no longer tired—I couldn’t be!—every fiber of my existence was on fire with this new knowledge and anticipation and excitement!

I was getting closer to my dream.

The night began to lighten as I approached Sonora Pass. I was becoming somewhat dismayed at the thought of leaving the nightness behind…but it was dispelled by the fact that this location on the earth was almost like a temple. The morning light scratching across the sky’s border lent its own mystical qualities to the land. The view of the surrounding area was breathtakingly gorgeous.

I wound my way up the steep mountain pass, the second highest mountain pass in the Sierra Nevadas, my mouth agape at the beauty. I had driven this route several years ago, and it was more beautiful then it was then. There was a light fog lighting around the spruce and lower-lying brush. Gray smoke weaved the air, coming from fireplaces. No doubt many were still asleep, but some were assuredly getting up, as this was a camping and hunting area.

My journey continued to take me to what seemed like a plot of microcosms…little dioramas of land…each one cute in its surroundings. The road would merge through these dioramas, only to disappear on the other end of it…yet continue with another one as the previous dioramas closed up with your passing….

Everything was so lush and intense! Like each diorama exploited life to its fullest in each of its microcosms! That that’s why they were set up like this. To spread it all out all over would detract from what this particular beauty was. It was only meant to be experienced in intense handfuls…and at night…by passing ghosts….

The feeling as I drove through it all was that of driving my vehicle over catwalks. I remembered how I felt back in college, when I worked in a campus auditorium and discovered the catwalk above everybody in the theatre. It was sandwiched between what was left of the auditorium’s ceiling and the building’s roof, a condensed space with precarious-looking hanging catwalk suspended by thin wires. Air conditions, heaters and lighting units filled this dark space, and there was a musty smell that I immediately felt comfortable with….

As I walked through wobbling catwalks, I constantly reminded myself to watch my step, or I’d fall through the ceiling…then another seventy feet or so onto the chairs below. But it was that feeling of walking (flying?) over everything, everyone below! Of being suspended over the world with its own little diorama around me as I explored….

And that was how I felt now…only that I was driving my truck…suspended over the world…and that if I deviated from the diorama, I’d go crashing down thousands upon thousands of feet. My trip was only a few hours longer now, as my destination within California closed in.

And I wondered if the things I had experienced during my night drive were still all there…behind me…when I answered my own question.

Of course they weren’t.

They had disappeared with the night’s release…but would most assuredly return when the days last rays again retreated….

As I drove on, a smile on my face and dreams in my eyes, I realized that life is great (as a friend once told me). I had a warm feeling inside me. But beyond that I knew that life is also as we create it. At that point in time, my reality exceeded my dreams. And what do you do when you reach that point in your life?

You continue dreaming.

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A Tribute To Mac

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As I’m going back over all my old short stories, I found this little tribute I’d written back in 2000. It is about an incident that happened to me while I’d been a boy in the 70s. It was about one of the family dogs we’d lost. I’d been there when it was killed. I’m glad I’d written it up when I did, because I’d apparently already begun to forget some of the details I’d written up. Well, we are talking some 40 years, here! I even had to ask my dad about one set of details as I’d written this up a couple weeks ago.

I’ve delayed posting because I’ve been looking for a picture of Mac…but I just can’t find one! Which is weird, cause I’d seen pictures of him—and his grave—in my possession. I must have lost them over the years, or someone else has them. In any event, if I do find one, I’ll add it into this post after the fact.

As with most of what I write, it doesn’t quite end as you might expect it to end…and which is why I’ve posted it to this site rather than my other one. I like that about my work. I like that about the weird things that happen to me in my life.

Embrace the weird.

 

A Tribute to Mac

© F. P. Dorchak, Sept 17, 2000

I remember Mac like it was yesterday. Mac was the best pal any kid could ask for. He never asked for much: food, shelter, and friendship. Okay, and a constant supply of attention. You see, Mac was a black Labrador Retriever, one of our family’s pets back in the 70s. I loved him so much that as an adult I’d also named the Black Lab we’d had “Mac” (his official name for those AKC papers was “Lord MacTavish du Lac”), as well.

My dad says we got Mac from one of his dad’s bosses who lived “out west.” My grandfather used to chauffeur for the president of the board of Phelps Dodge Wire and Cable. All I do know was that for a kid just barely a teenager, the dog was big! Paws as huge as your own feet!

Mac took a while getting used to coming to us when we called him, but I guess that was to be expected. We lived in The North Country, as it was called by those who live there (upstate NY, the extreme northern end of New York State; we lived in the Adirondack Mountains) and what with all that open space…well, it took a while. But Mac was fun-loving, as all labs are! I remember…

He had this one big tree branch that was actually longer than himself, and he always used to play with it and drag it around with him all over the place. There wasn’t a day you wouldn’t look out and see him dragging it somewhere, playfully growling and head shaking back in forth in the excited frenzy of play. Or find him under the shade of some tree on a lazy summer day, patiently (surgically!) chewing and whittling away at the limb with his teeth. He loved that danged stick. He must’ve actually bitten off several inches of it, because I swear, after a while, it looked shorter….

And Mac was always there for us kids. In fact it wasn’t all that unlikely to see one of us kids sleeping on Mac’s side as he slept. We called him our “Portable Pillow.”

But…the inevitable happened one day.

 

I was going to take a bike ride a couple miles down the road to check on the mail at the Post Office, when Mac came running up to me from somewhere wanting to come along (we didn’t always keep him leashed, which wasn’t a great thing, I know, but it’s how many operated up in The North Country). Well, by this time Mac was pretty regular about coming when called, so I decided, why not? Off we went.

Mac stayed by my side as I rode one of my brothers’ bikes (his had a basket, mine didn’t, and I needed that for any mail I might collect; it was a red “banana” bike;  mine was purple) down the road. I was pretty impressed to say the least, though I was also wary about the traffic, of which there wasn’t much to begin with. If I called him, he came. I was feeling pretty good about my buddy, Mac.

We made it to the Post Office and Mac came inside with me, all happy and excited. I can still remember that day, some 40 years later. Everyone knew everyone in this hamlet of Lake Clear, including one’s pets, so we all said “Hi.” Then, much like that Miss Almira Gulch, from The Wizard of Oz, there was this one old lady in there collecting her mail. She was one of those ladies who made an issue out of everything: “Oh there ought to be a law about this” or “Oh there ought to be a law about that.” Wrinkly and bitchy (sorry, this was how I’d described her when I’d written this in 2000, so I’ve kept it as-is). The type that also revels in scolding kids for anything and everything. Miss Almira Gulch.

Well, as Mac roamed the floor as I collected my mail, the lady turned to me after seeing my dog, and told me that someday my dog would get hit by a car, the way it was running loose. “There ought to be a law…” I just knew she must have been thinking then. I said, naw, he comes when he’s called real good and we don’t let him out loose that much (really, I said that? Again, this was what I’d written in 2000, so…). Besides, Mac was a careful dog, I said. The lady left, and Mac and I said our goodbyes to Post Office personnel. We were back on the road, mail in basket, Mac at heels.

We were almost home, at that big downward-S-curving bend, maybe less than a quarter mile from home? Mac was trotting contently on the other side of the road, staying off the pavement. He had just crossed over there…when he’d decided to come back over to my side.

I swear til this day, that what I saw him do, he did. I actually saw him do this: as Mac went to cross the road, he looked first one way…then the other…then made his way across.

Now, whether or not he was actually looking for cars is arguable…but that was what he’d done.

It was at this time that a little compact sports car (I think it might have been an MG Midget, but something like it, top down, as I recall) came screaming out from around that bend towards us. Mac never saw it coming. His head was turned in the opposite direction—it happened immediately after he’d just looked down the way of the approaching bullet.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I seemed to have blocked out the thump that must have occurred, the screaming of brakes, and the skidding of car. I dropped my bike where I was and ran into the center of the road. The road here was banked at a good angle to meet the S-curved bend…and it was where Mac now lay…my Little Buddy was now a black mass around which red was actively leaking out and pooling. His mouth…his mouth was open at a sick angle…his tongue hanging out at an even sicker, unnatural angle. I remember seeing him still looking like he was breathing for a little while…roughly so. It looked utterly grotesque…hideous…and I didn’t know what to do.

I felt entirely helpless.

I’d shot my hands into the air several times in futility and disbelief…my eyes searching for somebody, anybody…anybody who knew what to do…to tell me that what I was witnessing was not reality…not what I was really seeing. That it was actually another dog lying there in a pool of its own blood in the middle of warm asphalt….

Nothing came out of my mouth.

I ran to the edge of the road…then back to Mac…then repeated my steps. Other cars began to stop.

I then ran to the door of a well-kept gray house that was right there. I rapped on the door and someone answered. I remembered trying to keep my cool…keep calm and not cry…as I blurted out what’d happened. I asked to use the phone. I called my dad. He answered. In the same calm but wavering voice, I told my father what had happened. He rhetorically asked me if this was a joke. That’s what people do in times like this. It’s the same question everyone asks while they try to forestall the inevitable realization. I think it was then that I started to cry.

I ran back out as my dad was on his way to…us. I went back to my Mac’s side. He was still bleeding…the blood still making its way down the road’s canted angle. I looked at his black body, disgustingly twisted…his mouth and tongue still that sickeningly hideous way they were when I left. I thought back to when Mac had looked both ways before crossing the road. Of what that old lady (I’d used a different term in the first draft of this…) had scolded me about Mac back in the Post Office.

And I thought of that damned little sports car…barreling around that corner like it was a Grand Prix racer.

I looked for it. There were people talking to the driver and its passenger. A guy and a girl. To this day I can still see them all standing “over there” in a group, in my mind’s eye.

I reached out and touched Mac…he was still warm. Warm but unmoving. I bent over and cradled him…praying he wasn’t hurt too badly…was not dead…hoping beyond hope he was fixable—

Was this a joke?

It wasn’t…and Mac would no longer be our Portable Pillow. No longer be whittling away at his huge stick in the shade of some tree. My dad had arrived, looking all official in his NYS Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Ranger uniform. His Everything-Will-Be-All-Right manner. He was used to scenes like this, I’m sure. Pulled dead bodies off of mountain tops and all. Now we were pulling our dead dog off the road.

We took Mac home in the back of my dad’s red ranger truck. The killers had apologized most remorsefully, saying they hadn’t seen our dog. Of course not. Most people don’t intentionally try to kill dogs while out for a drive during a beautiful, sunny day. They gave my dad all the money they had on them: about ten bucks, I seem to think it was.

We buried Mac up behind our house, before one of three gardens we had. I made a small wooden cross and carved Mac’s name into it with my pocket knife. I found Mac’s tree branch and brought it to the grave. I made two upright supports for it and suspended the stick across and over the grave. It stayed that way for most of my remaining years at home.

I don’t know how much longer after all this it was…days, months, a year?…but one day I’d seen Mac again. I’d been at the top of the long staircase of our 1800s house…I’d turned around to face the stairs while on the top landing…when I’d seen his happy black tail and butt. The tail was straight up into the air—and it and the butt were quickly heading down the stairs!

I was stunned. That was Mac! We hadn’t a black dog, in fact I’m not sure if we even had a replacement dog at this point, but it definitely was not a black dog.

As an adult I don’t hold any anger or animosity toward that “Miss Almira Gulch” or the couple that had hit Mac. Things happen. We all have to die sometime of something, I always say, and I believe there is more on The Other Side. As I also remember it, my dad told me that the couple was pretty shaken up from the accident. But, to this day, I still think about that scene. Of that couple…and how that accident might have affected them. Of Mac lying in the middle of that road. Of Mac looking both ways before crossing. Of that old lady’s ominous warning. I loved that dog. I’ll always miss Mac. He was more than just a Portable Pillow to all of us.

 

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Floating

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Luna Float Spa (Image by Luna Float Spa)
Luna Float Spa (Image by Luna Float Spa)

“…oh, yes, they float, Georgie…they float….”

“…conducting the most dangerous experiments in the history of science…and the subject of those experiments…is himself….”

These are two thoughts that immediately came to mind (actually the second quote didn’t so much come to mind as the movie did; I was just picking a sample quote for this post…) when I undertook this little experience last Saturday (January 30th). The first quote was from Stephen King’s It, and the second from Altered States.

My Luna Dreamwave Pod. The Lights Change. (Image by F. P. Dorchak, January 30, 2016)
My Luna Dreamwave Pod. The Lights Change. (Image by F. P. Dorchak, January 30, 2016)

Well, thankfully and suffice it to say, nothing near so horrific or disfiguring occurred in my experience at Luna Float Spa, which opened in 2015.

I’d been wanting to do something like this for the longest time—ever since the movie Altered States and my research into my novel, Psychic. I’ve always been fascinated by the metaphysical  and this was an area I’d never ventured into: isolation tanks and sensory deprivation.

Now called “floating.”

In its simplest description, it’s about turning off all the lights, sticking ear plugs in your ears, and floating around in as near a zero-G environment as possible. This is to “deprive” your senses of physical existence and allow you to focus inwardly. To the less metaphysically inclined it’s to better relax the racing mind and body.

Now, there are various trains of thought into what happens when you do this, I’m not gonna entertain them all, but I am going to tell you it is one of the most pleasant experiences ever! Whether or not you’re into the metaphysical aspects of “floating,” the physical effects are undeniably incredible. The physical and mental relaxation you get is above and beyond what most can get in our every day lives. You are floating in ten inches of water infused with 800 – 1,000 pounds of Epsom salts, and many have actually reported falling asleep! I did not. You also might think there might be an element of claustrophobia associated with being “clam-shelled” into a small tank like this. I’m not prone to claustrophobia, but I felt nothing of the kind, but have read/heard that those who might be so inclined don’t seem to report that while using these pods.

I had been looking for a way to do this for over 20 years and it was either part of another package that cost a thousand or more, or the equipment had broken down (then the spa itself had shut down). I forgot about it, then Mandy, a friend of mine who also proofreads/copyedits my fiction tried it, told me about her experience with it, and that lit a fire under my ass to again look into it. To my surprise, where I had previously found none locally—I now found several!

My interest really started with Robert Monroe. Bob Monroe created The Monroe Institute (TMI), in Virginia. I’d heard of Bob a lifetime ago, with his book, Journeys Out Of The Body. Years later, while researching Psychic, I learned of TMI (curious use of the initials, yes?). I’d always wanted to attend TMI’s programs, but their rates were always just a bit out of my reach. I have, however, used various at-home programs from them—which I also recommend (but don’t get hooked on them…keep reading).

Life moved on.

The Luna Dreamwave Pod. (Image by F. P. Dorchak, January 30, 2016)
The Luna Dreamwave Pod. (Image by F. P. Dorchak, January 30, 2016)

Admittedly, I was hoping for some kind of earth-shattering experience, given my experience with the “weird” and the metaphysical in my life (see Related Articles, below), and while that didn’t happen, I did have some really cool sensations happen that I’ve detailed below. Essentially, my floating experience was like any good meditative experience I’ve ever had, so it wasn’t like the Altered States or Pennywise-the-clown’s versions. It was totally cool floating around in a near half-ton of salt water and experiencing “zero-G” moments with as much of physical reality “shut off” as possible.

And the pods are just cool looking! They reminded me of 2001: a Space Odyssey, thought they don’t look anything like the Discovery One’s EVA pods, but that’s where my mind went anyway (“Open the pod bay doors, Hal…”). Yes, I’m “troubled.”

When you arrive at Luna Float Spa, you get a tour of the place, are shown to your room (which included a rubber ducky-on-a-shelf!), asked to choose your après float tea, then are given “the briefing”: put in the ear plugs first (silicone or regular foam—I used silicone and they worked great, though a day or so later I did get swimmer’s ear), shower, dry off your head and face real good, since the Epsom salts can get in your face and eyes if you enter still wet, then enter the pod (you are recommended to do this naked, since clothing can spoil the sensory deprivation experience as you feel your clothing—but you can wear swim wear if you want to; I went naked). You can leave the cool colored lights on or turn them off (I turned mine off)…and take the rubber-ducky-on-a-shelf in with you if you want (I didn’t). Just prior to entering the pods, make sure you flip off the room’s light switch (I forgot to do this and had to get out to hit the lights; otherwise it does not get totally dark inside the pod). Inside the pod you have a fresh water spray bottle and hand towel. Use this if Epsom salts get in your face (like it did when I got up to turn off the room lights). Find a position for your arms and hands…and enjoy (I put my hands and arms above my head, but they eventually lowered to head level). Afterward, you take another shower to get all the salts off your body.

So, here is the list of effects I’d experienced while in the Luna Float Dreampods:

  1. My right side seemed to twitch more than my left, specifically my right leg and right hand.
  2. About halfway through, my entire body went through an incredible tingling, from head to toe…it was quite wild and “electric” and lasted for several moments before dissipating. I’ve experienced tingling before, but never at this level.
  3. My right leg and right arm/hand got that “expanded” feeling I typically get from good meditative sessions at home.
  4. I saw lots of patterns and shapes behind my eyelids—also what I’m used to. These were mainly a dull yellow in color, with some speckling of a bright, laser-like blue in there.
  5. Shapes: I had one “notional” male face drift by, as in it was not a “picture” of a face, but an amorphous shape forming into the shape of a face…a bearded face; lip-shaped forms (dull yellow). Then there was this…one of the most interesting things: eyes. Lots and lots of eyes. Small ones…in groups and alone…not like one big, huge one. Think of a “bowl full of eyes” then remove the bowl…and that’s what I was seeing. This lasted for quite some time…drifting in and out…came back once or twice. Quite interesting. Don’t recall anything like this in my meditative sessions before.
  6. “The Shift”: this was another curious thing, though I’ve felt similar before: I felt a curious “shift” in myself two or three times. Hard to describe…but it’s like a dull—really dull—singular internal earthquake of the body. More like an “electrical” shake or a mild “jolt.” Where the body “internally” shudders, but not physically. It was a palpable change…but I didn’t feel superhuman or anything…still don’t. I’ve felt this sensation before in meditation. I’d always just called it an “internal shift.” It’s very subtle.
  7. Respiration: this was perhaps the weirdest thing—and this I’d never before experienced—was a massive change in my respiration…or what I perceived to be a change in my respiration? This happened about three times, and the first time it actually jarred me…almost scaring me, to be honest: my breathing seemed to have stopped…but what had actually occurred was that it became quite elongated and drawn out. I’d breathe out…and didn’t feel any burning  need to breathe back in in any hurry. Nope. Not one bit: in fact—joking to myself—I was observing that I was floating there and not breathing and wondered if I’d died! It was totally weird and the first time I’d ever experienced something like this, so it really shocked me the first time it happened. This must be what Yogis experience when they slow their respiration. When it happened again and again, I just went with it…and it was totally cool. But, I don’t really know if my internal time had totally warped and I was experiencing elongated time and my [relaxed] respiration rate hadn’t really changed…or if I had truly lengthened out my breathing patterns…but for those couple of times, whatever was happening…it was wild….
  8. When I was done an hour later, my body “didn’t feel normal”—but in an extremely relaxed, good way! Moving around was slightly “difficult” and “alien,” is about the only way to put it. Another totally cool sensation. I then “messed around” in the water…trying to enjoy the feeling of weightlessness while in a sensory deprived environment, versus the trying to remain calm and still as I had for the bulk of the session. It was a fun feeling, reminiscent of scuba diving…but with a metaphysical aspect to it….

These are my experiences. Yours will surely be different from mine…but it could be similar.

My Luna Float Spa Room. (Image by F. P. Dorchak, January 30, 2016)
My Luna Float Spa Room. (Image by F. P. Dorchak, January 30, 2016)

In addition to the pod experience, at Luna Float Spa you can also utilize other aspects of the spa, like a gnarly massage chair or sauna. They have a couple of packages, but I just used the massage chair (which came with the pod float experience)…and this thing has a freakin’ living, breathing, life of its own.

I used the shiatsu massage Inada Dreamwave chair after the pod experience, but I’d recommend using it prior to it. This chair…it has 100 air cells, while your typical, commercially available chairs have 30 – 40 cells, Ana-Alycia tells me. And it has 106 body types programmed into it. Anyway, it’s simply amazing. It’s like six different people working on you at once. And I kid about the “life of its own” part, but as it works away on you, you can hear the air cells sighing upon exhaling (inflating and deflating—see, I still refer to it as if it is ALIVE…) and the material creaking and scrunching all around you as it works you.

Yeah, it’s alive.

My Luna Shower. Shower Before and After. (Image by F. P. Dorchak, January 30, 2016)
My Luna Shower. Shower Before and After. (Image by F. P. Dorchak, January 30, 2016)

After all this, I got to sit down with Morgan, one of the owners (the other owner is Ana-Alycia, Morgan’s wife). When you’re done, you get to sit in the waiting room and sip tea and reflect. I was originally going to pick this raspberry mix, but flipped the tea-card over and saw a curious mango-mix so chose that. But when it came time to have it, Morgan apologized and said that they were out of it, but he hoped I wouldn’t mind the raspberry one—

Cue Twilight Zone music!

So Morgan and I talked for some 15-20 minutes about our experiences in things-metaphysical, while watching a cool HDTV of the ocean and all its colorful creatures!

I recommend that once you experience “floating” that you write down all you experienced, however trivial they might sound to you. Give those feelings and experiences life. Solidity. Bring them out of just remaining in your head. And don’t dismiss and minimize them, because if you do, you’ll roadblock any further metaphysical development that can occur. I’m not saying floating will unlock anything in you…everyone’s different and everyone should remain open…and your beliefs will come into play…but at a minimum, your relaxation experience will be incredible. You don’t have to understand all that happens to you…just acknowledge whatever does and be open to possibilities, whether prosaic or metaphysical. Change usually comes in small increments. Subtle events. For example…let’s say that after you do this you walk into a convenience story and hold the door open for a couple…and you get the unassailable feeling that you know one of the couple…have seen them before…there’s absolutely no doubting this, so much so you almost call out to them….

The Living, Breathing Inada Dreamwave Massage Chair! (Image by Luna Float Spa)
The Living, Breathing Inada Dreamwave Massage Chair! (Image by Luna Float Spa)

But another part of you also knows that, nooo…you’ve actually never met before—in this life.

Just acknowledge that feeling…smile…and continue on your way. Don’t ignore it as “crazy think”….

Some report better sleeping the night after, and others cool, calming, and relaxing effects…calming peace of mind, etc. Personally, I noticed nothing different about myself, but I do meditate off and on and already am a “happy” and optimistic person. If I got any more so, I’d be a helluva a lot more annoying to those around me. Or myself.

Morgan and Ana-Alycia also give a discount to veterans. That was a pleasant surprise I hadn’t expected. It just came up in conversation. They are both gracious and outgoing hosts!

And one more thing: if used for metaphysical development, these kinds of things shouldn’t be used as a “crutch” in that development…but as an aid to gaining more understanding, confidence, and getting used to exploring our inner selves on our own—though a definite case can be made just for the physical rehabilitative effects! In my research for these places, I’ve read that football players—and even Air Force Academy cadets—are using it. If more people used things like this, I’m sure there’d be less violence in the world…so maybe our future world leaders will go into their careers with a slightly better, more open point-of-view about life, the universe, and everything else….

So, if you ever get the opportunity, I highly recommend the “float” experience—and Luna Float Spa!

The Luna Float Spa Ducky!
The Luna Float Spa Ducky!

Contact information:

Website: www.lunafloatspa.com/

Phone: 719/309-6776

E-mail: Contact@LunaFloatSpa.com

Luna Float Spa First Blog Post

Address:

Luna Float Spa
202 E. Cheyenne Mtn. Blvd., Suite R,
Colorado Springs, CO 80906

Hours: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m., Mountain Time

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lunafloatspa

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lunafloatspa

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The Twilight Zone Lost Episode!

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A humorous blast from the past I never would have known about had it not been for Paul Gallagher, aka Twitter handle, @TheNightGallery! Thanks, Paul!

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The Reincarnational Conundrum

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Life's Rabbit Hole. (Image by Amanvanasparesort [CC BY-SA 4.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
Life’s Rabbit Hole. (Image by Amanvanasparesort [CC BY-SA 4.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)
On my last post, Karen, a friend of mine, posed the following:

“You know I’ve had these types of experiences (though not visualizing what I might have been – just having the results of those experiences bleed over). What I’m curious about though is whether you think a simultaneous or future life affects you now to prevent problems, warn of them, improve your understanding of them…. If so, why wouldn’t they also solve the problems of the other lives (the pressing, for example) unless we are supposed to go through pain for some reason.”

She raises some good points, points that I’ve heard many times over the years. I will try to clarify my stance on the matter in as succinct a manner as possible without getting all “book length” on the matter (which I really wasn’t able to do, as you’ll see), but in order to do so I must give some “background” information first….

On the one hand, yes, we all are better in our current point-of-view (POV) life because of something we’ve “already experienced” in another life, past or future. This can be a physical thing, like superb physical conditioning, to nonphysical abilities, like mental or emotional prowess. But even this answer is far more “trite” and superficial than Karen’s answer requires, because there are so many variables to both the question and the answer.

So many, many “rabbit holes” to explore!

All of the below are my beliefs…beliefs I’ve cultivated over my life from reading and employing all I’ve learned (I’ve studied religion and philosophy in college and on my own, as well as physics and metaphysics)…so I’m not going to caveat each statement with “This is my belief, but…,” I’m just gonna state each response as a statement. Take it or leave it, but these are my views.

Note that while some of what I’m about to say below may appear to conflict with other things I say…there really is no contradiction. Once you really assimilate what I’m talking about…step back and look at it from as outside of Human perspectives as much as is possible that any Human can do such a thing…all probabilities can co-exist. Again, I have not come up with this stuff on my own…but I’ve come to see the reality behind these concepts in action…in play in my own life. I’ve even written about these to varying degrees in my work.

Simultaneous Time

There is no inherent Time.

There is only our interpretations of physical events, known as “Time,” because we are so “close” to the corporal (“physical”) aspects of this life that this “closeness” is interpreted as “Time.” It’s not a bad thing. It’s actually quite a cool thing. I feel this is quite important for all of us who inhabit this Space/Time Continuum. For instance: if we didn’t have Time, we couldn’t consider or reconsider our actions: you hate a person for whatever reason. If there were no Time how might this “hate” manifest? It’d probably immediately “act” itself out…but, given that we have “Time” that act does not need to be immediately acted upon…but allows us reflection. Sure, others do act on such impulses, but the great majority of us do not…and the ability to reflect still exists whether or not it is chosen.

Time is really our “Safety Net.”

The Point of Power Is In The Present

This means that whatever else exits out there…however many other lives we’re living…none of those lives control who we are in the present, current moment. No other person or “entity” controls our lives.

The current moment is our “me” conscious POV of NOW.

The ME here, now, writing this…having the thoughts I’m putting down on this post…is NOT controlled by any other “me” out there. We can influence each other through “bleed throughs” (explained below)…inspire each other…but no one [other] self controls another self.

So…the “point of power” is always with the current POV’s self.

I realize this gets funky fast…like looking into a mirror that’s reflecting back  mirrored images into infinity…but there’s no contradiction here. Since there are multiple you’s and me’s out there, this applies to all of them. It’s like considering all aspects of God and S/He/It…how could God always exist?—where did he always exist?!

Again: your conscious POV is the point of power of all Life Control. This is also where the “Free Will” card resides. This is your free will…your point of power.

We need this kind of focus to really learn on WHAT to focus…and to focus CLEARLY only upon that which we really want to focus upon. To DIRECT our focuses in ways that we can’t even imagine…but certainly are learning how to….

Bleed Throughs

All of life is energy…which is never destroyed, but “merely” changes states. And since there is no Time (only our perception of it)…all energy interacts with all energy. It’s like electromagnetic waves. Heat waves. Ripples in water when objects are thrown into them. It all radiates outward in whatever dimensions exist….two-dimensional water ripples…three-dimensional radio waves…multi-dimensional Life Energy (for lack of a better term, which presently eludes me…). Our thoughts are energy. The movement of our arms…eyelashes. Internal digestion. It’s all formations and transformations of energy.

So…anything we do—anything—our thoughts, our actions, our emotions…all radiate outward and affect everything else out there.

Yes, it can truly be maddening thinking about all the possibilities/probabilities… but that is the wonder of Life!

Know Thyself

You know yourself. You do.

You may not admit it to anyone…you may not admit it even to yourself…but you know who and what you are on a basic, Human level. All your weirdnesses…your loves, your likes and dislikes.

Your beliefs.

Do you believe in struggle? Religion? War? Love? Sleep? Ants?

You weed out things you do not believe in for things you do believe in…and there are certain things the majority of us have to believe in as a basis of our very existences, like breathing air. Kissing. Eating. Dying. These are the “lowest common denominators” of our accepting Life in this plane of existence. Sure, there are exceptions and some can “bend” the rules a little, but on the whole if we all didn’t agree upon a certain set of pre-existing rules, we couldn’t BE.

As an adult you believe in things you didn’t believe in as a child—and vice versa. Apply this to the different versions of You out there in all your other existences. You’re all different…yet YOU. They (all the other “you’s”) have the very same thing…and just because they are a “you,” does not mean “you” think the same way…or even agree with…each other. Just like the “you” now may not agree with the “you” at 73 or 13. You may not even like some of the other you’s out there. So…just because one “you” out there thinks or knows something doesn’t mean YOU (the one reading this) will agree with it or even take notice, because it goes so counter to your beliefs and et cetera. And really, none of us are “perfect” in any definition of the word (see below). We all make mistakes or occasionally wake up on the wrong side of the bed and make misinformed decisions….

Our conscious minds are our filters. We choose what we want to believe…what we want to perceive, and this also works on an unconscious level. And those other areas of ourselves don’t really know that well…we are learning about….

Barriers

There are obvious physical, mental, and metaphysical barriers to life.

But, again, there really aren’t.

Only the perceptions that there are barriers. So they exist.

Perception is reality…more than you may realize.

Perceptions are every bit as real and solid as concrete footing. They’re not to be ignored. Why so-called barriers are there is too long a subject to get into…but just know that they exist. We can peek behind and around them, but for the most part they are there for a reason…one of which is to allow us the ability to focus on who and where we are NOW. If all the barriers were open, it would be such a flood of information…and our current selves are not equipped to handle that…in this probable existence.

Probable Existences

No one reality—even our “me POV” life—is THE “standard,” or “rock bed” reality. Each reality is as important as the others. Each POV is the POV for that POV.

Sounds silly, but think about it: you’re considering your current POV as The Standard. That all the other POVs are spin offs from you. To be perceived BY you. But each of those other POVs are doing the same thing…and you’re all correct.

Slightly mind-blowing?

Every action spins off a result. Every thought. You think it…”it” takes off. You cannot call it back. Whether or not you follow it, it has taken on a life of its own, much like when you approach a fork in a road. You consider taking the other path, but you take the one you’re on. Well, your considerations spawned an alternate, probable reality where you did take the “other” path…and the path you took became the probable reality.

I know…it hurts to think about. But that’s why there are barriers!

Pain

Pain is not meant to be endured and muscled through as some sort of glorious badass activity. “Pain” is meant to let you know that something you are doing is affecting you in a way that is exhibiting itself as “pain”…an unpleasant sensation to you. You are meant to stop doing whatever it is that is so affecting you as “pain” and reexamine what it is you’re doing.

The attributes of “pain” are not “good” or “bad.” They are just the attributes that manifest in our physical existence as they do…like “bitter” or “sweet” exhibit themselves are not good or bad…they just are. But pain is meant to have you reflect upon what you are doing and to make appropriate changes.

Nobody’s Perfect

We are all learning how to wield the energy of our lives, so we will and do often make mistakes. Misdirect our energies. We are learning the responsibility of our actions…our thoughts as well as their exteriorized (physical) manifestations. We are learning the sanctity of Life. We are learning all this and more…and we are dong so in a medium (physical life) where, for lack of a better description, we have “room for error” on the cosmic scale of things. If we blow ourselves and our Earth up…we only blow up our version…our probably-reality-of-many-Earths-and-lives up. Other versions of Earth and us go on to exist quite well in other probable existences.

That does not make our actions any “less” than any other actions—they are all each extremely important and not to be dismissed.

End Game

Okay, so putting all this together…yes, you can get bleed throughs from your other lives, and yes, even “warnings” or anything else you want to label them, but it’s up to you whether or not you acknowledge and accept them, let alone act on them. But by the same token, there are so many variable to all lives, with the fluidity of life/energy, that circumstances are ever-changing.

So, in answer to Karen’s queries:

  • I’m curious about though is whether you think a simultaneous or future life affects you now to prevent problems, warn of them, improve your understanding of them….
    • All time is now and there are endless probabilities. All variations are given their sway. What you avoid in one probability, you confront in another. But, as contradictory as it sounds, yes, to all of the above…if you are open to said input and acknowledge “the knowledge,” you can “prevent” and “be warned.” And you can definitely improve your understanding of anything related to “all this.”
  • If so, why wouldn’t they also solve the problems of the other lives (the pressing, for example)
    • All probabilities are given expression…it just depends on your focus. Knowing yourself…how not everything YOU do is perfect and correct…apply that to every other version of you out there. And it’s not so much a case of “solving problems” as it is one of learning and growing…and yes, we all learn and grow through all of our experiences, “good” and “bad.” Think of a movie…the crap characters go through, but after the movie they’re none the worse for wear, and hopefully have learned something from their experience in the movie. But, yes, you could “solve” problems in one probability or another…while the “problems” still exist in other probabilities.
  • unless we are supposed to go through pain for some reason.”
    • See all of the above!
    • We are all learning how to use the energy that is available to us…and as anyone can see…we have a long way to go! We have the definition of “pain” above. “Pain” is not meant to be endured or to “go/power through”…it’s meant to be a signal to change something.

I hope I have helped clarify at least my stance on the matter, though I know all of you have your own beliefs…which is as it should be. I’m no guru, have no desire to even peripherally “touch” upon that kind of status…I’m just trying to work my way through life like every one else out there…and on the way give another perspective about how things may be. How I’ve seen things work in my life. Take what makes sense to you and ignore the rest, it doesn’t matter to me in that sense…yet matters to me a lot in the sense that we’re all Humans, all in this together, all trying to do our level best in our own ways as we make our way through life. I learn from others and I want to help others learn from my over 40 years of quite considered thought and down-right analysis.

We all benefit from learning from each other.

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