The irony was that the groups soon found that they didn't need a therapist at all, just anyone to talk to, so that while they got back at where they started, the therapists, too, were now out of a job. Even when we'd studied all there was to know about all the philosophies, however, we still found that, if we were cured at all, it had changed very little. We found it was not so much thinking together that made us feel better, but feeling together, but meanwhile, we were left with little to talk about over and over again. This brought our group to a technology we'd long avoided using, telepathy.
During the sessions people were usually at home. This is the unedited translated log of our telepathic therapy sessions, with which we are hoping to convince you to follow our example. As the translation of perceptions into words isn't perfect, this log is even more fragmentary than human perception normally already is (especially in altered states), and a feat of imagination may be needed to fill in the gaps. This is especially true of the egoless perceptions put in parentheses, as the computer did not distinguish which sensations are real or imagined. However, we are hoping hereby to at least offer anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of telepathic therapy, though we cannot neglect to mention that it was often combined with psychonautic therapy. We have agreed to publish this information on condition of some anonymity, so that each subject will be designated at most by a letter only; at times even these may be left out entirely for the sake of anonymity within the group.
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- I change from one dream ego to another, sometimes having none in between. "Who am I?" I think, trying to cling onto a body to claim as my own. Then I realize I'm dreaming.
- "Who are you, indeed, if we're all made up of bits of other people?"
- "Alright, I know who you are. The know-it-all."
A man without a face comes into focus, but I try to stop it to keep it blurry. The sight of his head repels me like bad breath, and I shield my eyes as I look away.
- "Or perhaps I'm just his projection in someone else's mind, perhaps even your own. No way to find out now you're asleep."
- "Forget it, the mystery is out of it now, conjurer."
- "You'd think so, but just now you think you know who you are, you'd be wrong. I can see through your disguise. You're that girl that falls for him – is it because he is your dark side, then? Who knows, perhaps his unconscious is more like you. Or perhaps you've just interchanged. Perhaps that means you're a match."
- "You'd better disappear, Houdini."
- "I'd dematerialize, but this ego isn't really material anyway. No way to shut it off now without waking up. But you're the one who wanted this."
- "Of course. Telepathy's one thing, but telepathy in a dream? In a group, at least it won't go quite so deep since we'll just go from one person to another, and I can't stand anymore with you for now, so please go away."
- "Just ignore me, then. It's the only way."
- I look away, but there's only darkness around me. I don't trust you enough to look away entirely, so I keep you in the corner of my eye. When I look back, you are fully in focus as a clown with very long arms.
- "Get back in your box." You look down to find your feet in a box, and shrink into it.
- "Good, use suggestions to direct your dream." Your voice becomes indistinct in the box. I become afraid as I face the dark. I've had this dream often. I can see myself, but nothing else, and no matter how far I run, there's nothing out there. I always forget how the dream ends, if it ends at all. As I begun to walk away I look back at where the box was, but it's gone.
- "Have you tried looking at your records?" You wrestle yourself out of the oversized clown suit.
- I look back. "You again!"
- "I'm the only one you haven't dissociated from. That's what this dream means. Let me see." You browse my memories. "Your dream occurs whenever you become lucid and only ends when the lack of stimuli leads to a loss of lucidity."
- "Why?"
- "Being in a dream scares you because it seems so real. It makes you feel like the world isn't real either, or that you can never see any reality outside of yourself." You point at me, the only other light in the darkness around us. "That's why you would rather not see anything when you know you're dreaming."
- "Thanks. You're not so bad, really."
- "I know. You just don't like me because I'm supposed to treat you, not suffer with you."
- "No, just because you still think you are our messiah. You may have the answers to disease, but no one has the answer to life. For example, it's not becoming any less dark for what you've told me."
- I look around. "It's quite dark, isn't it? Even your phosphenes just stay like points. Normally they should join up to form at least some sort of imagery, but yours seem determined to keep breaking down into infinitely small spots, like stars… except that the stars are coming and going in moments, as if the lifespans of universes are going by as if they were nothing… They're so destructive. When's the last time you were suicidal?"
- "Why do you ask? I never really was, and when I thought was, I didn't know what it was like to be anywhere close to doing it."
- "If anything I want to withdraw from anything that's… fake. I want to ground it to dust and bake new bricks out of it."
- "So that's what the phosphene is doing, grounding itself to dust."
- "Was that you thinking that or me? I never thought that before. I wouldn't trivialize my suicidality like that."
- "A bit of both. I reckon soon enough even the translation won't know which is who either. So you'd better get out of your dissociation soon, if you don't want to stay stuck with me."
- "So what's your dream like? Maybe we can get out that way."
- "You're out of luck. I never really dream. I know a lot of people say that, but for it's true. My dreams are made up of thoughts and bits of imagery to suit them. So when I'll sign in on these dream sessions, I'll latch on to others' dreams like a parasite, and yours came closest to mine."
- "It can't be helped. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have put you in a box. I guess you really do need as much care as the rest of us." I put a hand on your shoulder.
- I look at it as if it were an insect, then look back at you. "Are we going to fuck?"
- I withdraw the hand. "Why do you ask that, and with such a straight face at that?"
- I roll my eyes. "I'd think of an apology, but you understand why I thought that."
- "To repel anyone who comes close to you."
- "I hadn't thought of that, but yes, that too. Either way, I was being sardonic, so don't put me in a box again just yet. On that note, next time you can just put some distance in between us. Not that I minded that much being in that box, it was a nice variation."
- "Wait, can't we just escape by going in the box?"
- I grimace. "That would be bad symbolically. But since we're in a starfield, how about we get on a planet?"
- You look at the stars and screw up your face. The stars slow down until some stay where they are. Your body tightens as you try as hard as you can to keep them from dying again.
- "Follow my mind."
- "Alright."
- "Describe how it feels. Use as many words as possible."
- "Stable. Rigid. Static. Silent. Still. Frozen. Er…"
- "That's it."
- I look at the stars. "They're twinkling, but other than that, they stay where they are."
- "If they're twinkling, shouldn't we be on a planet?"
- "What else would you be standing on?"
- "I look down and see pines outlined against the starry night."
- "Needs light." The moon rises, lighting up the moor.
- I look around, seeing nothing but more moor. I want to be elsewhere, but I don't want to be in the city. "Now what? Maybe I liked it better in the void."
- "What are you afraid of? This isn't fake."
- "Is it? What's it all for? I see trees spending their their lives struggling to grow taller than the other, all the while they don't even have a life to struggle for. At least the darkness tells no lies."
- "You're pathetic. Who cares?"
- I look at him. He stares right back at me with drooping eyelids and doesn't turn away.
- "Why do you say that?"
- "Why. You keep asking that. Why do you ask that?"
- "I don't know, that's the thing. Because if there's no why…"
- "Then what? Life goes on same as usual. And I'll tell you what, even if there was a why, any why you'd want, you still wouldn't be happy. Even if there were a heaven, you'd feel unhappy there, because even then you'd ask why it is there. Tell me one reason that would be enough. Use your imagination. Unicorns and rainbows."
- I stare out in space, and actually see a unicorn in the shadows under the trees. I'm thinking I'd still be happier if I'd actually be staring into space, and lie down in the grass to stare at the stars.
- I stand over you to block your view. "How long will you stare into space like that? You've done it for years. Damn it, it's like you're enlightened, like one of those catatonic monks."
- "What else is there? It's all really just empty space. Matter's just a veneer."
- "You won't mind if I do something to your material self, then?"
- "I get up. "Like what?"
- I grin. "I knew you cared more than you say you do. You're really just afraid, afraid to get your little self hurt. You know what, maybe we should get in a box after all. It suits you better."
- The world seems to shrink around me. The sky becomes cardboard, the trees decor, and among them a cardboard unicorn is still mocking me.
- This is what your life really look like. You think your detachment gives you a panorama of life, but it, too, is fake.
- "I watch you walk away to the cardboard wall." You take out a marker, and bend down to begin drawing a door. You draw the knob in the air, and walk through the door.
- "Wait! Don't leave me here!" I open the door, and sunlight comes through. Glaring sunlight and the blaring sound of birds. I grimace as I force myself to walk into the day, but I realize I no longer feel cold. I look around through squinting eyes, but you are nowhere to be found. Then I remember this can't be your dream. You made me do this by myself, but I don't feel any better. I still feel the need not to be alone, stronger than ever, and I realize that I chose the night because only the night is for the lonely.
Perhaps you are still of some use to treat us after all, but I realize you couldn't do it alone. You're a catalyst between us. On our own we're just atoms. We need to react.
- "You're welcome," says the disembodied voice of your thoughts.
2029•132•846,00
Images of streets reflect each other through pieces of glass in in a broken window, succeeding each other ever faster until the window begins to vibrate. As the images blur together, they turn into a white aurora just before the window shatters entirely, leaving nothing but dust. As the dust falls, it turns into white noise. Images emerge from it like salmon jumping up rapids.
D: I float in midair. "What is this… place?"
The Grim Reaper peddles leisurely upstream, wearing a garland around his hood. He takes off his hood, showing E's emotionless face, gaunt as a skull.
E: "Welcome to my shattered mind."
D: "You. Aren't you the schizoaffective?"
E: "I don't know. My mind sure feels like it's split into a million pieces, and I don't even have a headache. But I don't do delusions. It's not my taste, it's not my style. And as long as the ivy leaves me alone, it's all the same for me."
D: "It has been a while since your last episode."
E: "Excuse me, this is a no-logic zone. If you want to leave, take the third left at the roundabout. I'm here to dream."
D: "Seems like our unconsciouses sought each other's opposition." E makes a face. "You don't like it that I'm making you lucid, do you? Why? Are you actively trying to split your mind? Do you think a single image at a time is too boring?"
E: "I'll show you boring!" I take off my garland and throw it against the rapids. It's not swept away, but a black crack shows on the rapids, and the foam of the rapids turns into the dunes of a desert.
D: The crack begins to turn around into a vortex, like the accretion disk of a black hole, drawing me in a spiral towards it. Then oil spouts all over me from the hole, like blood from an artery.
E: "Ahaha! You should see your face. Not that you can, of course. You've been defaced." I hold up a mirror like a hairdresser, and somehow you can see through the oil to see the latex mask, covering your face like a parasite.
D: I want to speak, but can't move my mouth. So I grasp you by the neck and kiss you hard through the mask, so hard that it slips off and onto you. "What are you doing to my head? This dream is over."
E: "You can't do that." The oil turns the sand into sludge, making it sink like quicksand, and we fall down the hole. I think something which looks like the bottom, but when I get closer I see it's a rabbit. It's startled at our approach and digs deeper, faster than we can fall.
D: "This is the last time I'm getting into the unconscious of a schizophrenic." I feel E's eyes on my and look at him. Tears fall up from his eyes.
E: "I'm not malicious, you know."
D: "Yes, you are." I tense my body as hard as possible and stop falling, causing the rabbit to look back in relief. It seems like it was only afraid of me, not of E. Seeing only E fall towards it, it merely yawns. E shrinks as he falls until he falls into the rabbit's mouth. "I can't take this. You're done making this dream. I'm going to think of something normal, and you're not going to do anything about it." I'm at the living room of my home, trying to focus on the feeling of normalcy and not to think about E. I don't need to wake up. If I stop thinking of him I'll disconnect from him. But I can feel E is behind me in the room and close my eyes.
E: "I'll be a good boy."
D: "Good. Good thing you're not God like you once thought you were, or you couldn't help but turn the whole world to dust in a moment. It's bad enough that you destroyed yourself. You did this to yourself. You hated yourself so much that you felt like shattering your mind like you'd throw something at a wall."
E: "I…"
D: "Not another word!"
E: "You're right. But it's not something that I can help doing. At first I thought I could, but I really just fall apart under my own weight. I can't hold myself together when there's no one to hold me." I put my arms around you like a child.
D: "It's alright. It was pretty funny in the beginning, when you were the Grim Reaper on a holiday. I don't know, perhaps it's me who's the problem. I try to be as focused as possible because if I don't, I'm afraid to… end up like you."
E: "That's what I've been doing after my last episode, at least when I'm awake. I feel like my bones are really fragile and I need to be careful not to touch anything too hard lest I'll break."
D: "I'm sorry. I'll stay with you through this dream. You seem a lot calmer already anyway. Who knows, maybe we can find a middle way together." I put my arm around your head. I want to turn around to hug you, but you won't let go. When I look at your arms, I see you're in rigor mortis. I crane my head back to see a speaker is jammed in your mouth. When I do, it utters an advertisement for a circus.
E: "Gotcha."
D: "You son of a bitch. You're literally a nightmare." I wake up.
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