My Journal
January 25, 1994
Today in English class I fell asleep. I just conked out, cold. We were
watching an old 1951 version of "The Red Badge of Courage."
The lights were off, so the room was pretty dark. I've been going to
bed late for the past while, and I think continual
sleep-deprivation has a really weird effect on my brain. It's usually
then that I have my hallucinations.
It happened today for the first
time in a long time. I was looking through my bag for a paper,
when -- bam -- it hit. Well, actually, I teased my brain into the
hallucination because I forgot the negative, disorienting side of it.
I stimulated my trigger, which is impossible to verbalize... A knowing
feeling. I focus on the voice in my head that says, "He (who?)
knows you know it." Then, boom, I'm in the dream-like
state, under the influence. I thought when I was first pulling the
trigger, stepping into it, that I could maintain control. It's in my brain,
after all. Nope. It's too powerful.
I lost all contact with reality for what felt like about 45 seconds
(although I don't really know). During the actual spell, I couldn't remember where the room
was: what floor, what building, what town, etc. Everything around me looked so
new and unfamiliar. I always have trouble breathing,
maybe because the
first little while (15 seconds?) I think I forget to inhale and exhale. No
oxygen gets to my brain, and my eyesight goes funny.
Today when I felt that way, I took big gulps
of air in an attempt to get out of the hallucination, but that only
exacerbated the effects... I have gotten to the point where
I can shorten the hallucination by shaking it off, but it still lingers.
Nothing was quite the same after it was over.
I then put my head in my arms on the desk
and zonked out, completely asleep within seconds.
It was the first time I'd ever done that
in class. It felt good to sleep, and it
was really deep. I woke up about 40 minutes later, right when the
movie was ending. We were then supposed to take our final, an essay
about "Red Badge," which scared me since my mind still wasn't
functioning completely. I guess the fear or adrenaline chased the
remnants of fog out of my brain, or maybe the sleep refreshed me, because
I then wrote a 4-page essay that I think was okay.