Due to a request for me to update my journal, the following are some excerpts from an essay I have been working on for the past few weeks. Currently the essay stands at 11,000 words and there's no end currently in sight. Enjoy! (Personal update at the end)
The sphere of religion in the explanation of the cosmos has steadily diminished over the centuries as advances in scientific knowledge as steadily expanded. Everything in physics, medicine, and so forth, happens from impersonal natural laws. Back when humans did not know as much as we do now, some things surely seemed to happen by gods mercyhurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, volcanoes, earthquakesbut now those events are understood by science and are even predictable to some degree. Scientists can cause lightning bolts to strike the ground at a specific place at a specific time when certain atmospheric conditions are present. Meteorologists can predict how active a hurricane season may be, with ever increasing accuracy, where and when hurricanes will make landfall and with what intensity. The weather is extraordinarily complex; we still do not know what the weather will be on a specific day two weeks from now, or chart a month ahead what path a hurricane will travel; but we know and are continually gaining better understanding of the general and impersonal principles governing the weather. Back in more ancient times, it once seem magical how people had sex, the woman would bulge, and pop out a baby ten months later. Thanks to the marvels of medical science, we now know pregnancy results from impersonal laws of genetics and physiology. We know that a mans semen contains sperm, sperm travels through a woman's ovaries and fertilizes an egg, DNA material is mixed together from both parents, the egg divides into many cells, and so forth. We know that genetics, diet, and drug habits can negatively affect fetus development. Doctors might still not know everything about the human body but we continually learn more with every passing year.
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I used to live in the squelching desert of Arizona and there was one house I lived in which I had wondered if it was haunted. At dinners, when someone left the cap of a milk carton placed loosely on top, remarkably sometimes half of the cap would rise up. Every time it happened there were multiple witnesses and there was no dispute that the milk cap had partially lifted. It was coined talking milk. To wit, I have never come across a scientific explanation but I accept as most likely that it was due to environmental conditions. Another quirk was that during the evenings whenever I looked at an object at a certain angle (such as a can of soda), I would see a blue hue outlining the object. Rather than think it was some aura I accept it was probably due to environmental conditions. But most alarming, I sometimes would see the doorknob to my bedroom turn and the door open by itself... without anyone there. I once stood at my door waiting for it to open by itself and I got lucky; when the doorknob turned, I opened the door and found that no one was remotely around. However, rather than accept that it may have been a ghost, I find a more satisfying answer that it may have simply been air pressure and a flawed doorknob.
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Hallucinations are an integral part of the human experience. It is, after all, that we dream at night. Sometimes the mechanisms creating those dreams escape the confines of heavy sleep and into the daylight of the living. Hallucinations are not limited to drug use or schizophrenia but commonly occur in otherwise healthy people. About one out of four people report to have, at least once in their life, hallucinated either immediately before or immediately after sleep. Hypnagogic hallucinations occur as you are falling asleep and hypnapomic hallucinations occur upon waking up. The sleep disorder tends to be prompted by either stress or sleep deprivation. I personally experience hypnapomic visions on a monthly and sometimes weekly basis; I have dreamt everything from a fairy peeking out at me from a closet, a snake in my bed, a swarm of bees swarming around a ceiling fan, and recently to my entire room being blue velvet. The distortions always seem so real until it fades away after a few seconds, but most notably nowhere did it exist except within my mind. There is a common motif in literature (and horror films) whereby a ghost, demon, monster, or vampire visits someone while they lay in bed. Evidently, the literary parallel is no coincidence.
(Here is my life lately: (1) I got a job with the Florida Department of Children & Families. When people apply for medicaid, food stamps, or cash, I'll be that guy who determines if they should or might be committing fraud. I start two months of training on the 24th. (2) I've been doing extremely well, very happy, ever since I found out recently that I have a form of autism, Asperger Syndrome. I always knew I am different from everyone else, but the nagging mystery of how and how to address the problem destroyed my self-esteem; it's remarkable how finding the answers almost instantly rebounded my confidence in myself and drastically improved my social aptitude. And related to this... (3) The ladies have been really liking me lately, probably due to my soaring confidence, happiness, and my paying attention to my social skills. Also, smoking weed has helped a lot. It increases production of oxytocin, which is responsible for empathy, something I've lacked. (4) All in all, probably for the first time in my life, I feel on top of the world. Before now, I never had a reason to be happy for more than a brief moment, before my hopes were dashed. But now, I'm happy for more than a moment and hopefully will remain so.
)
The sphere of religion in the explanation of the cosmos has steadily diminished over the centuries as advances in scientific knowledge as steadily expanded. Everything in physics, medicine, and so forth, happens from impersonal natural laws. Back when humans did not know as much as we do now, some things surely seemed to happen by gods mercyhurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, volcanoes, earthquakesbut now those events are understood by science and are even predictable to some degree. Scientists can cause lightning bolts to strike the ground at a specific place at a specific time when certain atmospheric conditions are present. Meteorologists can predict how active a hurricane season may be, with ever increasing accuracy, where and when hurricanes will make landfall and with what intensity. The weather is extraordinarily complex; we still do not know what the weather will be on a specific day two weeks from now, or chart a month ahead what path a hurricane will travel; but we know and are continually gaining better understanding of the general and impersonal principles governing the weather. Back in more ancient times, it once seem magical how people had sex, the woman would bulge, and pop out a baby ten months later. Thanks to the marvels of medical science, we now know pregnancy results from impersonal laws of genetics and physiology. We know that a mans semen contains sperm, sperm travels through a woman's ovaries and fertilizes an egg, DNA material is mixed together from both parents, the egg divides into many cells, and so forth. We know that genetics, diet, and drug habits can negatively affect fetus development. Doctors might still not know everything about the human body but we continually learn more with every passing year.
---------
I used to live in the squelching desert of Arizona and there was one house I lived in which I had wondered if it was haunted. At dinners, when someone left the cap of a milk carton placed loosely on top, remarkably sometimes half of the cap would rise up. Every time it happened there were multiple witnesses and there was no dispute that the milk cap had partially lifted. It was coined talking milk. To wit, I have never come across a scientific explanation but I accept as most likely that it was due to environmental conditions. Another quirk was that during the evenings whenever I looked at an object at a certain angle (such as a can of soda), I would see a blue hue outlining the object. Rather than think it was some aura I accept it was probably due to environmental conditions. But most alarming, I sometimes would see the doorknob to my bedroom turn and the door open by itself... without anyone there. I once stood at my door waiting for it to open by itself and I got lucky; when the doorknob turned, I opened the door and found that no one was remotely around. However, rather than accept that it may have been a ghost, I find a more satisfying answer that it may have simply been air pressure and a flawed doorknob.
----------
Hallucinations are an integral part of the human experience. It is, after all, that we dream at night. Sometimes the mechanisms creating those dreams escape the confines of heavy sleep and into the daylight of the living. Hallucinations are not limited to drug use or schizophrenia but commonly occur in otherwise healthy people. About one out of four people report to have, at least once in their life, hallucinated either immediately before or immediately after sleep. Hypnagogic hallucinations occur as you are falling asleep and hypnapomic hallucinations occur upon waking up. The sleep disorder tends to be prompted by either stress or sleep deprivation. I personally experience hypnapomic visions on a monthly and sometimes weekly basis; I have dreamt everything from a fairy peeking out at me from a closet, a snake in my bed, a swarm of bees swarming around a ceiling fan, and recently to my entire room being blue velvet. The distortions always seem so real until it fades away after a few seconds, but most notably nowhere did it exist except within my mind. There is a common motif in literature (and horror films) whereby a ghost, demon, monster, or vampire visits someone while they lay in bed. Evidently, the literary parallel is no coincidence.
(Here is my life lately: (1) I got a job with the Florida Department of Children & Families. When people apply for medicaid, food stamps, or cash, I'll be that guy who determines if they should or might be committing fraud. I start two months of training on the 24th. (2) I've been doing extremely well, very happy, ever since I found out recently that I have a form of autism, Asperger Syndrome. I always knew I am different from everyone else, but the nagging mystery of how and how to address the problem destroyed my self-esteem; it's remarkable how finding the answers almost instantly rebounded my confidence in myself and drastically improved my social aptitude. And related to this... (3) The ladies have been really liking me lately, probably due to my soaring confidence, happiness, and my paying attention to my social skills. Also, smoking weed has helped a lot. It increases production of oxytocin, which is responsible for empathy, something I've lacked. (4) All in all, probably for the first time in my life, I feel on top of the world. Before now, I never had a reason to be happy for more than a brief moment, before my hopes were dashed. But now, I'm happy for more than a moment and hopefully will remain so.
)
super_vixen:
Aww...I'm so happy to hear that things are getting better for you. I was home for spring break, and I've decided I'm moving back in a few months when I wrap up with school. Keep up with your THC doses, and things should continue to improve for ya 
fierhauk:
always available for a critique....let me know when you got it ready for a readthrough...