Tuesday, January 27, 2009

So I Had A Hallucination

Hallucinations: Does anyone know much about these?

I'm pretty sure I had a severe hallucination yesterday; my first in fact. My friends will argue that this was at least my second ever since I saw a little boy disappear out of thin air at an Arby's 2 summers ago and then reappear in the parking lot just seconds later. But that one, I'm sure, was not a hallucination but rather a realistic manifestation of evil in human form. I know what I saw and one day I'll be getting a lot of apologies. We'll talk about that one another time.

What happened yesterday, I'm sure, was a COMPLETE hallucination and I'm sure this has never happened to me before. I'm not a great sleeper; I never have been. It usually takes me an hour or two to fall asleep each night and I need absolute silence in order to do so. I have one friend who lives in Toronto who used to tell me in a thick old man Toronto accent that that was a sign of a guilty conscience. Maybe. But lately it's been worse and I've been suffering the results of being sleep-deprived in my classes each day where every time I hear someone say "hello" I think they're saying "pillow." So yesterday I decided to come home in the afternoon for a bit and attempt a nap.

Napping is a pretty foreign concept for me. I can hardly sleep at night; why would I try to sleep during the day? But I heard a while ago that every hour of sleep you lose and fail to make up takes off a decade of your life and makes you 30% more likely to contract leprosy and while my skin is already halfway there during the winter, I would really like to avoid that one.

So I napped. And it sort of worked. Until the hallucination happened: I woke up after about 30 minutes and looked toward the door in my room. As vividly as I've ever seen anything, I saw it coming toward me. It was a GIANT black spider with looooooooong spindly legs all moving up and down. It was gliding about a foot below the ceiling toward the bed. Now you're thinking, "well that's not so crazy. Maybe it wasn't a hallucination." The spider was about the size of a giant beach ball. Still smiling?

So I FLEW out of bed, put my hands over my head and ran to the door screaming, bent over the whole way. I flipped the light on and looked in the direction the alleged spider was heading, my heart pounding faster than I think it's ever pounded before. I've really never been afraid of spiders before but what I had just seen was making me reconsider the whole thing. I looked around for about 2 minutes before I finally started to reason through the situation. I then had the following conversation with myself, aloud:

Eli: Where did it go?
Eli: You know it probably wasn't real. I don't think spiders can be that big.
Eli: I know what I saw. I didn't make that up!
Eli: I'm kind of hungry right now. Do I have any string cheese?
Eli: Don't change the subject. Where did that spider go?
Eli: Oh, it was probably just a hallucination.
Eli: No, don't say that. Then that means I might be going crazy.
Eli: Well I am talking to myself.
Eli: Good point.
Eli: Thanks
Eli: Oh and I don't have string cheese, just a block of something.
Eli: What's the difference between block cheese and string cheese?
Eli: One is stringy.
Eli: Thanks, I know that. But why is it stringy?
Eli: I don't know. I've never thought about it before.
Eli: Do you think you can die from eating too much cheese?
Eli: You can die from eating too much of anything.
Eli: That's true. I bet I'll die from eating too much popcorn.
Eli: Yeah or something stupid like candy corn.
Eli: True. Because when there's a big bowl full of it I can never stop eating it.
Eli: I would like to die from eating too much cheesecake.
Eli: Yeah, then on my tombstone they could write "Rest in Pieces."
Eli: Hahahahaha. I get it! Like pieces of pie.
Eli: Yeah; then below that they could say "sorry for the 'cheesy' comment above."
Eli: hmmm. . .ok.
Eli: OK, I think I'm going to finish my nap and then go find some cheese.
Eli: What about the spider?!
Eli: Didn't we establish there isn't one.
Eli: Oh. Right.

I'm not sure if I should be more concerned about the hallucination or the full-blown conversation I had with myself about the hallucination in which I took sides and argued vehemently for both ways. Or maybe I should be concerned that in my moment of great alarm I couldn't even carry on a conversation with myself about a giant spider that posed a serious and imminent threat without getting side-tracked and start talking about cheese. Either way, It Just Gets Stranger~

9 comments:

  1. Eli I miss you! And I'm pretty sure I've had that same hallucination multiple times (minus of course the conversation with myself) - but for some reason my hallucinations always involve big black spiders over my head, building communities in my bedroom, resembling very much the large black spiders that decked the fake Mt Rushmore at Liberty Land, which in and of itself was a bad idea in the first place and the giant Halloween spiders only made it worse. Anyway, just know you're not alone :)

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  2. Eli, not only am I a doctor, but I also am a licensed therapist. If you need to talk, you have my number. And after thinking about it for awhile, I decided I guess I can give you a .5% discount on the sessions. So anyway, just let me know!

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  3. Still smiling? No, actually. Screaming, running from the room, and pulling my hair out is more like it.

    The beauty of having a conversation with yourself is at least you always know someone will be there to laugh at your jokes.

    Try to get some more sleep, Eli.

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  4. Hahahaha. That's hilarious. I miss you!!!!!!!!!! Now that i have become a cheesecake expert (yeah, from the one that i've made in my life), we should have a cheesecake party... that will not end with you "resting in pieces", and then you saying, "that was cheesy." how'd your grades turn out last semester?

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  5. Oh man, I don't even know what to say about this one... you never cease to amaze me with your humor! (Although I'm sure the experience wasn't quite so humorous at the time...) You know, there are drugs for this kind of thing... but where's the fun in that?

    And by the way, I'm pretty sure that was your second hallucination. Arby's food does strange things to people...

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  6. I love when you give us a glipmse of what is going on in your head. It reminds us all how crazy you are...even though on the outside it looks like you have it all together.

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  7. I just want to point out that you used the term "alleged spider." Law geek.

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  8. I recently started reading your blog from the beginning so don't judge me because I'm commenting on a post from 2009. (I promise I'm not a stalker!!!) My sister has a condition where at the stage of sleep where she starts to dream she wakes up every night. So she is awake but still dreaming. When that happens she normally sees spiders. (her greatest fear) It usually results in screaming and jumping out of her bed. I just want you to know that you are not the only one!

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  9. I also hope you don't think it's weird that I too am posting on something from so long ago, but in my case I admit, I'm probably a bit of a stalker cause wouldn't me going through and reading every post you've written be considered stalking?? Maybe not, I've never been a stalker before so this is new to me, and if someone could help me out with this that would be great....anywho! I just wanted to tell you that you are freaking hilarious and I swear I have had that exact same conversation with myself almost verbatim. I honestly think that you and I are a lot alike cause I have made similar jokes to yours and when I use odd phrases and tell cheesy jokes no one bats an eye! I seriously think I may be the female version of you, but then again my hair is darker than yours so I don't really know if that counts....

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