Not funny.
Years back when I was being particularly crazy I had occasional hallucinations. They were different from daydreams/imaginings in the fact that they weren't wanted, couldn't be predicted or controlled and had weird flashes of other sensory input as well as a hideous inescapable feel to them like a nightmare. I knew at the time they were hallucinations (which apparently one shouldn't if correctly crazy. Screw that. Even when a whole suit short of a deck I know a goblin-monster under the car holding a severed head probably isn't real, thanks... I digress.)
Haven't had anything like that since, until today. Today for five minutes Ladywell Fields turned into something like the Somme. Mostly it was like watching a film, or being in a film I suppose, apart from when I could feel mud in my boots or barbed wire catching on clothes, bullets tearing skin. It's surreal and unpleasant to watch a chunk of your ribcage be eviscerated and stream behind you like red rain in a moment of slow motion. I remember snapshots. They were all unspeakably fucked.
By the time I got to the station I was shaking and crying -I would have turned round and gone home only irrationally I was sure it would start again if I re-crossed the fields. (And no, it didn't occur to me to walk the other way by the main road.) On the way to Farringdon I had several other nasty moments when something caught my eye (usually the colour red) and I interpreted it as something other than it was. Thankfully due to train delays by the time I got to Ketch's party I was less... particular, and had got over it, or at least was no longer hallucinating even if still deeply disquieted.
In some ways I feel like someone who always refused to eat shellfish on a whim: one day ate them and then spent the next three days throwing up. I loathe WWI without specific reason; apparently I really shouldn't research it or write stories based in it because this sort of shit happens. ....Gods.
Oh yeah, other than that I had a perfectly lovely evening.
Haven't had anything like that since, until today. Today for five minutes Ladywell Fields turned into something like the Somme. Mostly it was like watching a film, or being in a film I suppose, apart from when I could feel mud in my boots or barbed wire catching on clothes, bullets tearing skin. It's surreal and unpleasant to watch a chunk of your ribcage be eviscerated and stream behind you like red rain in a moment of slow motion. I remember snapshots. They were all unspeakably fucked.
By the time I got to the station I was shaking and crying -I would have turned round and gone home only irrationally I was sure it would start again if I re-crossed the fields. (And no, it didn't occur to me to walk the other way by the main road.) On the way to Farringdon I had several other nasty moments when something caught my eye (usually the colour red) and I interpreted it as something other than it was. Thankfully due to train delays by the time I got to Ketch's party I was less... particular, and had got over it, or at least was no longer hallucinating even if still deeply disquieted.
In some ways I feel like someone who always refused to eat shellfish on a whim: one day ate them and then spent the next three days throwing up. I loathe WWI without specific reason; apparently I really shouldn't research it or write stories based in it because this sort of shit happens. ....Gods.
Oh yeah, other than that I had a perfectly lovely evening.