Neuroscience, Mental Illness, and Spirit Possession

How does an anti-psychotic cause increased blood flow [(perfusion) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfusion]  to the left temporal lobe of the brain in a patient with mental illness?  By the way, his family thought he was possessed by an evil spirit.  I also do not understand how the diagrams in this article show increased perfusion to the left temporal lobe. http://www.jmedicalcasereports.com/content/3/1/9325

Then there is this bizarre story about a church in Pensacola where the supposed Holy Spirit was physically felt and physically acted upon people in the church.  People are quick to explain away these phenomenon but what is really going on?  In situations like this it seems like more than the power of suggestion or a concentration of energy.  I have been to charismatic churches and I have felt wobbly and peaceful and I have been knocked over by the "Holy Spirit".  And it would last for a while afterward.  At a drum circle I felt and saw a similar energy but the light that I saw and felt seemed broken up into splinters rather than a consistent glow like my supposed experience with the Holy Spirit.  Admittedly, this article is very biased from a specific perspective but it still relates an interesting occurrence.  http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/FBCPENSA.HTM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trance

Song of Songs

Haha!  (Pronounced with the inflection that one would use to say, "Aha!")  Writing songs!  So many genres, such limited audience for multigenred artists.  It doesn't matter, though.  I am writing this music to communicate with my creator.  It's been such a long time!  I've never written a song like this before where I hear melody loops in my head that go together and figure them out on a keyboard and put them all together like a beautiful call and response between myself and God.  Whoa.  What have I been doing all these years (hypothetical)?  It is somewhat reminiscent of Swans with the intense organ drone but that was not intentional it just came out that way.  Hooyah!  I am really overjoyed!!!!!!!!!!   Thanks and praise be to God, He/She/It has put a new song in my heart.  

Psychotic Episodes and Pet Store Dreams

I've had 4 psychotic episodes.  They were really amazing but I really don't want to ever have one again.  A much better trip than any drug I've been on and they certainly have lasted a lot longer than any drug.  I guess I will choose to be grateful for those experiences but they were also very scary at times (though the last one was mostly positive but there was still a lot of scary stuff mixed in there).

I have recurring dreams about working at pet stores.  I have worked at two pet stores but I don't think I have dreamed about those two specific pet stores at which I actually worked.  There are two "dream pet stores" that I find myself returning to and working at in my dreams sometimes.  One is at a mall.  I have never worked at a pet store at a mall.  One is in a basement.  I have never worked at a pet store in a basement.  At both of them I am on drugs and not performing well.  I think my drug usage is usually worse at the basement pet store.  There are usually problems with the fish in my dreams.  And the birds, but it's been more problems with fish lately.  Last night I had a dream where I accidentally put an angel-type fish in with some oscar-type (meat-eating) fish.  The oscars ate the angel fish.  I was very sad about it.  Other fish were dying in the dream, too.  Once I had a dream that there were walls of water that the fish were in and the water was not in any type of tank or container.  That was a weird one.  I usually have trouble feeding the animals in the dreams or I forget to feed them or I make some kind of mistake with their care.

Addendum 8/3/13:  I did not realize I had mentioned the pet store dreams in my last post.  Apparently they must be important to me.  :-)

Mirrored Rumble Fish

*Spoiler Alert*

I just watched the film, Rumble Fish, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, with lots of famous people in it, including Mickey Rourke when he was younger and looked a lot different.  It was kind of goofy in a way.  There was a lot of unexpected music during segway cityscape scenes, which I liked.  At first it had kind of a West Side Story or Grease vibe, what with all the talk of rumbles and people acting "cool".   I wasn't sure if I really liked the movie much or not until it got to the part where the father (Dennis Hopper) was talking to Rusty James (Matt Dillon) about the "acute perception" of his older brother, the Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke). Here's the passage:

Father: Every now and then, a person comes along, has a different
view of the world than does the usual person. It doesnt make them crazy. I mean... an acute perception, 
man... that doesn't, that doesn't make you crazy.

Rusty James: Could you talk normal?

Father: However sometimes... it can drive you crazy, acute perception.

Rusty James: I wish you'd talk normal cause I don't understand half the garbage you're saying. You know? 
You know what I mean?

Father: No, your mother... is not crazy. And neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother crazy. He's 
merely miscast in a play. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river... with the ability to 
be able to do anything that he wants
to do and findin' nothin' that he wants to do. I mean nothing.

(taken from http://www.allsubs.org/search-movie-quotes/Rumble+Fish/)

At that point the film became very moving to me, and then the Motorcycle Boy lets the animals out of their cages at the pet store and takes the fighting fish toward the river.  I thought, "if I ever do one important thing; I would like it to be something like that: letting animals out of their cages." (symbolically or literally) 

I have anxious dreams a lot about working in pet stores or owning a lot of animals in cages. (I have worked at two pet stores and have grown up around lots of animals.)  In the dreams I have usually forgotten to feed them or to clean their cages or there is something wrong with them due to the fact that they are in cages and dependent on me for sustenance. 

When I had a psychotic episode a few months ago, I went to a couple of pet stores and it was very traumatizing.  I don't even want to go into it now, I might add more to this post later.  

Anyway, I found the movie riveting from the point of the scene I quoted to the end.  

(And I think the enigma that is Mickey Rourke is pretty interesting and beautiful and sad, as well.) 

A Poem I Wrote the Other Day (Not Really Finished)

Cars turned to cages
Jammed up at the funnel's neck
Knee-jerk bird flip
Jaws flap
Caw caw claw, you son-of-a-bitch,
I'll show you what for!

From the garden's womb
emerged two humans.
I've lost most of my bear-hair, but not my bear-appetite for blood.
Little gods, each with our own religions, religious or not,
decreeing this is this and that is that;
all others are false idols.

I think if we'd smile and talk to each other in the grocery store, the world would be a better place.
   
Sitting up here in this ivory tower, I really can't figure out a thing.

Some people have one traumatic event or circumstance that happened in their life that can explain their anger.  I think I've been angry for most of my life but can't pinpoint one specific reason.  There are a lot of "small" things about my childhood for which I suppose I could be angry.  Like parents with inconsistent emotions sending confusing messages but surely every parent sends confusing and inconsistent messages to their children.  Maybe some kids just take it harder than others.  But then again, most people are angry.  Just look at traffic, facebook, or internet message boards.  For years I didn't even know I was angry.  A therapist told me I was angry about 6 or 7 years ago and it came as a total shock.  "I'm not angry; I'm anxious!"  I said.  Now when I look back, I see that I've been angry most of my life, masking it behind anorexia, drug use, extreme passivity, and "low self-esteem" (another term for the more angry-sounding term, "self-hatred").


Added later (12/5):  I think I'm mostly angry because I am not true to myself.

William Blake Auguries of Innocence

William Blake - Auguries of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov'd by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by woman lov'd.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy's foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return'd to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket's cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.