Immersion

This “fascination” I have for centaurs has been on my mind of late. No matter how much I analyze, justify, or validate it, I still find it odd. Not in a bad way, although I have sometimes wondered if I could ever go too far, and lose my anchor in reality. That’s probably just a fear, whether I’m justified in having it or should learn to let it go.

I have been working on letting go of some fears lately. What with my use of the Monroe Institute Gateway Experience CDs, and the fact that one of them is specifically for the letting go of fears. I have not yet used that particular session to let go of this fear that I could slip into a fantasy surrounding the centaur. I’ve fantasized about that form and reality often enough in my past that I shouldn’t have to worry about “losing it” over this. However…

Yeah, there’s always that “but, maybe—”

I think that one of the reasons this fear has popped up is that I’ve been doing some of the Gateway sessions from the perspective of being a centaur. I know it’s not true to form in some of the relaxation aspects. That is, feeling the relaxation of a body that isn’t there is a challenge to imagine and remain focused upon, and I know I’m not truly feeling that. I find it more of a fun exercise, and one I don’t do every time. The idea behind it was brought on by an essay I have started and only written about a paragraph. Its premise is what my thoughts and such would be were I (and many others) turned into centaurs, without the subsequent societal problems likely associated (prejudice, fear, hate, and even obsessive attraction as with famous people.)

I don’t know if I’ll go back to it or not. Its original purpose was to explore the body and life of a centaur without really any plot. It probably would do well as an essay, if I can keep it relatively short. Then again, looking back over my blog entries, “short” never seems to come into play!

My feeling now on this is that these are just odd mental exercises I go through periodically. It’s taken me several days just to write this entry, due mostly to having an employment interview in between. That kind of knocked me back into “reality” for a time. And yet, when I went out late-night grocery shopping last night, I spent most of the trip to and from talking to myself and through what I would write on the essay (I dropped the self-conversation once I got out of the car, forgetting it until the shopping was done.) Even so, I didn’t write any of that down. I trust I’ll remember enough or all I really need is the gist to describe the rest. That’s often how my other fiction-writing works, even when I have mental conversations with the characters or detailed visualizations of events and scenes.

Some years ago, I managed to get a couple of questions read to and answered on the air with Hay House Radio for Doreen Virtue’s show. She had just released her first book of fiction and my questions were picked for airing. I don’t recall one of them now, but the other asked if she ever allows herself to be “lost” in her story or characters. To me, immersing one’s self isn’t a bad thing, as it really allows for that world to come through. However, her answer was that it wasn’t a good thing to do, to always keep some semblance of detachment when writing. I know I didn’t really agree with that then, and I still don’t.

Despite my earlier admission of fearing this above, I do think I don’t need to be so fearful after all. My mind seems perfectly able to detach if it feels I’ve gone “too deep” and I let it go for a while. Sometimes, though, getting back into that immersion is difficult. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again. Maybe the next thing I need to post is techniques for immersion. That could be fun. I think I’ll do that and post again soon.