DIANA MARIN

Tag: writing blog

  • Microaggressions

    How do you deal with microaggressions? I tend to oscillate between two outlooks in this department: on the one hand, I like standing up for myself and not letting anyone cross or undermine me; on the other hand, I’m aware that sometimes maintaining your composure is a sign that you are in control of your emotions and it can also be indicative of your inner strength, so not necessarily a sign of meekness. BK Shivani, a motivational speaker and spiritual mentor, said in one of her lectures that when someone directs negative energy towards you, you have a choice: you can either absorb the energy and internalise it without saying anything, thinking this is aligned with the notion of being a good person. You can throw it back at them, hence reflecting the energy and trying to hurt the other person even more. Or you can transform the energy and the pain and radiate love and respect. The most important thing is to be kind to yourself in how you respond. There’s no single “correct” way to handle these moments — some responses may be wiser or more constructive, but none diminish your worth. Rather than framing it as a matter of “what would be a more dignified response?”, it helps to recognise that microaggressions often stem from the other person’s unresolved insecurities. You have the right to choose your response in a way that feels authentic and safe for you. Removing myself from the situation is often how I deal with it, if that is an option. Remember that those who initiate the microaggressions are often the ones lacking both dignity and a moral compass.

    I have encountered microaggressions in both professional and personal contexts. They often seem rooted in underlying issues such as sexism, misogyny (including internalised misogyny in the case of other women), xenophobia, and mental health stigma, especially during times when I undergo a challenging phase or reveal anything that indicates my mental health isn’t at 100%. This can also lead to gaslighting, as some people might use this aspect as a trump card as a way to deflect responsibility. Over time, I’ve learned to be more cautious about sharing my vulnerabilities. While factors like their jealousy may also play a role, I’ve come to understand that such behaviours often reflect the other person’s own struggles and feelings of self-loathing and disempowerment. I must say, the majority of people I’ve met and interacted with are not like this. I remain grateful for the many supportive and genuine relationships I have cultivated. Most of the time, I’ve been fortunate to be selective in my interactions and friendships.

    This behaviour manifested itself through rather revolting attitudes that appeared to be designed to provoke a reaction from me, especially during moments when it was transparent I was not feeling well. While I tend to respond with empathy when I notice someone is visibly unhappy, either by offering support or giving space, I have noticed that not everyone approaches these situations with the same understanding. I’ve experienced moments when I was ridiculed for expressing emotion, judged for my fluid accent, interrupted mid-sentence, or even had my ability to interpret situations and understand others’ motivations questioned — often accompanied by thinly veiled, undermining remarks.

    I’ve always been viscerally disgusted by this behaviour, yet I didn’t tend to acknowledge it unless it was directly and unambiguously offensive, generally. Why? I suppose out of pride — i.e. not wanting to give satisfaction to anyone engaging in this type of behaviour, since that’s most likely what they were after: a reaction, thus ignoring them tends to work in my favour because it makes them escalate the behaviour to ludicrous levels, and in their desperate hunt for a reaction they end up turning themselves into absolute clowns in my eyes and hopefully in the eyes of any other decent person who witnesses this type of decline. I also strive to maintain my resilience without positioning myself as a victim, especially when the behaviour is subtle or covert. This approach helps me channel my energy into positive interactions and personal growth rather than being drawn into negative dynamics and allowing them to define my sense of self.

    I have learnt to accept that some people simply feel threatened or overshadowed by others’ energy even when others are simply existing; it’s pretty sad to think they feel inclined to act in such ways out of nowhere. When they encounter someone who is creative, intelligent, attractive, talented, or someone who is overall special in some way, the terminally insecure go into attack mode. They often resort to passive-aggressiveness. We have to ignore the obvious or veiled malice of the pathologically jealous, and see them for what they truly are: pitiful; otherwise resentment builds, and you shouldn’t allow insecure people to drop their emotional baggage onto you via insults because one day you might find yourself carrying that extra weight, which could lead to your lashing out and being the one demonised for being too reactive, albeit rightfully so. But that’s what happens when you find yourself in a toxic environment. Dissimulation can only get you so far.

    How do you respond when you are deliberately provoked? What are your reactions and thought processes when faced with such situations? (so when someone triggers you on purpose & with ill intent, not accidentally). For example, do you experience an instinctive fight, flight, or freeze response, and are you able to transition into a more balanced state that helps you regain emotional control? How long do these feelings usually last? Do echoes of such experiences linger in your mind for a long time afterwards? Additionally, do you feel comfortable discussing your emotional triggers with trusted friends or partners, and does sharing this information help you manage your responses more effectively?

  • The Path Within: Exploring One’s Emotional Landscape through a Metaphysical Lens

    Embrace kindness, grace, tenderness, and understanding towards yourself as you proceed on a journey of self-reflection, integrating the various facets that form your unique identity. A moment of tranquillity. Let down your guard and approach yourself with gentleness. Set aside time for introspection, allowing your thoughts, fears, and emotions to surface. As you reopen past wounds, you can create a path for healing and discover methods to effectively process them in ways that feel safe to you. Engage in this self-exploration with an open heart and mind, ready to confront both your strengths and vulnerabilities. Recognise that this journey is about identifying what needs to be healed or changed, as well as about appreciating the resilience and wisdom you have gained through your experiences. Acknowledge the courage it takes to delve into the depths of your psyche, exploring the complex fabric of your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. Seek to understand the intricate layers of your being, and how they shape the way you perceive the world around you. Remember, this process is a powerful act of self-love and self-care, an essential step towards embracing your true self and living a more conscious, fulfilled life.

    I believe self-worth is a key element in all of this. It would be ideal to ground our journey of self-discovery and integration in a strong sense of self-worth. A self-assured basis, at least in relation to worthiness, enables us to navigate our emotions and interactions with others from a place of confidence and authenticity. Personally, I feel in alignment with the view that every human being possesses intrinsic worth from the beginning of existence. In Sculptor in the Sky, Teal Swan emphasises this aspect as well, while pointing out that society often conditions people to believe that worth is contingent on achievement, success, or acquiring skills – thus on external validation. This societal conditioning leads to a misconception that one must constantly strive and perform to be valuable. Miss Swan encourages readers to recognise and reconnect with their intrinsic value, independent of external factors. I believe that striving for achievements and gaining skills and knowledge is beneficial, provided it doesn’t overshadow our intrinsic worth or lead our spirit astray from what truly matters. There is also the suggestion that deep within, people hold profound knowledge and understanding about life and existence, and that there are great advantages to remembering it – because this knowledge is often lost or obscured due to life experiences, societal norms, and cultural conditioning. The aim is to help people rediscover and reconnect with this innate wisdom, which Miss Swan believes is essential for personal and spiritual growth. Another key theme that is relevant to our narrative is the importance of recognising one’s ability to shape their own life, so that one moves away from victimhood to a position of strength and agency.

    Let’s shift our focus to the realm of conflict and our emotional responses in these challenging situations. Contemplate your instinctive emotional response during conflicts. You might lean towards anger, anxiety, sadness, defensiveness, guilt, shame, or fear. Reflect on your typical modes of expression when distressed. You could find yourself redirecting, seeking mediation, ignoring, compromising, yelling, blaming, or perhaps withdrawing completely. Ponder on whether your reaction is a direct response to the present situation or a reflection of past traumas and unresolved issues. Do you notice patterns in your behaviour that are repetitive and perhaps unhelpful in resolving conflicts? Do you tend to resort to projection, casting others into roles that align with your own internal narratives, usually associating the person in front of you with other figures from your history? Consider whether you are confronting the person right in front of you or an amalgamation of phantoms from your past, the manifestations of your emotional baggage. In our interactions, we believe we’re arguing over current issues, but often, we’re actually grappling with deeper, long-standing emotions like feeling ignored, undervalued, or excluded. As we subconsciously attempt to resolve these past issues, we find ourselves repeating these scenarios, hoping for a different outcome. However, to truly change the narrative, we must live in the present and recognise people for who they are now, instead of holding them accountable for past hurts inflicted by others. If the person in front of you says things that cause you to spiral while crossing a boundary that you explicitly expressed, feeling betrayed and disillusioned is a natural, healthy response that is in alignment with self-love. After a boundary violation that isn’t very severe and, as a result, we choose to forgive, it’s wise to create a strategy outlining our expectations for how the other person should engage with us moving forward. On the other hand, when we’re talking about something unforgivable, some of us might respond with anger (which is valid), others might be tempted to rationalise, to justify the other person’s behaviour; in the process, we might recognise that the person operates from a wounded, unhealed part that has to rely on all sorts of defences. If another person’s energy is not beneficial to the current version of you, on this path of self-care, worth, and discovery, don’t feel pressured to be their saviour, it’s not your responsibility. It’s a better idea to protect yourself, and perhaps, if it feels right, turn inward and think of when you yourself allowed the wounded part of you to be in charge in similar ways.

    Consider the emotions in others that unsettle you the most. What judgments do you harbour towards these feelings? Ask yourself if you allow these emotions in your own life. Identify the traits in others that you find off-putting, such as greed, negativity, insensitivity, or arrogance, and explore whether you notice any echoes of these traits within yourself. Reflect on how acknowledging these traits in others impacts your interactions and perceptions. Ponder the possibility that your reaction to these traits might reveal deeper aspects of your own character that you have yet to fully understand or accept. Use this awareness as an opportunity for self-improvement, aiming to cultivate compassion and empathy both for yourself and for others. That way, you can foster a deeper sense of connection and understanding in your relationships. There are also times when you might feel a strong resistance towards someone, without realising why, exactly. If you ever feel repelled by someone’s personality, in real life or online, try to wonder why. Sure, sometimes, it could be pretty justified, they might be hypocritical or not align with your standards, they might hold psychopathic, extremist views, or be someone who crosses your boundaries of emotional safety with their views or attitude in some way. In which case, that’s not something you have to concern yourself with. But, if you can’t quite tell why the things they say or write about bother you that much, look at what you might supress in your own personality. Analyse this person and analyse yourself.

    A journey of self-discovery has to transcend acceptance – it’s about integration. I was reflecting on instances where I found myself inexplicably repulsed by someone’s demeanour or way of interacting; I soon realised it was sometimes my own suppressed judgments resurfacing. Bare in mind I’m not referring to instances where I’ve actually been wronged or harmed by people. In the rare instances where someone’s personality repelled me without a reason I could pinpoint at the time, I began to explore the idea of the existence of various “selves” within one person, each representing different facets of our being, even the disowned selves – our shadow, which should ideally be integrated. In my case, perhaps it was not just one-dimensional; maybe there were conflicting aspects at play. What bothered me was that the person was overly critical and negative, while at the same time smiling most of the time and seeming friendly, which I perceived to be unpleasantly contradictory. Delving into this approach, I realised how interesting and unintuitive the process of integrating our shadows can be – the suppressed judgments and unexplored aspects of ourselves that surface in response to certain personalities can be revealed to us in ways that surprise us. Splitting ourselves into different selves, each exhibiting unique traits and perspectives, allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the human mind. Like a psychological mosaic meant for a holistic self-awareness, you have to embrace both the light and shadow elements within.

    Let’s focus on happiness. In his book on bliss, Osho differentiates between happiness, pleasure, and bliss, emphasising that true happiness is a state of being, not just a fleeting emotion. He suggests that happiness is a deeper, more sustainable state than pleasure, which is often momentary, hedonistic, and externally driven. Bliss is a heightened state of joy and contentment, with a transcendental element, stemming from a profound inner peace and self-understanding. In the context of one’s self-discovery journey, in my opinion it’s important to recognise that while happiness involves embracing and integrating our full spectrum of experiences and emotions, there is also a place for the innocent pleasures of life. Little joys, such as the enjoyment of the scent of a distinguished, evocative perfume, a beautiful building, or experiencing a random act of kindness have their value. These small pleasures, while fleeting, add colour and texture to our lives. They are not in opposition to true happiness, but rather, they can coexist as part of a balanced and fulfilling life. Embracing these simple joys is not superficial; it is acknowledging and appreciating the various aspects of life that bring us momentary delight. As we strive for a deeper happiness and integrate our various selves, including our shadow aspects, we can also allow ourselves to enjoy these innocent pleasures without guilt. This balanced approach leads to a more authentic and holistic sense of joy, blending the pursuit of deeper, internal fulfilment with the appreciation of life’s simple pleasures. Being able to appreciate such moments of pure, unfiltered, spontaneous joy, is indicative of a healthy, balanced perspective on life and a deep capacity for gratitude and presence. In our interactions with friends, we can share these joys while also engaging in deeper, more meaningful connections, embodying a true sense of happiness that encompasses both the light and the playful, enjoyable moments of life. The problem appears when we solely seek temporary pleasures, mistaking them for complete happiness, while neglecting the deeper work of integrating our various selves, including our shadow aspects, in order to resolve internal conflicts and reach inner harmony. As mentioned, happiness involves embracing the full spectrum of our experiences and emotions, finding balance and harmony within. It is about acknowledging and integrating the light and shadow within us. This understanding allows us to seek a more authentic and lasting sense of joy, which is less about external validation or fleeting pleasures and more about a deep, internal sense of fulfilment.

    In moments of comfort and ease with friends, consider the sides of yourself you reveal. You may be playful, thoughtful, or reserved. Address any misperceptions others might have about you that cause pain. Envision the kind of recognition and appreciation you desire from others, and think about ways to embody those qualities now. Reflect on which emotions you would like to become more at ease with. Ponder how these comfortable interactions with friends might serve as a mirror, reflecting aspects of yourself that you may not regularly acknowledge or appreciate. Delve into the reasons why certain emotions are more challenging for you to embrace, and contemplate strategies to cultivate a healthier relationship with them. Acknowledge the importance of vulnerability in building deeper connections and trust with others. As you work towards becoming more comfortable with a wider range of emotions, remember that this process is a key part of personal growth and developing a more authentic and fulfilling way of relating to both yourself and the people around you.

    Finally, identify a behavioural pattern or habit you’re prepared to transform. This introspective journey is about self-awareness, but also about evolving into the most genuine and enlightened version of yourself. This process of self-exploration is a profound step towards spiritual growth and personal fulfilment. Embrace the courage required to confront and change these deep-seated habits. Understand that this transformation may challenge you, but it is a significant part of your journey towards self-mastery. As you pursue this path, be patient and kind to yourself, recognising that change is a gradual process. Remember, this journey is also about understanding the underlying motivations and emotions that drive them. This way, you cultivate a deeper sense of self-awareness, leading to more meaningful and lasting change. This path to personal evolution opens up new possibilities for joy, fulfilment, and a more authentic way of living.

    The intricate journey of self-reflection, embracing our inherent worth whilst inviting change and avoiding stagnating in unhappiness, and understanding our complex emotional responses to conflict and relationships are deeply intertwined with the universal fabric of existence. As we navigate our internal world, confronting and integrating our shadow selves, and striving towards personal growth, we inherently influence the collective consciousness. This interconnectedness accentuates the significance of our emotional and spiritual journey, highlighting how our inner transformations contribute to the broader mosaic of human experience and the universe itself. This interplay between the personal and the universal has to be recognised, in order to approach our journey with a heightened sense of purpose and awareness, understanding that our quest for self-mastery and fulfilment is deeply connected to the greater whole, designing a more empathetic and unified world.

  • Uncanny Synergy

    I awaken in pure exaltation in a meadow bathed in sunlight. Everything is enveloped in luminous splendour. The lake of memory ripples and glistens with echoes of myths and fairy tales. There is something intrinsically immaculate about this moment. It feels as if this corner of the world has been ritualistically transfigured by forces that have had access to moments that evoked my noblest emotions. Or that my dream-weaving mind from a parallel reality is actively manifesting a mosaic of a world that I could feel in perfect alignment with.

    I decide to explore my surroundings. I increasingly get the feeling that the place is sentient – a living, breathing, intoxicating sanctuary. The breeze touches my body with the ambivalent gentleness of a yearning spirit. There is an enigmatic scent cloaked in various elements, clothed with the vibrancy of an undefined passion. I reach an alien stone structure on top of which there is a crystal coffin. The woman inside looks like me. Her clothing embodies an exquisite, non-clichéd version of the cybergoth aesthetic. Although motionless, her body seems neither lifeless nor in the alluring state of catalepsy of most female waxworks stuck in reverie. She awakens, with her face bathed in sunlight. Her presence is enveloped in luminous splendour. There is something intrinsically immaculate about her, like her substance has been ritualistically transfigured by celestial beings.

    She starts exploring her surroundings. As she appears to strangely, naturally assimilate the environment, I feel like I’m witnessing a process of symbiosis. Her movements are of an uncanny, refined quality that blends in with the landscape and speaks with the language of light. This world seems to have been created in her image. In her I catch glimpses of a level of aliveness that I’ve never seen in anyone else. Her discreet glances over her bare shoulder make me think she is waiting for someone, or some external thing.

    I hear a disturbing, mystical interference sound and see flickering lights. The fabric of the world is briefly cracking to make space for another body, which materialises out of thin air. Twilight falls. She looks at him. It’s apparent they know each other from a parallel universe; the encounter is not serendipitous. Their eyes – both life-giving and annihilating – are glinting with rapture. She moves towards him through the dusky landscape, soft and languid, proceeding with a whimsical charm on the fragrant earth. What follows is their embrace – the drowsy sweetness of it.

    Her resonant words are breaking the overpowering silence, being hauntingly echoed within all the natural elements around them. Listening to the melodious outpouring, his liquid gaze subtly changes. Their substances intertwine. Her life source becomes a part of him. His life source – a part of her. Their pupils are wide as they both take close-up views into each other. Here, this means experiencing the other’s entire life in a flash. Every moment of agony, ecstasy, every glimpse of the soul and of the dark night of the soul in its various manifestations. Everything around them shifts vibration: the elusive, undefined sense of ontological yearning becomes palpable. The atmosphere turns sultry. The ecstatic movements of nature fluctuate between frantic, impetuous, violent and soft, languorous, soothing. I am filled with a deep sense of rapture under the light of creation. Visible and invisible forces are harmonising and constantly replicating, giving birth to their higher selves, until the landscape is of an ineffable resplendence. Their encounter nurtures and transfigures the eco-system.

  • Aesthetic Sensibility

    The narrative of our relationship with space is shaped and re-shaped by our minds, and not always in predictable ways. Mesmerising and haunting, that is how I would describe the aesthetics of Brutalist architecture now, although it hasn’t always been this way. I’ve mentioned before how impactful the relationship between ontology and aesthetics is to me. The way I relate to new landscapes featuring cold concrete, imposing facades, and the towering silhouettes of brutalism often constitutes an uncanny experience. In England, it happened when I gazed at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, when I first walked the path next to the Roger Stevens Building in Leeds, and when I stepped on the grounds of Barbican in London.

    The cold rawness of the stark, monolithic, slightly dystopian aesthetic carries echoes of the past seeping into the future, haunting my perception of self and place. It helps if the spaces appear desolate, without disruptions. And the atmosphere of a new place feels slightly more otherworldly when the boundary between Brutalist architecture and nature is blurred. Even better if the structure is abandoned and derelict. Although the haunting quality is already inherent in the eerie architecture of Brutalism. Moreover, for me, since I lived in a brutalist-socialist block – a type of structure that was ubiquitous during childhood, when I encounter a different version of the aesthetic of brutalism, in a new environment, the familiar and the unfamiliar collide.

    It’s an uncanny feeling of revisiting a liminal place, the archetypal presence of the homely that is rendered alien, a ghostly intersection of memory and materiality. Being haunted by a double, the self becomes partly ‘other’, being watched by a higher external force whilst existing ‘elsewhere’, until that sense diminishes as the self acclimates to the environment and everything else outside that space actually becomes temporarily otherworldly. Temporary identity and place are interlinked, so whenever I see a new architectural space with Brutalist exterior design, my past selves which visited other Brutalist spaces are having a gathering and collectively pondering how inhabiting such an architectural space both preserves and erodes the past.

    Brutalist design…both intimate and vaguely distant, startling and infused with echoes of sci-fi narratives, comforting yet unsettling. Inspiring a homesickness for a place that never actually existed and will probably never materialise, a chimeric shadow world of inner phantoms, a world that borrows elements from the geography of my childhood as well as from tech-noir films. Such experiences have a destabilising effect – surreal, almost. With their ghostly, whispery grey walls, the buildings seem to be living, breathing things, rather than static. There is an undertone of fear and anxiety, mixed with rapture. As we know, the uncanny can also signify a longing for a return to a state of unity, which may be intertwined with a more sinister primal desire, a pull towards inorganic dissolution. Hunting the familiar image of tech-noir dystopia, both living and dead, can symbolise a repetition compulsion.

    Whilst exploring and intimately absorbing a Brutalist space, I uncover lost poetry and sensory fragments of my inner world, feeling strangely at home even as I find myself in a place of liminality. When I exit a Brutalist Zone (particularly one that I’ve just seen for the first time), everything else feels temporarily alien, unreal (I say a new one because through repetition, the allure is demystified and diminished). It’s a state of mild spiritual dissociation that makes me feel like I can gain essential knowledge about myself, about consciousness and about the universe, whilst acquiring a sense of distance from myself.

  • Self-Portrait

    The spiritual (‘spiritual’ in a secular sense) pride sometimes accompanying the feeling of being attuned to the universe and highly perceptive of shifts in energies, angst, desires, signs of discomfort, motivations, attractions, repulsions, projections, insecurities, prejudice, coping mechanisms, vibrations, the multidimensionality of the human experience, and so on when I walk into a room means that when I am – not by choice – in the disposition that I actually have to go through a break from the reality of existence, I find it hard to open up about my inner experiences even a long time afterwards. Granted, that’s also due to the nature of my experiences, the way they unfold, and the type of real-life material they tend to feed on and feed into. It’s that and the fact that, in my darkest yet lucid hours, my worldview tends to become more assertive, particularly when I feel my boundaries are being crossed, which is what is amplified (and internalised) to surreal levels when I’m thrown into the vortex of my ‘other’ self, which is not something I’d like to consciously/actively even indirectly nurture outside of that.

    Whenever I’ve tried opening up, things have gone chaotically wrong both interpersonally – as once I add that layer it becomes nearly impossible to know others’ angles, and in my subsequent experience of the breaks, which have gone hopelessly meta and more labyrinthine. Things no longer flow naturally in my interactions. And I put a lot of pressure on myself to rewire my thinking patterns in ways that are beneficial to me, but unfortunately, this has come to mean detachment, which implies automatically being less likely to experience positive emotions as well. I have come to accept that only those with a very similar predisposition and psychological history and configuration in addition to moral compass would ever be able to connect with me in any significant way. Perhaps meeting them will give me a feeling of belonging that I’ve not found anywhere, in any context, in my entire life, if I’m totally honest. I mean among those around whom I’ve actually considered (and entertained the thought that) I might belong, as there are many that I’m happy and proud I could never even remotely relate to. I’ve always been pretty individualistic and self-oriented though.

    When I welcomed the possibility of connection, I realised I’m too secular for the spiritual. Too dreamy for the materialistically-inclined. Too pragmatic for the ones who ignore everything worldly. Too realistic and down-to-earth for the self-help community. Too willing to work on myself to be among those with a tendency to neglect and deny all responsibility in a quest for self-preservation. Too pessimistic for the idealistic. Too idealistic for the pessimistic. Too neurotic for the stoic. Too self-contained for the openly and unapologetically neurotic. Too guarded for the emotionally transparent. Too transparency/authenticity-inclined for the ones who repress all ‘negative’ human emotion. This either makes me sound perfectly balanced or dispassionate and insipid. Either way, what I care about is – would I be happy to meet someone ‘like’ me (i.e. alike in significant ways)? Would I be ready? Scared? Threatened due to shadow self denial? Exhilarated? Relieved? Would I even truly see them, and myself in them? I welcome the opportunity to discover, for I usually only feel like I can be myself when I am by myself.

  • A Glance

    Caught in between worlds and narratives designed
    from mercurial substances laced with unfathomable fears,
    no longer bothering to convey their intersections
    in a way that integrates with the normal brooding whole,
    still skipping diseased words that hold too much power,
    in hope of discouraging the old forces from slipping in
    like a cataclysmic surge disturbing the ebb and flow of being,
    and because I have a history, yet I don’t like inhibitions
    that render the core watered-down with lifeless inscriptions.
    Anyway, the morning found me sipping the lingering trance of
    dewy dreams of an all too familiar setting, concealed for years,
    interwoven with unfettered thoughts fluttering like harpies
    and kind ravens towards, above, and beyond worlds.
    Later, I consumed a piece of media that bothered me,
    tapping into a growing discomfort at every variation of evil,
    but there’s always a quick fix for that, and I know myself –
    fortunately I can un-see, un-hear such things – a talent of mine,
    born out of necessity, of self-preservation;
    well, it’s because sometimes images used to get stuck
    and replayed over and over again,
    but that’s classified information I don’t want to unlock;
    if nothing else, similar instances are usually eclipsed
    by the life-devouring shadows
    of much more significant worries-
    this is why I don’t mind dwelling on the edge of chaos
    as long as I find my definition of peace in it:
    every new element propels me further, making sure
    I don’t get sucked into the vortex of one.
    Listen, it’s tiring to be driven by the many-eyed wings
    that pierce through subtleties and silvery surfaces,
    to spot pattern discrepancies as easily as one blinks,
    whilst the narrative blossoms like a beautiful acacia tree,
    but this was not an invitation.
    In fact, sometimes, my desires are very simple-
    it should be obvious by now, and
    whether I’m fine or not is irrelevant-
    I want faith, freedom, and to be left to exist
    between the tree and the river.

  • A glimpse into the NDE in “Proof of Heaven”

    I’ve recently read Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, by Dr. Eben Alexander, who documented a miraculous experience that led him to believe that the death of the brain and of the body doesn’t constitute the end of existence, that consciousness lives on after death and god exists and loves all beings. He dedicated this book to people like him (and me) who are sceptical about NDE recollections. As someone with an obsessive preoccupation with the subject of NDEs and insights into occurrences that hint at the phenomenon of consciousness existing independently from the brain, I’ve had this one on my reading list for a while. The way the narrator describes his communication style in the idyllic world he visited is not unlike my own transcendental experience from some time ago: wordless, felt, almost telepathic, and ineffable.

    The narrator views his NDE as a life-turning event that led to a metamorphosis of his life as he knew it, due to a very significant paradigm shift regarding a fundamental belief. As a firm believer in science, although hoping to be proven wrong, he had always aligned with the view that the brain equals consciousness, that once the neocortex is switched off, the possessor vanishes into non-being. He had read many recollections of NDE subjects who claimed to have navigated otherworldly landscapes or talked to god during their experiences, but he always thought such instances were still brain-based, that they happened whilst the brain was not totally shut down – for instance, if someone’s heart was temporarily off and their neocortex was inactivated for a while yet not irreversibly damaged and irretrievable. That was before he was afflicted with a very rare case of bacterial meningitis and, whilst in a coma and with a completely inoperative neocortex – as he claims, the deeper part of him – that he had previously described as existing beyond time – deserted his body and his mortal identity, including his memories and his self-concept, to wander into other realms, meet otherworldly beings, have a conversation with god, and have glimpses into higher dimensions.

    During his comatose metaphysical odyssey, he delved into the Underworld, the Gateway, and the Core, places that he was convinced were real.

    The Underworld was characterised by “Darkness, but a visible darkness-like being submerged in mud yet also being able to see through it. Or maybe dirty Jell-O describes it better. Transparent, but in a bleary, blurry, claustrophobic, suffocating kind of way. Sound, too: a deep, rhythmic pounding, distant yet strong, so that each pulse of it goes right through you. Like a heartbeat? A little, but darker, more mechanical-like the sound of metal against metal“

    Whilst in this pulsing underworld, his consciousness was devoid of memory or concepts of identity, his existence was not limited by time, and he felt like his awareness was uncannily merging with his surroundings. In a way, the experience was dreamlike, as he could perceive what was happening around him, without having any self-concept. He didn’t have a body or at least the awareness of one, or the capacity to form words. It felt like he had regressed to a primordial state, he ponders, as far back as the bacteria that infected him, causing his illness – in a world devoid of emotion, logic, and language.

    The traveller’s extremely apathetic predisposition gave him a certain invulnerability, due to his detachment from his memories and sense of self. Although he could judge that he may or may not survive that place, thoughts of either option caused nothing but indifference.

    The narrator mentions this underworld dwelling was like being inside a murky womb with bloody vessel-like ramifications of a dirty scarlet aglow, or like being buried underground yet still able to see the matrixes of roots.

    I am going to include his entire description of the place, because I feel it is a great image of an uncanny liminal space:

    “The longer I stayed in this place, the less comfortable I became. At first I was so deeply immersed in it that there was no difference between “me” and the half-creepy, half-familiar element that surrounded me. But gradually this sense of deep, timeless, and boundary less immersion gave way to something else: a feeling like I wasn’t really part of this subterranean world at all, but trapped in it.

    Grotesque animal faces bubbled out of the muck, groaned or screeched, and then were gone again. I heard an occasional dull roar. Sometimes these roars changed to dim, rhythmic chants, chants that were both terrifying and weirdly familiar-as if at some point I’d known and uttered them all myself.

    As I had no memory of prior existence, my time in this realm stretched way, way out. Months? Years? Eternity? Regardless of the answer, I eventually got to a point where the creepy-crawly feeling totally outweighed the homey, familiar feeling. The more I began to feel like a me—like something separate from the cold and wet and dark around me—the more the faces that bubbled up out of that darkness became ugly and threatening. The rhythmic pounding off in the distance sharpened and intensified as well—became the work-beat for some army of troll-like underground laborers, performing some endless, brutally monotonous task. The movement around me became less visual and more tactile, as if reptilian, wormlike creatures were crowding past, occasionally rubbing up against me with their smooth or spiky skins. Then I became aware of a smell: a little like blood, and a little like vomit. A biological smell, in other words, but of biological death, not of biological life. As my awareness sharpened more and more, I edged ever closer to panic. Whoever or whatever I was, I did not belong here. I needed to get out. But where would I go? Even as I asked that question, something new emerged from the darkness above: something that wasn’t cold, or dead, or dark, but the exact opposite of all those things. If I tried for the rest of my life, I would never be able to do justice to this entity that now approached me . . . to come anywhere close to describing how beautiful it was. But I’m going to try.”

    The being of light he continues to describe was spinning, emitting shiny, white-gold filaments causing the darkness enveloping the protagonist to fracture and disintegrate. Eventually, the whirling light revealed an opening, a portal that the traveller went through, feeling like being born into an idyllic, blissful world, where the inside and the outside were intertwined and where he also experienced uncanny feelings of déjà vu.

    “Below me there was countryside. It was green, lush, and earth like. lt was earth, but at the same time it wasn’t. It was like when your parents take you back to a place where you spent some years as a very young child. You don’t know the place. Or at least you think you don’t. But as you look around, something pulls at you, and you realize that a part of yourself-a part way deep down-does remember the place after all, and is rejoicing at being back there again.”

    The narrator continues to emphasise the realness of the place throughout the dreamlike descriptions. He also describes “the single most real” experience of his life: an encounter with a girl who communicates a special, soothing message to him by transferring its conceptual essence into his mind, wordlessly. Whilst acknowledging the limitations of earthly language, he translated the message as such:

    “You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.”

    “You have nothing to fear.”

    “There is nothing you can do wrong.”

    Inside the Core, advanced, ethereal, winged beings, scintillating creatures with silvery bodies, living sounds, and an elusive divine being blessed the surroundings. Everything was part of Source. After silently asking questions such as “Where is this place? Who am I? Why am I here?”, he mentions that “the answer came instantly in an explosion of light, colour, love, and beauty that blew through me like a crashing wave. What was important about these bursts was that they didn’t simply silence my questions by overwhelming them. They answered them, but in a way that bypassed language. Thoughts entered me directly. But it wasn’t thought like we experience on earth.”

    This part was what struck a chord with me because of my own experience of transcendence. There is an uncanny resemblance between my own otherworldly encounter and the excerpt above, particularly the communication style, which is something that I’ve written about on my blog at some point and in my diary more extensively, and our words seem to describe a similar encounter – albeit with an extra element that was pretty essential in mine. It’s also relevant to say I was not in a coma or on DMT, and there were no perceptual hallucinations, it was an intense inner feeling whilst I was caught somewhere between worlds.

    I would love to end this on a positive note and to say that this book will convert your world view on matters of the afterlife. Naturally, however, despite the credentials of the author, I was inclined to take the subject of his writing with a grain of salt, especially in regard to the moment when the NDE happened. I was so excited about this non-fiction book because it was written by a neurosurgeon who expressed his belief in science throughout it, as well as confidently asserting that his conclusions were grounded in medical analysis of his experience and on his deep familiarity with the most advanced concepts in brain science and consciousness studies. Normally when I read about NDEs, they often appear intertwined with the notion of a DMT-induced hallucination and there remains an unresolved issue of whether the voyage to alternative realms occurred during the coma or immediately before or after it, which is more scientifically plausible. This makes sense, especially considering the numerous cases of people who have miraculously awakened from extended comas, only to confirm that they only encountered nothingness beyond. There have been neuroscientists who also discredited the supernatural element of Dr Eben Alexander’s story, saying it was unscientific and justifying it using the same explanation I mentioned. One of the doctors involved in his case also stated that Eben was hallucinating before he went in a coma.

    And I understand and still feel the scepticism. However, because of my experiences, I must say this story opens up that door of the esoteric inside my mind a little bit wider. I shall see if reading Dr Raymond A Moody will have the same effect.

  • The Uncanny Website Revamp

    The Uncanny Website Revamp

    I just re-vamped the Uncanny Archive website, making it more atmospheric whilst including descriptions of different categories of the uncanny, as well as personal insights and additional information on the Freudian roots of the concept. There will be more web content coming up soon, so keep an eye out, especially if you’re a fellow lover of uncanny films and intriguing, moving narratives.

    Within the first pages of his essay on Das Unheimliche, Freud adopts a humble tone, acknowledging that his analysis is limited by the lack of exposure to foreign literature due to conditions in the immediate post-World War I period. Within this historical context, the psychoanalyst’s interest and fascination with the uncanny arose from his experience treating post-war traumatic cases. This is evident in his essay, which consistently gravitates towards the subject of neurosis and the significance of repressed content of thought in the manifestation of the uncanny. 

    Freud’s work itself turns out to possess some of the uncanny characteristics it describes. First of all, its purpose is to reveal something that is concealed within the parameters of subjectivity of feeling, of experience, and memories. […] Another aspect that Das Unheimliche shares with its subject and with many uncanny narratives is that it is haunting, repetitive, and filled with uncertainty. […] Certain works of art encompass that combination of factors through which the uncanny is born out of art and transcends into life, making the reader and the viewer experience it.

    Visit the Uncanny Archive website to read more.

  • Liminal Space

    A state of flux.

    An ineffable sense of rapture of the mind, body, and soul.

    A substitute for the spirit molecule.

    A place where it’s safe to be human and where the concept of being human is unravelled at various stages in a way that will add to one’s self-worth, empathy, and awareness.

    The texture of reality is mutable here. Your substance might go through physical and spiritual metamorphoses in tempestuous waves. Fragments of souls that are no longer around will reflect back at you unexplored feelings and aspects of your self on a visceral level.

    You will witness the miracle of the self unfold. During your paradigm-shifting odyssey into this state of overwhelming multitudes, your core will be shaken and re-examined, but despite that, you will overflow with self-love even as you go through the transformative process. Your memories and dreams will be your friends, not your foes.

    There will be upheavals, eventually followed by a sense of enlightenment and profound emotional intensity that will set new foundations in stone. No more lingering intrusive thoughts. No longer projecting and no longer being affected by other projections. An elation and liberation of the self.

    Inserted myself in film stills from Stalker, Annihilation, and Solaris; photos edited and composited by me.

    I had actually written a little uncanny story that these images were just accompanying, but I’ve decided to integrate that one exclusively in a greater project of the future.

  • Timeless Diary

    Prologue: On Misperceptions as an obstacle to self-expression

    Chapter 1: On Agape Love

    Chapter 2: Self-Empowerment

    Chapter 3: Betrayal

    Chapter 4: Breaking the Veil

    Chapter 5: On Death

    Chapter 6: On Self-Preservation