Memory... "The Visionary"

Mind over matter. I've always been a proponent of this idea. I think people can do extraordinary things if they're focused and willful enough. Surely, we can't do everything. But we can do a lot and endure more. While much of this is dependent on perseverance, I think the most miraculous feats owe themselves to imagination. It takes a visionary to pull off the extraordinary. A mind for visualization.

When I was a young 'un I remember watching a TV program that drilled this sort of thinking to the core of my being. It was one of these... creepy, paranormal, conspiracy-theory laced shows... I'm thinking it might have been Unsolved Mysteries, but I could be wrong. They had this story of this young kid stricken with brain cancer. He was obviously in a bad way and there wasn't much that could be done for him at the time. But just as things were at their worst, things turned around. He had remembered a dream. In the dream he had given form to his cancer; a giant black mass. And in the dream the cancer was under attack. He'd given form, of all things, to the Ghost Busters. And it was they who launched the assault against the cancer. Bolts of lightning stripping away the beast. Over time it became smaller and smaller, until it vanished completely. This, miraculously, coincided with a full remission of the cancer. He and his family credited this vision to the remission.

Now of course, it's a bit of a stretch. It's kinda ridiculous in its way. But I took the tale to heart, and I've never forgotten it. It could very well be the case that the kid died not long after the show aired. But I like to think that if he is dead, it wasn't the cancer that took him away. I like to believe that it worked. Whether or not it did, I've fully taken to the idea of visualization and its power to change the physical. I've had a mind for that sort of thinking before hearing the story, but now it's more a part of me than ever.

I use this charm most in moments of discomfort. With headaches, for instance. I know it's not my brain that's in pain, it's just the area around it like muscular tissue. So I imagine, or visualize that tissue in aggravation and try to soothe it. I visualize colors. Red pain and blue comfort. I try my best to will these things to change. If that doesn't work, I do my best to guard myself against the pain. I think of what it means to be in pain, the science of it. I visualize my biology, the biochemistry. Pain as nothing more than messages, signals, electrical, sent to my brain. Pain as sensation and automatic response. Pain no more different than pleasure. Another message, another signal. It works. I've felt it. It's about shifting perspective and clothing things in different words, concepts and colors. All of it, everything is mind... and so, mutable. It's all about making that real in the mind and becoming a mental blacksmith; working ideas into other ideas.

Though, this charm can also backfire. Sometimes you find yourself in situations that you can't break out of... that are too large to wrangle in your mind. The charm needs to be eased into. You need a peace of mind. If the pain is small enough, it's easy to get there. But if the pain is too large, it's almost impossible to find a way to work around it and get your mind in a place where you can combat it. You would need to be in that mindset beforehand. But these things strike without warning. It's happened with migraines. Thankfully I'm not a regular sufferer, but I've gone through it before and I've just never found a way to... to do anything but endure it. I can do nothing but suffer it. Knowing that, I visualize the futility of my struggle... I see my body in pain. I see the red. I see the dark. It only ever adds to the pain. Now does it not only exist in the body, but in the mind as well. But I do what I can to deaden myself, my mind. To escape... and sometimes that works.

It's all trickery. I use it for so many things. I thought I would go through them all but I haven't even scratched the surface and this has run on long enough. Besides that, the focus was meant to be the memory... not the charm of the memory. I've loved the imagery of that memory. Of what it means to imagine and not know quite what goes on in the dark, behind one another's eyes. I wonder what people conjure and destroy each day. And I love the childlike simplicity and sophistication rendered in that one vision. The idea of lightning, that symbol, is so loaded and perfect. And that amorphous dark. This struggle between the two. These battles of the mind. These worlds within worlds; silent and secret.


DS333, shifting.