Cognitive Dissonance?

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(Perfect cont.) I told you. I'm not crazy. I am morbidly aware that what I'm about to state as fact is easy to disagree with. With that said, our idea of "reality" is grossly controlled by the way, the words used, to describe it. In these ways we control whether we regard our separate worlds as shrines, or prisons. This is real to me, not in that if I say fire, my house goes up, but in that when I say that I believe something, or see something in a particular regard, the visual representation is actively influenced by that belief. Be careful with this. Thought is a weapon so powerful, it must be treated in the highest regard. Use it for an inverse, ab-use it as an old friend might say, and you create a world where you only see what you want to see. An eternal state of minut psychosis. As beautiful as it seems, a fantasy world you could get lost in, not everyone wants to see bright, whimsical wonderland. There are those who can't hear past the demons behind them, and see nothing but hell in their wake. The ones that dont break, either fall farther, or fly, and we can only go so far before succoming to madness. Cognitive compartmentalization, rather than dissonance. My life had seperated into different streams of logic. The more personal moments, where the influence of thought painted a theoretical landscape called "home", were entirely seperate from the machine-like, serve-the-masses function of low paying survival jobs I fell into, and the side of human portrayed there. While I had gotten a second job at a local pizzeria as a hostess, my home life was ever adventurous. Though I think of snowy bar nights and finding grafiti art on the bridge nearby, it wasn't always a pleasant excitement. The nightmares hadn't been active since I was seventeen. Niel had always been supportive of what the dreams might have meant to me. He never once questioned my sanity because of them. I know now that what they are called, is a kind of sleep paralysis. This means that the body has been exhuasted more than the mind, and falls asleep before the brain can stop taking in information. In those moments, possibly minutes before the mind shuts off, time slows. The physical body, already planning for change, releases chemicals that allow for dreaming. If I'm not mistaken, one of these chemicals is DMT, though I couldnt for the life of me, tell you much more. I want to throw in the word pineal gland, or maybe even hypothalamus, but again, I don't know much about the chemical, or the brain. Regardless, at seventeen I had my last nightmare when I adopted the mantra, "The lord is my shephard, I shall not want." Even now, I dont know the rest of the prayer, but I will always remember that line. At nineteen the nightmares came back. Niel had fallen asleep in the bedroom, I on the couch. At this point, we had been together for three, almost four years. We considered ourselves 'married'. A familiar tingling sensation took over my nervous system, creeping from my arms, to my chest, and spreading. The shadows I had feared before, lingered at the edge of my peripherals. I questioned the possibility of mini-seizures. Niel had mentioned my breathing pattern changing dramatically in these states, borderlining hyperventilation, and a lot of reported seizures are accompanied by minor hallucinations. Before the shadows could materialize, before I thought to gather up the will to fend them off, before I even thought of my mantra..Niel woke me up. "I was dead asleep, and I heard someone tell me to go get my wife." He could have been saying it to calm me. To match my experience...but I like to think that I could always tell when he was lying. I believed that he heard that voice, and still do. I don't believe that he was my husband. My second job was a sweet medium between the two breakfast restaurants. A outwardly classy establishment with a romantic vibrance that masked the drugg riddled staff into attractive guides for an experience. Don't be surprised, you'll be terribly unlucky to find a restaurant staffed by any mass of sober individuals. Granted, there must always be a small handful of them to remind us of where we are, but no great restaurant was built on sobriety. Before assuming my stance any further, I do suggest you ask any questions on this topic. I would hate for my message to be lost so simply. I noticed a number of people when I started working there. A tall, pale, beautiful work of art with bright blue eyes, a large infectious smile, and a rumored heroin or cocain addiction, I can't remember which one. A young seventeen year old with an obnoxious habit of exaggerating, but sung with exceptional skill every Disney song that called to her. We'll call her Bubbles. She was a character. On one of my first days, as the night set in, I prepared to finish my side work and leave when I noticed that Bubbles kept walking off into the bar area. The other hostess with me, a down to Earth girl who had a stable, practical view of life, explained that Bubbles and one of the other servers had developed a flirtatious, somewhat inappropriate relationship. It was like a child's rendition of that popular bondage romance. Personally, I already find That book childish in it's own right, so to say this is a bit more than most would mean, I think. Really thats not too terribly inappropriate either, odd but not vulgar. Okay, maybe a little vulgar. Collars should not be involved with minors. My point, is that dude was almost thirty. He was robbing the cradle, so to speak. Or, despite her exaggeration and mild annoyance, she saw something in him. He was alone in his mind then, surrounded by friends but feeling as though they were anything but. She gave him a comfort that they couldn't. Still, I was repulsed. Eyes set on what would soon change everything my future could be, I bit my thumb at the short, worn out looking pig, with his piercing green eyes locking onto anyone who dared watch him for more than a glazed transition. Another tunnel of reality lined up, and taunted me.