In Between Lucidity, The Crow Caws

My heart squeals in the dreadful morning, when I hear the caw of my black angels. Keepers of the “twilight” I should rather say, as I only hear them when the blending colors of the sun dance among the cloudy skies. These creatures are quite dreadful to the public, mostly of fear, ever scavenging among both the decay and decrepit alike. Who am I to judge which is which? It’s all meant to be transmuted into the purity of ashes and memories of dust.

I’m reminded of my perkier days, a budding child probably no more than five, untainted before the world psychologically broke in … I remember crows just being naturals among my habitat. They were always there, though minding their own business and not worth noticing, like a dim lit star lost in the midnight sky. But they were still there, just as they still are, and will continue to be, so long as the scent of rotting flesh creates hunger. Every morning and every evening greeting me with an unnoticeable cacaw, cacaw, cacaw. Who knew how old I was when this child had his “Edgar Allen Poe” epiphany, or why in High School he chose to express the beauty of such an avian in a void of color paper-mache project, contrary to the expressive colors of every other classmates comparable. Rather than get lost in the poetics, the child had always been surrounded by the black avians, even if he was ignorant of their foresight portrayed through their symbolism.  

Particularly, I’m being brought back to a time right about ten years, not yet of age, and still afraid of proper “mysteries”. A child who struggled with fiendish nightmares, barley capable of adequate night’s rest. The child developed a reserve filled with panicky neutrality just to hold the outbursts and enough calm to fill the night with some sleep, but it was quite enough to create muscular tension giving the expression “stiff neck”, which blocked the constant chills running up and down one’s spine. The night was filled like some of the worst of the worst tension, a cold sweat leaving one shivering under a hot a blanket, but too frightened to peek at what may be lurking within the dark corners of the childhood room.

The night-visions plaguing the child’s sleep were filled with fiery unspeakables that would shame Dante’s poems. All seeking to grasp hold of something that was me, though somewhat intangible as appearing through a blending colors of reality that would shame a Van Gogh painting. As a frequent childhood occurrence, I’ve gotten quite comfortable of such vivid dreams, that would rush me out of daze of delusions into a further toxic day of mentally conditioning myself into another brick in the wall. But this dream reached further than the other dreams, pushing the idea of “will I ever be able to sleep again”. Such a feat, I yet wonder to this day.

The evils of the night plaguing a mind conditioned into protestant fiery hells provides the atmosphere for the child’s nightmare. Though it is not the colors of this extremely vivid imagination that I remember, but the way it made me feel, and not ever want to feel again. Like my worst nightmares arising at my weakest moment, where all failed attempts at masculine chivalry are stymied by the paralysis that utilizes cognitive dissonance in moving beyond one’s fears. I couldn’t help myself to defend myself, or any others used as temptation for me to protect, but simply linger in the fright of panic and expectation for the worst.

As I was chased by these ghouls into depths of my subconscious sadly making my delusions more vivid, my panic forced the ever-so-vivid contours of a child’s imagination into a realized lucid dream. From becoming the watcher in the dream, to being awake in the dream, the child sadly realized he would need to face his worst fear, “that I’m on my own to make the decisions”. Once guided by the fluctuations of the Van Gogh like dream state, lost to whatever whimsy and fright that is guided by the night, I’ve now come to realize that my adequate follies are now exposed to my rational logic, screaming vehemently to my reptilian-brain, “flight or fight”?

Panicking, what is one to do, with a rational logic encompassing a ten year old. A child lost in a dreamlike distance,  but lucidly and vividly experiencing each fright, each pain, each horror … as if neurologically chained to the electric chair. Pure innocence attempting to attain a curious glimpse of the shadows, suddenly having the tables turned. The panic one can only experience, when one falls under the mesmerization of eye to eye contact.

Lurid beings conjuring all sorts of sensory fright, often condemned to the hells of forced submission, an image frequently programmed into our budding neurological life-forms. Enough disgust to allow for only a moments attention, is what caught this child’s eye. In breaths of panic, the child overcame and understood the magic of lucidity by increasing itself in proportion, to match every breath with breath. A gift from the heavens assured was the child, a not a moment to lose with the arrogance of a prince not yet knighted arising. With all might, the child charged forcing his way upon an unspeakable. With might and the power of religious creeds in one’s palms, the beings of fear shall be overcome, to never again return. The moment dawning near, the light ready to burst from the shadows within one’s own shadow. But was the child ready?

Prior to the victorious thrust into the bliss of returning into emotional stability, if not harmony, the child’s arms pulsing with the muscles of a Goliath remembered his sheer stature as David. In a moments grasp vividly occurring with details of slow motion, the child’s arms went limp weak as the sword simply pounced on such corrupted entities. There was no strength to the child’s pride as if the wretched opponent seized control of the child’s central nervous systems flooding the babe’s emotional body with hospitalizing hormonal cocktails invoking the psychology of vivid blood rushing fears. All logic subdued while that child gazed within the aura of what can only be considered, the great devil himself, and yes, you too would call him “great” should this experience for you ever prevail, the child through panicky asthmatic gasps echoed in one’s cranium attempts to scream, “for the love god, someone help me”. It’s the working of the reptilian-brain. “Fight or flight”.

The lucidity of the occurrence rendered some brilliance with the forethought of needing to wake up. Hence, quite probably why I chose to mentally scream, though I definitely intended to be vocal given the panicky state of the experience. For a moments glance, I realized I was staring at my ceiling, eyes wide open. I begin to take awareness of my breath and bring myself away from having a heart attack. I remember my name as I slowly began to consciously grasp the surrounding of my childhood room. As my breath aligns, I quickly realize I need to physically readjust to allow proper blood flow. My breath immediately ceases as I realize, despite my desperate conscious attempts, my physical body simply will not move. I’m lost in my head, conscious of what I believe to be the material state, but with the inability to interact with it. I realize my predicament, especially with a calming breath serenading the child back into sleep. As memory of the prior dream returns, the child returns to the cranial screams begging mercy from the depths of one’s own imagination. Could he face such horrors again, where the return to the vegetable state of material consciousness was a devious match, requiring the child need for untimely logical assessments. What could be worse, than this poor child’s fantasy, conjured in some ungodly hour of the wailings of the night. In facing the child’s inner Necronomicon, names unnecessary for invocation when the words already echo through one’s inner temples, under the vision’s sedation into neurosis paralysis, the child chose the other reptilian option, run. 

Fleeing from the shadows that internally required exorcism, the child again glances the stalemate of the material world, again binging on the sedation of neurological paralysis unable to engage anything other than visual awareness of the childhood bedroom ceiling. Though, this time with the agenda to move, the child’s vivid internal bursts commanding movement were met with slight actual physical adjustments within the childhood bed, while the child began to realize that his neurons were still controlled by some inner beast of fear. Though eye’s wide awake, staring at the ceiling, counting what still shimmered of glow-in-the-dark stars cascading through the childhood bedroom of a child afraid of the dark attempting to move beyond the dream state, the child began to hear the beast of fear growl, not louder, but closer, much closer, as if standing directly behind. Paralyzed with fear, while gasping the freedom of the external world only a few adjustments away, the child began to feel the stench filled breath of the beast of fear, as the beasts growls sent shivers on the child’s neck already tinging with the sweat of cold. Even with logical time-consuming analysis, the only option was to surrender. To let go, and let the beast of fear devour what was left of my childhood sanity.

​How can I not continually comprehend my sanity after that night within my childhood bedroom. It’s the same reason why I comprehend why my heart softens, hearing the call of the “caw” bringing us into and out of the shadows always at twilight. How can I not decide what is in fact reality, given that both holds on either side of my cranium that night and it’s charade over my central nervous system, danced as if they forge and embed neurological memories of actual phenomenal experiences within my psyche. Let me ask you as the reader, dare I say to the public, that “I remember waking to manifestations of slightly reddish slashes drawn on the child’s neck” … or reader, do I say to the public, “such manifestation, is simply the authors continued lucid dream”.