Tunnel Vision
All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551
or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.
I am not on YouTube or social media
Cadwell NOT Caldwell
Lost in a Tunnel
[4 minute read ]
opinion 
mental health
I feel as though I shall be thwarted in some way today. Dreams have that effect on me. I got lost in a tunnel on the way to a place I know didn't have a tunnel between where I started in the dream and where the place is. The tunnel should have only been under a road bridge, but it went on and on and seemed to be curved. After a time I noticed it was blocked by an abandoned excavator (JCB digger) but I could see daylight beyond it. I thought the pursuing vehicle would not see it and would smash into it. I had no desire to warn the driver. Then, the end of the tunnel vanished and it continued on and curved almost back on itself before I came out into twilight, completely lost. I saw, in the distance, a large group of people moving towards me and that worried me. I walked away in the opposite direction, frequently looking over my shoulder, and found a smaller group of three men ahead, whom I approached to ask for directions.
'Hey, don't talk to them!' came a cry from behind me. Another group of five were running. 'They are not allowed to talk!'
'It's alright, he's only asking for directions.' called one of the group of three. I know he should not have spoken at all.
I never got the directions; I suppose puzzlement woke me up too much. That dream, or unresolved dream, has kind of sapped my confidence that I shall achieve all I want to today. It could be disappointment from not completing an important task (not getting to my destination in the dream) or the sense of foreboding that lies crouched in the undergrowth of my peripheral consciousness.
When I was seventeen and working in Bavaria (Bayern) in South Germany, I had a semi-violent argument with a black man. He was staying in the same Gästhaus as me (Pub with rooms). I was quite argy-bargy and physically confrontational, but we did not come to actual blows. He was a lot older than me and probably didn't want to beat a child up. That night, in the early hours, I woke with a heavy black weight pressing down on me and holding me still. There was no-one there and I immediately conjured up the idea that the black man was putting a Voodoo spell on me. Of course, we are paralysed in our sleep, or should be, in order that we don't live out our dreams and thrash wildly about when we fight monsters, and it was the middle of the night and my light were off, so it was dark. I have since then awoken paralysed and it is always from a nightmare with evil spirits attacking me. I doubt that the instances are connected by association at those times, but you never know. These days, however, it is so easy for me to dispel my rationale in place of fantastic stereotyping quite simply because I can apply memories of other instances of woken sleep paralysis being a consequence of waking from nightmares of evil intent, but only because I am awake and scraping my mind for similarities. Plainly, I have an active imagination and seek solutions outside of reason. Here's something: I heard that black magic only works if the afflicted person believes in it. My teenage stereotyping of black people likely allowed me to believe that all black people know and practice Voodoo because they all live in Haiti. After all, I was naïve and I had never seen any before. I probably didn't read enough Ladybird books, except for the one that had a mid to late 1950s illustration of a black Kenyan on a red tractor!
Tenuously, I might link the nasty neighbour who stole my food-waste caddie to my bad dream last night. He, I am fairly sure I know who it is, is the sort of person to experiment with the occult to help him navigate through what probably seems to him to be a very confusing experience of other people in the world. Yes, I know; I give with one hand and take with the other. I have to be true to myself though, I am emotionally upset from my dream last night; well, more disrupted or discombobulated I suppose, and I am giving deliberately free-rein to my imagination to iron out any wrinkles that mar clear thinking.
I very much believe in the spirit world (and aliens) and it would be dishonourable if I denied myself that declarative statement. While I can use convergent thinking such as would be used in writing a good essay or report, I much prefer to look at the flowers and the hedges on any journey, metaphorically speaking, and in real life. That said, I won't stop to look at Chartres Cathedral on the way to Madrid, even with ample time to spare.
I can't help it. Today, I feel, will be one of gossamer veils of fantasy that shroud reason. Subjects such as Mathematics and Chemistry will have to make way for fairy-tales and sitting round bonfires today. I am supposed to go into the city today, but there is too much reality there for it to be fun. I think I understand now why I don't really like the city and all the people there. I have to use convergent thinking and I am wholly focused on achieving my shopping goals, which Is why I think everyone is in my way. Not realising that the other people are using both convergent and divergent thinking, as they happily graze in the shops and boulevards, I get irritated. Ha! Lesson learned. I need to chill quite a bit.
Chartre Cathedral; focus on a destination; fun; diligence; get the job done nothing else matters; imagination; ruthless. All these thrown in a cauldron and cooked together taste like I am socially isolating myself with convergent thinking that completely displaces any divergent thinking (the fun stuff). Hmmm. Maybe being in a circuitous tunnel that exits at where people do not explain anything has given me an insight that I can use, after all.
I will make myself go into the city today, and I will chew my cud while I graze, like the bovines around me. Maybe, if I use magic I will be able to see them as human. Yeah, I know, I am cold, harsh and uncharitable today.
Tunnel vision.