A Dark Room

I just had this really weird experience.

Looking at the free movies On-Demand on cable, I found Ghost Story, a movie from the 80s that is based on an exceptional novel by Peter Straub. I read the novel last year and loved it; I consider it perhaps the second-best horror novel I have ever read, after Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. I started watching the movie version of Ghost Story because I have some time to kill this morning, needing to stay awake to run an errand, and I have wanted to see the movie since finding out that it existed.

I remember a lot of the book, though some things are blurry and I of course don't remember names and have trouble with relationships. But I pretty much know how things go, and I know what the deal is with the characters and the "ghosts" in the story. I think I am going to enjoy the movie very much.

After watching ten minutes of the movie, I decided that I needed something different to drink besides a bottle of water. I got up to go to the kitchen and get a glass of tea, hoping it would also help to keep me awake, as well as quench my thirst. The light in my room was off, because it is best to watch horror movies in the dark; also, why waste electricity? It's very early in the morning, the sky still pitch-black, and I may be the only one awake. My brother may be awake, but he lives in the basement. So, all the lights in the house are off.

I opened my door, walked through the hallway towards the dining room, which you must pass to get to the kitchen, and as I near the dining room, I stop. Everything feels different. Everything looks different, though I'm not surprised by any of the objects in the dining room, and the place doesn't look unfamiliar. We've been living in the new house for a couple of weeks, and I'm thoroughly used to it. The feeling I got, the way I want to explain it is, I felt like I was going to wake up.

I don't lucid dream. I never have, and I doubt I ever will. Once, I had a dream where I figured out that I was in a dream, but nothing changed. I shouted, "I don't know what will happen when I wake up!" but it still felt like watching a movie, the way my dreams always feel. My dreams are always strange, in some way, and are not realistic at all. Sometimes, upon waking, the dreams will feel as if they were real, but only in a tiny way. It quickly passes, though a feeling of unease may remain. My memory is very messed up, but I never confuse reality with my dreams, except for the occasional time that I tell someone or am told something by someone in a dream and think it happened in real life.

But I felt like everything was about to melt away, like I was going to blink and suddenly be somewhere else, maybe living a different life as a different person. I have had that feeling before but not in a long time. I'm kind of scared, actually. I would be thrilled if I thought it was because of the movie, but I know it's not.

I can't remember a time when I didn't have issues with my memory. I won't remember things, like everyone, but to a much higher degree. There are large holes in my memory, where I'm not sure what happened, days and weeks and months that passed with nothing to show. I can't remember more than a few of the classes I took in high school or college. I can't even remember most of the time I spent with my high school love and my first real love, who is my current girlfriend. Some of the stuff I do remember is crystal clear, like I have photographs or movies of them in my mind, but such moments are short, and I may not remember anything that happened before or after them.

Part of this is natural; I have always been this way. During my sophomore or junior year of high school, I cannot recall which, I was told by a good friend that I needed to get my memory checked out, because there was so much that I didn't recall. This girl would say, "Do you remember [insert random guy's name]?" And I'd say no. "I dated him a few months ago, he had this feature and did this..." I still wouldn't remember, at all. Which wouldn't be a big deal, except that it would be just a few months in the past, and I had spent hours talking to her on the phone about this guy. When you spend a dozen hours talking about a person, you should get at least a glimmer of recognition when the person's name is mentioned.

Part of this is by design; to escape from pain, I've told myself many times in the past, "That didn't happen, I made it up." Not a smart thing to do, but I figured that if I didn't think any of my experiences were real, or if I was unsure if they were real or not, things would be easier for me. Now, telling yourself that your experiences with a person or people didn't actually happen doesn't actually do anything. At first. But after a year or so, when you've told yourself a handful of times that your memories aren't real, well, things start to get hazy. Your brain remembers stuff that is important, whether it's good or bad. Your brain tends to forget stuff that isn't important. So, when you hear a song you really like, your brain may remember how it sounds, and when you're told some uninteresting fact, your brain may toss it in the garbage five minutes later. When you confuse your brain like I did, you get a situation similar to mine, where you have trouble recalling events and aren't always sure what's what.

I don't know what the point of this is, except that I needed to write about that odd experience. I need to go back to watching the movie. Sometimes I wonder if this is all real. That doesn't come out of any deep thinking. It's not a thought experiment. I sometimes simply feel like this isn't real. And all that is indicative of is some sort of brain damage. Which makes me wonder if I'm awake at all.

Times like this really make me wish I had a transporter out of Star Trek.