A Bit of Lewis Carroll Nonsense
By: Maranda Russell
The serious ones
and the bonkers ones
are rare birds
telling tales of
biscuits and chewed pencils
served with curry
and elegance –
a feast
which you can chew on
for ten whole years.
Tag: odd
I Attended a Psychic Class – How Did I Do?
Last month I attended a class developed to help you improve your “psychic abilities”. Partly, I decided to try it out just for fun and to see what would happen, and partly I have always been interested in the paranormal, whether it be ghosts, ufos, psychic abilities, time travel, near death experiences, cryptids, etc.
So, what happened? I will only share my personal experiences, nothing about anyone else at the meeting or any specific teaching. We did several kinds of exercises and a meditation period. I think the weirdest experience I had the entire class was when we did a practice where the leader would share a hidden word and we all tried to intuitively figure out how that hidden word made us feel.
We did this quite a few times, and only once did I have a strong physical reaction to the hidden word. For this particular word, my hair literally started standing on end on my arms and I got goosebumps. I thought it was weird and showed everyone else in the class. This didn’t happen for any of the other words. When the leader revealed that word, it was “evil”. Kind of interesting, huh?
For the other hidden words, I often was pretty accurate about the feeling I got from it, although none of the others gave me the visceral physical reaction “evil” did. We also did some practices where the leader tried to “create” colored balls of light energy and we tried to intuitively figure out what color the balls were. I was surprised how accurate I was on these too, even when I kept feeling it was white, though I didn’t think white was technically a color, so figured that couldn’t be right….however, turned out the instructor had chosen white lol. I even came up with purple and silver when the instructor decided to challenge us and pick two colors at once.
I’m not claiming to be super psychic or anything, although I have always felt I was rather empathic. I think I might keep going to these classes simply to see what happens and because it was rather fun.
What Is It? Photo Guessing Game
Wordless Wednesday: Yeti on a Christmas Tree
Alien Abduction Experience?
You all seemed to enjoy my post the other day about past life dreams, so I thought I would share another weird experience I had years ago. This is the closest thing to an alien abduction experience I have ever had. This is only one of two experiences I have had where I honestly wonder if I was awake or asleep (I’ll tell you about the other otherworldy experience another time). It certainly felt like I was awake for the following experience, but it was so odd I can’t help but wonder.
Here is what I remember of that night:
Being woken up by a bright light and sitting up in bed. I have memories of looking at the window blinds in our room to try to figure out where the light was coming from. The next thing I remember, a few small alien beings entered the room and stood around the foot of my bed. I don’t remember them walking in or anything like that, it seemed like they were just suddenly there. The beings resembled the small grey aliens that have become popularized by pop culture/paranormal communities, maybe around 4 foot tall or so. I remember how smooth and shiny their skin seemed. They seemed to be silhouetted with bit of light too, but nothing like the bright light that woke me.
Naturally, I was terrified by these events and I remember trying desperately to wake my husband up, who was sleeping peacefully next to me. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get him to wake up, which panicked me even more. Suddenly, I found myself laying down again, almost against my will it seemed. I felt myself floating upwards in this horizontal position and then I don’t really remember much else until I was returned. I do not remember going through the ceiling, or being aboard a spaceship, or tests, or anything like that, but I do feel like a lot happened during this blank time in my memory. I do remember kind of floating back down into bed later, the same way I had started to float up. I remember being really sleepy and kind of out of it, almost like I had been drugged or sedated. Due to this, I fell asleep quickly.
If this was a dream and I was asleep the entire time, I find it odd that I don’t remember any of the middle part, even though I remember the beginning and end so vividly and emotionally. Normally, I remember a dream fairly in its entirety, and the more I think about the dream, the more details I remember, but no matter how much I have relived this experience, I really do not remember what happened after floating upwards until I came back down.
I have no idea what really happened that night, but I’ll never forget it. We do live near Wright Patterson Air Force Base, which I later found out is rumored to be highly connected to the Roswell incident, Area 51, and other secret space programs, but who knows? I have heard that UFO activity is common in the area around the base, but that could be due to various military-related programs.
Reincarnation: Remembering Past Lives?
I want to start this post by saying I am not implying that the experiences I will reveal prove that past lives are a thing or that these were definitely my past lives, however, they were interesting experiences and I thought you guys might enjoy reading about them. I do not ascribe to any particular religion or ideology, although I do tend to favor new age spirituality concepts over religious dogma. Reincarnation makes sense to me in many ways, so I do consider it a possibility and enjoy reading about it.
I have had two very emotional, realistic dreams that made me wonder if they may be tied to my past lives. In both dreams, I think the strangest thing was that I was in an entirely different time and place, surrounded by people I do not recognize from this life, but I felt that I intimately knew these people and places, just like I do my own family and home now.
In the first dream, I was in a Celtic land, it felt medieval or earlier to me, although I don’t know the exact era. I was in a wealthy family, maybe even connected to royalty somehow. The dream wasn’t particularly exciting that I remember, just kind of mundane day to day life as a wealthy young lady, but what stood out to me was how emotionally connected I felt to the dream and how deeply I felt connected to people I do not recognize at all from this lifetime. I do have Celtic family roots and have always felt drawn to that culture, but perhaps there is even more to my love for that era than I thought…
In the second dream, I was a young man (really weird for me to dream that!) and I was fighting on a battlefield. I’m not a war historian by any means, but it felt like it was around WW1 from the uniforms and what I saw on the battlefield (I’m not sure what country I was from, but it felt like I was on the side of the allies). I ended up dying in the dream, which is always an interesting experience. I remember most the feeling of camaraderie and deep love I felt towards my “brothers” in uniform. I was almost glad to die if it meant maybe my friends could live. It was a sad and somewhat scary dream, but also full of love and friendship.
I also had one other experience that wasn’t a dream but was very curious. I was meditating, definitely not asleep, when I was suddenly in a foreign but very familiar place. I was in the desert, in what looked and felt to me like ancient Egypt. I saw a young girl climbing a large sand dune and instantly knew that I was that girl, and yet, I was watching events from a distance, outside of her body.
Suddenly, a gang of what I felt were robbers and criminals appeared. This group assaulted the girl and did horrible things to her (I’m sure you can imagine). The odd thing was that even though I felt that girl had been me, I wasn’t emotionally reactive to what I was seeing, at least not in the way you would expect. I didn’t feel fear, anger, trauma, or anything like that, I just felt deep sadness for all involved, both the poor, innocent girl and the deeply misguided men. I actually felt compassion towards these men who had abused me.
I want to say that this meditative experience was only the second time I have ever had something like that happen while meditating. The other time that I suddenly found myself somewhere else, it was simply a field of wildflowers I found myself transported to. I don’t know what the heck that was about lol, but it was a beautiful place.
I hope you enjoyed reading about these odd dreams and visions. If you enjoy this type of stuff, let me know. There are plenty of other odd “woo woo” type of experiences I can share if you are interested!
Poetry: Sword Care Instructions
Sword Care Instructions
By: Maranda Russell
After sharpening,
dust the bejeweled hilt
and place the sword
in clean purple cloth.
Afterwards,
you may admire its sparkle
but do not take internally,
as metal is poisonous
and organs puncture easily.
Weird Outsider Art Sculpture Photo
When I see weird things, especially weird artistic stuff that fits into the category of folk or outsider art, I like to take pictures of them! This past weekend, my husband and I visited a little curiosities shop in downtown Fairborn, Ohio called The Secret Chamber House of Oddities and Artwork. They had this cool looking creature guarding their door, so I just had to get a photo of it:
I hope to return to that shop and maybe take some pics of some of the other cool stuff they had (like some awesome creepy dolls). I find stuff like this so inspiring for my own artistic style. The weirder – the better!!!
TV Blackout Poetry: American Horror Story
Last night while I was watching the 4th season of American Horror Story (Freak Show), I had the idea to write a poem using a similar technique to the “blackout poetry” idea, but instead of using print, I would take a few random phrases or words from the tv show I was watching and put them together to make a poem. It was pretty fun and I do like what I came up with:
American Horror Story
By: Maranda Russell
Laundry detergent commercials
offer their brand of oddity
to the outside world.
Should you hear
sirens call,
remember,
nice don’t pay the bills!
So what do you guys think of my idea? Do you like the resulting poem? It is odd, but I like it.
A Theory About Personality Disorders
While I was writing yesterday’s post about personality disorders, I kind of came up with a theory of my own. That theory is that all of us likely fall somewhere on the spectrum of personality disorders – ALL of us. Granted, it is definitely to greater or lesser extents depending on your experiences, personality type, and genetic makeup, but all of us fall somewhere on the spectrum of narcissism. We all fall somewhere on the spectrum of avoidance and anxiety. We all fall somewhere on the spectrum of neediness and emotional dysregulation. We all fall somewhere on the spectrum of eccentricity.
This theory is very similar to theories I have heard that claim we are all somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Some of us clearly fall heavily on the side of autistic traits, some of us fall in the middle somewhere, and some of us fall heavily on the other side of the spectrum, but we are all on there somewhere.
For personality disorders though, I feel that most of us probably do more closely fit one (or perhaps even two) of the clusters overall. In case you were unaware, there are 3 clusters of personality disorders:
Cluster A (the “odd” or “eccentric” cluster), with Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal personality disorders.
Cluster B (the “dramatic”, “emotional”, or “erratic” cluster), with Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic, and Antisocial personality disorders.
Cluster C (the “anxious”, “fearful” cluster), with Avoidant, Dependent, and Obsessive-Compulsive personality disorders.
I don’t know about you, but almost everyone I know fits quite nicely at least into one of those groups when I consider their overall personality traits. Either I know a lot of messed up people…or maybe having some personality problems is just part of being human? Of course, some take it to the extreme. I myself am so highly anxious and fearful that I would consider it abnormally so. I believe most of that has to do with early attachment issues in childhood and a history of trauma and abuse.
I guess what I am trying to say is that people with personality disorders are not monsters or rare weirdos like many tend to think of them. They are just normal, somewhat dysfunctional people like the rest of us, but perhaps they have a harder time coping due to negative experiences and traumas they have endured. Sure, some of them are assholes, but so is a significant portion of the human race in general…
Maranda Russell 