Tuesday, November 13, 2007

I am here. No, I am there.

I had a very strange experience a few days ago. Last week, I moved my computer from my bedroom to my living room (our home office). It's a corner desk and I set it up the same way in both places, so if you are sitting there, staring at the computer, what you see (keyboard, monitor, pencil cup...) is exactly as it was. It would not be surprising that I got momentarily confused by which room I was in. What DID happen was not only surprising, but even a bit disturbing....

I was playing a computer game the other night when I noticed a light come on in my periphery. I immediately thought
that must be my wife going into the bathroom

but then a louder thought, if "louder" is the right word, responded:
No, you are in the living room. That light had to come from outside or in the dining room.

Then the two thoughts began to argue with each other.
You're in the dining room.
No, you're in the living room.

I could even see a mental picture of the floor plan of my house and mentally feel the two thoughts having a tug of war - a marker was sliding back and forth on the map between the two different locations.

This was not a fleeting experience. It lasted for four of five seconds. I sat there unmoving at my keyboard while my brain fought with itself. I started to get disoriented. I had to force myself to turn my chair and face the direction the light came from in order to determine where the hell I actually was. I looked into the dining room for a few seconds - because it took that long for my brain to decide that it was, indeed, the dining room that I was looking at. For a split second, I saw a dual image of the dining room AND the master bathroom. It was only after staring at it that I determined what it was.

We are in the living room.

I sat there for a second as if I had just woken up from a dream of some kind. Then I laughed it off and went back to playing my game.

A half an hour later, it started to happen again! I could sense two thoughts starting to argue over where I was, but this time, a third thought (me?) mentally yelled for them to "SHUT UP!" At that point, I think I got up and went somewhere else, I don't really remember.

Am I going nuts?