the burroughs folio - the secret dreamer (2)

a reading of 'the secret dreamer', from The Burroughs Folio / Azure Pantry

sleeplog - 11o325 - "he sleeps with The Log, now"

Definitely have a deeper & more consistent sleep.  Less trouble falling asleep, overall.  Less chronic odd-hours waking.  The aforementioned Clarity is a pronounced & sustained thing.

That said, there's been a couple visual glitches.  Brain has misread visual information a handful of times:  once, misinterpreted an alignment of shadows & trees & road as a person, walking towards me; saw a co-worker wearing a trilby hat when it was a knit cap (tho he'd look great in a trilby); read a fallen, foreshortened branch as a rabbit in a field.  Not a constant, but each, when it's happened, has quite convinced me that I'm seeing B instead of A.  Not anything to worry about, I don't believe.  Quite conscious of the misreadings, so little hazard of this sort of thing leading to an accident.

There may be the potential for mildly psychedelic interaction between marijuana & the lion's mane.  Two days ago I noted the Glow of magenta & green overlaid on my vision, and it stood out quite clearly against the sky while tracking gulls.  The gulls (and passing planes, and any other Focal item) wore crenelated halos of green & magenta.  There's no pronounced psychological state to remark on beyond Clarity; no euphoria or severe changes in mood.  So not full-on psychedelic.  Psy-adjacent.

Also, yesterday, midshift, at one point blinked to do a deep inhale and my stomach did a sudden drop as I had a micro-burst of vertigo.  Wasn't tilting my head vertically or shaking it.  Vanished immediately upon opening my eyes, so not an instance of BPPV-- it wasn't linked to my inner ear the way BPPV has been.

If these are the problems, they're not Problems.

Going to work on the potrait for The Secret Dreamer more today.  Will post progress.

social commentary

sleeplog - 1o3o25

Well, my sleep time is definitely improved.  I seem to be having more vivid dreams, too.  Dad cameoed, which has thrown a shroud over the day overall.  Would say as cognition / art ability goes, today was tanked.  I can function well enough to ad lib a pot of vegetable soup, but as far as being able to make art, eh.  Tried doing a reading on the beach but cam died.

What is this, day four?  Averaging two cups a day, as recommended.  Got my missing issues of 'night life' in the mail.  Will be good to read those.  Hitting the middle of 'The Magician' by Zeischegg-- a tough gnarl about hitting bottom, spiritually, which I grok generally & today in specific.  On volume 4 of 'The Summer Hikaru Died' by Mokumokuren; infinitely better than the anime.  This manga in specific has had me wondering why no one has done a graytone anime; b&w + tones would have worked for this adaptation, in specific.  Money is, natch, the answer.  I do not have a commercial mind.  But you knew that: you're here.

Hitting a lot of Death Grips these last couple days on the mp3 player.  I'm not sure that's a positive.  At least for people sitting close to me.  Is it a good sign when you're in your forties going on fifty and Stefan Burnett speaks most clearly to your sense of Place, in this time & space?

Is anything around us a good sign?

Most of the beach recordings this morning were on that subject, instead of recording a reading from The Burroughs Folio.  The idea with doing readings from that & DENIZEN is mainly for myself to "act out" the speaking parts, so I have more of an idea how to depict the body language of the speakers.  But I was either off-center, incoherent, or the equipment was outta wack.  By the time I settled into doing 'The Secret Dreamer' the battery had died and I hadn't realized, so today's main interval of clarity was lost.

Selah.

the burroughs folio - the secret dreamer (1)

 

pencil rough for the final portrait in the burroughs folio series:  'the secret dreamer'

sleeplog - 1o2925

Very solid night's sleep, and was able to return to sleep without any trouble.  So 5+ hours straight, plus an extra 1.5.  Woke feeling refreshed.  Not how it's been, at all.

Know I dreamt, but can't remember specifics.  Mainly senses of fabric texture & lighting; I know the dreams involved daylight.  Light[ing] is a significant aspect of my dreamlife.  So it's a good sign that I was dreaming about something lit by the sun.

On the "psychedelic" front, yesterday noticed further incidences of the (only slightly stunning, disorienting) aforementioned Clarity.  Art & problemsolving on art was easier.  Chores & tasks flew past without the standard stumbles.  The only point at which I'd say there was that pseudo-psychedelic glimmer was, after Sig returned home?  I noticed having subtle difficulties with visual focus.  Sig would be at an average distance from me and my glasses seemed to hamper my ability to home in; so I ditched them for a bit.  There was a distinct sharpness to my vision for a solid hour, to the extent that my bifocals were simply in the way.

Normally I can't see across the fucking room.

Normally, since the accident.  My vision had been degrading subtly before the skull fracture; afterwards glasses became a necessity.  I'm not saying the lion's mane has "cured" anything, but it does seem to have an effect on my optic nerves.  Yesterday was the first day of taking two cups of tea.  So we'll see what-if-anything happens today.  This could all be purely placebo / delusion.

Reading seemed to be easier, as well.  Blew through 130 pages of Christopher Zeischegg's 'The Magician' in an afternoon.  I've always been able to read fast-ish, but processing & retaining information has been dodgy, and sometimes it can be a foot-dragging chore to Make Myself read, if I'm not in the mindset.

Thus far the medicine seems to be an asset.  Of course nothing is certain or diagnosable straightaway; this stuff could take two weeks to have an actual, cumulative effect.  But I'm paying careful attention, and there's *something* going on, of the positive variety.  So roll on, tomorrow!

sleeplog - 1o2825

Six, going on seven hours of sleep.  Six uninterrupted.

Have begun a new regimen of tiny pills & tea.  It's testing nootropics time for this aging punk.

It's probably wholly psychological but I noted a weird burst of near-psychedelic Clarity some twenty minutes after consuming my first cup of tea.  The effect was so pronounced I had to double check that the mushrooms aren't the kind I overdosed in '99.  But no:  lion's mane has been very thoroughly checked out and it does not make you trip.  Purely psychological, some weird placebo thing.  Dunno.

There's a chance--  not impossible  --that what I experienced was a brief interaction between the ditchweed I smoke and the nootropic; but my liver is not a lab, and my gut instincts are not the most forthcoming when it involves Reasoned Deduction.  I doubt the interaction thesis, not least because the potsmoke was an hour and a half before the tea.  Weed is something my body is quite accustomed to & unless there's a specific visual indicator there's probably not anything psychedelic happening.  If those sectors of my brain are firing off, an optical effect overlays my vision and I perceive a "swirling" of green & magenta.  This optic was not present.  The sensation of preternatural Clarity waned after ten minutes.

I don't have a better description for the feeling.  It was a feeling: and that feeling wasn't familiar.  It seemed like a perceptual shift.  But I didn't perceive anything in particular, or unusual, beyond Clarity.

All that's certain is I slept deeply & well.

sleeplog - 1o2725

The last two days have averaged 4-4.5 hours.  Woke at 3am & 4:45am, respectively.  Today came to at 3:40.  I'd say yesterday and today were restful.  No weird excesses or twitches.  No dreams that I can recall.  Biked a little each morning.  Ankle is a trifle sore from last week's exercise + this week's work, but seems to be healing well overall.

Sig's been going through my physical film collection for seasonal treats.  Saturday we did Leigh Whannell's 'Invisible Man' (2020); last night began Verbinski's 'A Cure For Wellness' (2016).  I note that these savory parables about power & corruption are in the tech & finance sector, respectively, and share a similar ethos in title card reveals.

I'm thinking about the Title Card thing because began doing layouts for DENIZEN, which has a conspicuous title drop, as well as a diagetic use of datestamp.  Can you call a datestamp diagetic?  Don't you wonder some-tiii-ii-iiimes, about sound + vision?  I have plans for word & image, within the body of the comic; arguably diagetic ones.

Right.  Kicking off today.  Got another concept for The Burroughs Folio roughed.  The final of the series, which heretofore had me stymied.  I'm satisfied.  So that's four of the seven portraits for the Folio nailed down.  Even tho it's tried to send me on a totally tangential sidequest about the religious significance of jade in mayan burial ceremonies...