A Land of my own...

[Mystikan]

Hello fellow Thomas Covenant fans!

First, I'll explain that I started this thread in order to describe an experience of mine that I mentioned in Dissecting The Land - Lord Foul's Bane Chapt. 7 (The rape of Lena by TC). I didn't want to hijack that thread with my own saga, however, so I started this one here. There, I described having a unique perspective on this chapter. Heres why:

Ever since I can remember, since I was about four years old, I've been subjected to an ongoing, sequential dream - if what I'm experiencing is a dream. It happens like this: When I go to bed, I sink into unconsciousness as normal, and then I wake up. When I do, I'm in another place. And I'm not a human being when I'm there. I live there, eat, work, interact with "people" - in short, all the things we do in reality. Then, when I go to bed there, I sink into unconsciousness, and wake up back here. This has been happening, without letup, every damn night of my life. I'm not kidding.

The people of this place are called the Aimanhyarin. Their planet is called Aiman. It has two suns, a blue one (which Aiman orbits) and a distant yellow one, like our own Sun. They look superficially human, but they are winged, and they have telepathic and psionic powers as well. They have no technology, yet with their powers they can cross the farthest reaches of space. No part of the Universe is barred to them. And they have an ancient enemy: the Khhyklonakh (pronounce it Syklonian - it's easier). These look like reptiles, but they have a highly advanced technology. These two races are utterly antagonistic, and in the distant past they destroyed an entire galaxy in their unending war. Standing between them is an organization known as the Arnagest, named from the Aimanhyarin words arnad, meaning war, and gestad, meaning peace. I was raised from childhood to serve this organisation, and have risen to a high rank within it. Its motto - Taltharis gestad chel taltharis arnad (Eternal peace through eternal war) - is emblazoned around its insignia in Aimanhyarin script, which you can see in my avatar. In my service to the Arnagest, I have been directly responsible for the destruction of several worlds, in order to prevent the destruction of many more, I have been in love with a wonderful woman there, and I have brought about the death of my own daughter there when she sought to empower the Aimanhyarin in a way that would ineluctably have led to the destruction of the Arnagest and the failure of the Balance that it preserves. This ongoing dream seems in every way as real as my life here on Earth. My alter ego there knows about Earth and perceives it as a dream, a repressed desire to escape all that intergalactic repsonsibility and pressure and just be a little nobody in blissful ignorance on an isolated little world. Other people there, whom I've told about my dreams of Earth, give me this interpretation. People I've told about this here, tell me that my dreams of Arnagest reflect a desire to live like Star Trek, to travel the Universe and see strange new worlds. But I say: at what cost? If travel between worlds carries with it the burdens I must bear in the Arnagest, I'd sooner stay here on Earth - just like my hero TC himself! So you see my dilemma. Exactly the same issue as what TC faced.

If you want to see some pics I've done of what places and people in the Arnagest Universe look like, have a peep at my Gallery. In the Original Gallery and Terragen Gallery you'll find places on Aiman and around the Arnagest Universe, though I've been fairly circumspect in the descriptions. (You'll find some pictures I've done of the Land in the Thomas Covenant Gallery too). I'm also currently developing a game based around the Arnagest Universe, more as a way of justifying to myself why I'm experiencing what I'm experiencing than anything else. So this is how I've portrayed Arnagest on my website. As a game. I've thought long and hard about posting my actual perceptions of it here, but I need other people's input if I'm to understand why this is happening to me, and it seems that people who are into a work like TCTC are the best ones to understand this. I also posted my experience in the Paranormal Experiences section on about.com a few years ago, but all I got was a load of Christians telling me I was possessed by demons and offers of tarot and psychic readings (for a price of cour$e). I'm hoping the responses I get here are more meaningful and mature, since you people have the brains and the guts to be able to read TCTC in the first place.

So you see why I identify so deeply with Thomas Covenant. My story runs much deeper than what I've portrayed above (after all, it's been going on my whole life!); that universe has MUCH more detail than I can imagine: culture, morals, art, science, language, everything. I experience it each night as though it were real, whether I want to or not!

But hey, it's only a dream! Isn't it? Isn't it?

[danlo]

Ok, if you're not putting us on then I'm in your corner. I have had a serial dream of the Land that was not a rehash of the books, it lasted about 6 days. I have had other serial dreams, I have had poems come to me through dreams, I have predicted my dreams earlier in the day and some things in my dreams have come true. I was also convinced I was a alien observer sent from the telepathic planet Liecia in the Gamma Epsilon B quadrant-and I may still be, for all I know . Anything's possible...

Are your people able to travel in space? Have you had a long history with a therapist in regards to this condition? I'm not suggesting you're nuts I just believe it's healthy to monitor it and get feedback-you can't keep this stuff inside. Also to have a witness to this very rare occurence in human history. I've never heard of serial dreams happening for an entire lifetime. Have you ever been to a specialist (I realize it's hard to find a truly good one and not a quack)? Have you ever tried hypnosis or past life regression? They might help...I also not saying you need help I just think these things might uncover some interesting additional information.

I take it that this is also a rare talent among your "dream people" right? All your fellow being don't have serial dreams of other worlds do they?

Have you ever considered writing a book about this? Have you ever tried to seek out whatever is responsible for this gift?

[Loredoctor]

Do both of you have epilepsy by any chance? Curious question.

[Mystikan]

Thanks for your reply, danlo!

Ok, first of all I don't believe that my experience with Arnagest and my life on Earth are connected, in the sense that I don't think I'm here to observe the Earth on behalf of the Arnagest or anything like that. I know some people believe they may be alien observers in human bodies (what you might call the K-Pax syndrome) but I don't think I'm one of them. I don't think this because people in the Arnagest that I've told about Earth simply consider it to be a product of my own imagination, not an actual project or study.

I did spend about two years (1985-86) in therapy for this, but all the doctors did was to pump me full of Tegretol and God knows what else to try to defeat it. They diagnosed temporal-lobe epilepsy and said the experience was the result of a God-complex paranoia resulting from the brain injury that caused the epilepsy. I accept that as a possibility, but given the nature of the experience it's not a satisfactory answer. It's too complete, has too much going on in it that I know little or nothing about. As to being paranoid, I wouldn't really consider myself so. I know viscerally that I'm just one more human being among billions and I don't need delusional fantasies to tell me I'm special in some way!

I've had hypnosis and PLR suggested to me, but truth is after my experience with the therapists I'm afraid to go that way. Could I trust a hypnotist not to implant post-hypnotic suggestions in my sub-conscious, or worse, they might stop it happening without being able to give me an answer. I want an answer to it, not just for it to stop or go away.

Having "dream-worlds" among people in the Arnagest Universe is not common, but it's not unheard of. My Arnagest mentor, Tal-Temalin Lachan, and a friend of mine, Kam-Kalya Sanshina, (both in Arnagest, not this world) have both reported having recurring dreams of other worlds, but these do not seem to be related to Earth, and only Temalin's seems to be lifelong, like mine. I've never encountered anyone on this world who reports an experience quite like mine, although I have had a few friends who report having recurring dreams - just not lifelong ones.

Both the Aimanhyarin and the Syklonians are capable of space travel. They achieve it by altering a universal constant - the Planck-Wheeler length, I think - in a linear tunnel to reduce the objective travel distance. The Aimanhyarin do this by linking minds in a mental gestalt and using psionics to accelerate subatomic particles to light-speed. I'm not fully up on the physics of it, since I don't pilot their ships myself - others do that for me, and I just tell them where to go. My own specialty in the Arnagest is Cultural Semantics - what makes a culture tick, the conditions that cause it to evolve the traits it has, and how it's likely to interact with other cultures - that sort of thing.

The Syklonians have a technological equivalent that allows them to do the same thing. The Arnagest itself uses a combination of psionics and technology, and is the only group I know of able to do this. Psionics and technology seem to be mutually exclusive in the Arnagest universe, since psionics by its very nature precludes the possibility of deception and secrecy - there's no concepts like privacy or competition. Technology on the other hand seems to evolve among races like ours here on Earth - based on deception, secrecy, and competition. The Arnagest is able to combine the two methods because all of its exponents are raised from birth to serve it - it does not recruit children or adults. This upbringing in the Arnagest fundamentally instills a sense of the Balance - a deep and visceral understanding of the responsibilities we face and the self-disciplines required to face them.

I simply wanted to see what people here thought of my experiences, and to see if I could find anyone else that has a similar one - after 37 years, I've found ways of dealing with it myself. But I can't be the only person on this planet who has this, and I think the only way I'm ever going to find an answer is to talk it over with someone else who has it. I think the only way I'm ever going to find such people is to find forums like this one and post my experience until someone comes up and says 'Hey, that happens to me too!' I really don't think anyone who hasn't experienced such a phenomenon could ever truly understand what it's like.

Ur-Vile: Interesting question. Yes, as I pointed out above, I was diagnosed with temporal-lobe epilepsy in 1985 while I was undergoing therapy. And no, I don't think the epilepsy is the sole cause of this. There is probably a connection, but I'm sure there's more to it than that!

[Worm of Despite]

This is perhaps the most compelling thread I've ever read since the Stephen C. McKinney Memorial Thread.

I want to believe you. It's amazing, what you describe. I have lots of questions. How long are the days in the "alternate" reality? Twenty-four hours? It feels as real as this world?

Oh yeah, and do they have music like us? Do they have their own Beatles, heh?

Also . . . I suppose you are fluent in their language, yes?

I never got a chance to say it before, but welcome to the Watch. You're a great addition.

[Loredoctor]

Regardless of my beliefs, it makes a very interesting read, as LF says. And yes, you are a welcome addition to the watch.

[Revan]

Hello fellow Thomas Covenant fans!

First, I'll explain that I started this thread in order to describe an experience of mine that I mentioned in Dissecting The Land - Lord Foul's Bane Chapt. 7 (The rape of Lena by TC). I didn't want to hijack that thread with my own saga, however, so I started this one here. There, I described having a unique perspective on this chapter. Heres why:

Ever since I can remember, since I was about four years old, I've been subjected to an ongoing, sequential dream - if what I'm experiencing is a dream. It happens like this: When I go to bed, I sink into unconsciousness as normal, and then I wake up. When I do, I'm in another place. And I'm not a human being when I'm there. I live there, eat, work, interact with "people" - in short, all the things we do in reality. Then, when I go to bed there, I sink into unconsciousness, and wake up back here. This has been happening, without letup, every damn night of my life. I'm not kidding.

The people of this place are called the Aimanhyarin. Their planet is called Aiman. It has two suns, a blue one (which Aiman orbits) and a distant yellow one, like our own Sun. They look superficially human, but they are winged, and they have telepathic and psionic powers as well. They have no technology, yet with their powers they can cross the farthest reaches of space. No part of the Universe is barred to them. And they have an ancient enemy: the Khhyklonakh (pronounce it Syklonian - it's easier). These look like reptiles, but they have a highly advanced technology. These two races are utterly antagonistic, and in the distant past they destroyed an entire galaxy in their unending war. Standing between them is an organization known as the Arnagest, named from the Aimanhyarin words arnad, meaning war, and gestad, meaning peace. I was raised from childhood to serve this organisation, and have risen to a high rank within it. Its motto - Taltharis gestad chel taltharis arnad (Eternal peace through eternal war) - is emblazoned around its insignia in Aimanhyarin script, which you can see in my avatar. In my service to the Arnagest, I have been directly responsible for the destruction of several worlds, in order to prevent the destruction of many more, I have been in love with a wonderful woman there, and I have brought about the death of my own daughter there when she sought to empower the Aimanhyarin in a way that would ineluctably have led to the destruction of the Arnagest and the failure of the Balance that it preserves. This ongoing dream seems in every way as real as my life here on Earth. My alter ego there knows about Earth and perceives it as a dream, a repressed desire to escape all that intergalactic repsonsibility and pressure and just be a little nobody in blissful ignorance on an isolated little world. Other people there, whom I've told about my dreams of Earth, give me this interpretation. People I've told about this here, tell me that my dreams of Arnagest reflect a desire to live like Star Trek, to travel the Universe and see strange new worlds. But I say: at what cost? If travel between worlds carries with it the burdens I must bear in the Arnagest, I'd sooner stay here on Earth - just like my hero TC himself! So you see my dilemma. Exactly the same issue as what TC faced.

If you want to see some pics I've done of what places and people in the Arnagest Universe look like, have a peep at my Gallery. In the Original Gallery and Terragen Gallery you'll find places on Aiman and around the Arnagest Universe, though I've been fairly circumspect in the descriptions. (You'll find some pictures I've done of the Land in the Thomas Covenant Gallery too). I'm also currently developing a game based around the Arnagest Universe, more as a way of justifying to myself why I'm experiencing what I'm experiencing than anything else. So this is how I've portrayed Arnagest on my website. As a game. I've thought long and hard about posting my actual perceptions of it here, but I need other people's input if I'm to understand why this is happening to me, and it seems that people who are into a work like TCTC are the best ones to understand this. I also posted my experience in the Paranormal Experiences section on about.com a few years ago, but all I got was a load of Christians telling me I was possessed by demons and offers of tarot and psychic readings (for a price of cour$e). I'm hoping the responses I get here are more meaningful and mature, since you people have the brains and the guts to be able to read TCTC in the first place.

So you see why I identify so deeply with Thomas Covenant. My story runs much deeper than what I've portrayed above (after all, it's been going on my whole life!); that universe has MUCH more detail than I can imagine: culture, morals, art, science, language, everything. I experience it each night as though it were real, whether I want to or not!

But hey, it's only a dream! Isn't it? Isn't it?

WOW! Thanks been going on your whole life!

[Mystikan]

LF: To answer your questions as best I can...

The length of the "day" varies depending on what planet you come from, of course. Aiman's day is 26.5 hours long, Khhyklonakha's (Syklonians' homeworld) day is 19.75 hours long. The amount of time I spend there each "session" though, has no bearing on the length of the day. When I was a child, it seemed rarely more than maybe 4-5 hours at a stretch; as I got older, the "session" duration got longer. At the moment it actually seems to be around 100-odd hours at a stretch; that is, it seems that I now spend 10-12 times as long in that Universe than I do here. But the time-perception appears subjective, some things seem to happen slower and others faster there than here, like a conversation that would take ten minutes here might take an hour there, and a 4-mile journey of an hour here might take an ten minutes there - it's difficult to explain what it's actually like. It's not like seeing a movie in slow motion or sped up; everything seems to be at "normal" speed, but just takes different amounts of time in a weird way. This holds true here as well; when I was a child, a year was like an eternity; now, it's a case of "Hell, where did the last year go?" or "It's a half-hour walk into Adelaide, but I'd swear I've just done it in five minutes!" Those of you who are older would probably realise just what I mean by this! Perhaps my best comparison would be to say that what Escher is to perspective, my experience is to time.

It certainly seems as real as this world. Food tastes real and solid, it hurts if I cut myself, it's a relief to go to the bathroom, it's wonderful when I make love. The people there have definite personalities, and I can't always predict what they're going to say other than knowing how they're likely to react to a given stimulus, much as someone here knows, for example, how his wife is going to react to the news that he's been with someone else.

Aimanhyarin music is simple but sublime. In the villages it's largely medieval-sounding, mostly flutes, plucked strings, different-sized crystals hung in a row, etc. In the larger cities it's more sophisticated, choral and operatic in sound. They don't have anything like the Beatles, since there's no multinational record industry marketroids telling them what's hot and what's not - each city, each village has different tastes and many artists simply travel between them, none of them particularly "famous" in the sense of the Beatles and so forth. For them, music is an expression of feeling, not a marketable commodity. If you want an idea of what it sounds like, the closest stuff I've heard to it on this planet is the work of Kitaro - listen to his "Silk Road" CDs or "Tenku" and you'll have a fair idea. City songs range from an "Arabic" type sound, similar to Alisan's "Kundurama Kum Doldu" to an operatic sound like the King's College Choir performing Carl Orff's "O Fortuna" or Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei" Adagio. And much more the like of which I've never really heard on this planet!

As to being fluent in their language, yes and no. When I'm here, my life there seems distant and dreamlike, and I find it hard to recall their exact phrases and grammar. If I meditate and reach within myself, I can dredge it up, but I cannot hold a waking conversation in it. Likewise, when I'm there, this world seems distant and dreamlike, then I can't remember English very well. I've been told by people here, when I've slept at their houses, that I often talk in my sleep, rapidly and in a strange language, which I presume is Aimanhyarin. Interestingly, I only recall one instance when Kailin (Shan-Kailin Palandi, the mother of my children there) asked me once what language I spoke when I was asleep - I can only presume that would be English...

I do sometimes go into meditation and write stuff down while in the trance state. From this, I've been able to design a font of Aimanhyarin script (which I've used around the rim of my avatar), and noted a few phrases from the language. Here are some samples:

Kelahin cen anchak valaran, tal chak valaran kehantari (Greatness comes not from power, but from wisdom in power's uses.)

Fen tielvalan anharel kham chaeli marath (By mindpower(psionics) alone shall you(plural you) serve.)

Talyn oranlaer, shalayne (Good morning, dear friend)

Talyn oranlaer, talayne (Good morning, acquaintance)

Ta sayan che (I love you) - man to woman; Te sayan cha (I love you) - woman to man; Ta payan che (I love you) - father to daughter; Te tayan cha (I love you) - daughter to father. Unlike English, which uses the word "love" for many completely different emotions, the Aimanhyarin have many different words for "love" which describe qualitatively the different feelings involved; ie what a man feels for his wife is different to what he feels for his child, or what a child feels for its parents, and so forth.

Also, the Aimanhyarin language specifies gender in all personal pronouns - Ta = I, male; Te = I, female; Cha = You, male; Che = You, female; Sa = He; Se = She. There is also a generic gender-neutral pronoun used where the gender of the person addressed is not known. Thus, Saer = He/She; Chaer = You, gender-neutral. However, it is considered extremely rude and ignorant to use a gender-neutral pronoun where the gender IS known or is obvious. And to use Taer (I, gender-neutral) is considered foolish when speaking to people; it is used only in formal writing where the gender of the writer is irrelevant to the topic.

I hope all this answers your questions and gives you a bit of an idea of the sort of reality this thing represents to me.

[Worm of Despite]

Ah yes, a very enlightening read! I wonder, though, do you think this is something another person would choose to live through? Is it more of a curse or blessing to you? Or both? Being a writer, I'd love to have such things like this happening to me every once in a while. It'd give me endless material, for sure.

[danlo]

Mystikan have you ever read the science fiction Neverness or it's sequel The Broken God (by David Zindell)?--the Devaki language in those books has somewhat of a similar structure to yours. Regardless-someone like you should find these books fascinating...

[Mystikan]

do you think this is something another person would choose to live through? Is it more of a curse or blessing to you? Or both? Being a writer, I'd love to have such things like this happening to me every once in a while. It'd give me endless material, for sure.

It's not really a question of choice... it just happens whether I want it to or not. I think if anyone else experiences a similar phenomenon, it would either kill them (ie they'd commit suicide) or they'd just deal with it the way I have.

When it's this intense, it does have the effect of altering your perception of reality. In asking the question "which one is real?" I live by saying they both are in their own contexts. Earth is real only to Earth. Arnagest is real only to Arnagest. Wherever I am, what is around me is real, and all else is a dream. The mental process involved could be likened to George Orwell's concept of doublethink in 1984, where the mind can hold a thing is both true and false at the same time.

Blessing or curse? Both, I think. I've seen and learned much more than most people could ever hope to, and to me that is a great gift, beyond price. I've known love in a way I could never hope to achieve on Earth - humans don't have the Aimanhyarin telepathic abilities. I've beheld worlds and cultures our best sci-fi writers could only guess at. I've tasted foods that gourmet chefs would kill for. I've heard music that has made my soul overflow. I've seen ruins that are older than the Earth, and spaceships bigger than the continent I live on. For all these things, for me to have experienced them as a reality unto themselves, is a blessing, a great blessing. But the responsibilities I've faced in Arnagest, the decisions I've had to make, are often horrendous both in nature and magnitude. Seeing an entire world gutted of all life in a movie is entertainment. Seeing it happen in what amounts to a real-life experience is sickening in a way that makes the Holocaust look like a party squabble - and I mean NO disrespect to the victims of the Holocaust. It feels that terrible. Being a nobody here on Earth is an indescribable relief, believe me! Treasure your mundane existence, be glad that any imaginary world you have in your head reveals no life beyond your own experience, because the burden of responsibility at that level is far too high a price to pay for being able to behold the wonders of the Universe.

This is why I've had so much trouble trying to write a book about my experiences in Arnagest. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it. Every time I try to write down my experiences, it all comes flooding back and terrifies the hell out of me. Don't get me wrong, it's not all horrible, and I've had some incredible times there (Imagine what it's like when two telepaths fall in love!), but the horrors that go with it would have to also be revealed in any book I write about it. Imagine how our friend TC would feel about writing a book about his life in the Land, about Lena and Elena, and what happened to him there. Could he confess to his fellow human beings that he's a rapist, even in a dream? Look at how people reacted to him in the LFB Chapt 7/8 thread in Dissecting the Land. Were he a real person, how many of those people would feel comfortable with him if he, and not SRD, were the true author of the Chronicles? That's why I identify with him so strongly. I know what he's gone through in a way few readers can comprehend. Can you understand why I so greatly need to find another person who has endured a similar experience? Don't wish this upon yourself, Lord Foul. Do you really think you would want to pay the price, simply to be able to write a book?

---

Danlo: No, I haven't read Neverness, but I'll keep an eye out for it at my local bookstore. Thanks for the pointer, it'll be interesting to see what this Devaki language is like!

[Worm of Despite]

Do you really think you would want to pay the price, simply to be able to write a book?

Hmm . . . I can't really say. I know that normal dreams have drawn authors to great inspiration and poetry, so something like this would truly be a gift in that sense. But you're right; it's not all roses and walks through the garden, as far as this symptom of alternate realities is concerned. It's a hard question--one that I don't think I can answer unless I experienced it for myself.

[Mystikan]

Yes, I know it sounds really weird... I am trying to write a book, don't know how well it will come out though. The hard part will be conveying the depth of it all without bogging the reader down in details!

Sorry if I came across a bit heavy last post, I'd just woken up and it was still strong in my mind! I appreciate your understanding, and thanks very much for the support!

[Blue_Spawn]

Sure, right a book about it. It seems you posses enough detail to structure the foundations of a descent novel. Go for it.


You can also change names and such so you don't have to tell everybody its "you" thats in it.

[Tulizar]

I can't imagine having such serial dreams. It sounds like a blessing and a curse.



Does your Earth occupation/job correlate in any way with your position in the Arnagest?


Does any part of your Earth life seem to parallel your dream existence?

[Mystikan]

Does your Earth occupation/job correlate in any way with your position in the Arnagest?
Does any part of your Earth life seem to parallel your dream existence?

It doesn't seem that way. In some respects, a few aspects are almost opposite. For example:

1) In the Arnagest, I am a high-ranking official (my title is Akhada, which translates loosely as a "Lord of the Arnagest"), one of (currently) 26 Akhadi who oversee the major operations of the Arnagest. Here, I'm currently unemployed and looking for work in IT (I have a Diploma of IT - Software Engineering, and Cert. IV Worplace Assessment), and I've never held any job of real note or influence.

2) In the Arnagest, I can command starships capable of traveling all over the Universe, not just one galaxy, but millions. Here, I've been living in one city (Adelaide, South Australia) since I was 7 years old.

3) In the Arnagest, I partnered a woman of the Aimanhyarin race (Shan-Kailin Palandi) and have had 3 children by her. Here, I've never even had a girlfriend, let alone kids. (I guess women here find me a bit... well, kooky! )

Looking at it like this, it's easy to think that Arnagest reflects my own hidden desires of what I might want from life - power, influence, the ability to travel, someone to love and have a family with. But if this were the case, I think that many of the problems I've faced in the Arnagest would not have occurred. If it were pure imagination, surely I'd have the power to change outcomes - I've spoken to a few dream therapists in my life, who explained how I can "take control" of my dreams and proactively determine what happens in them. I have not been able to do this in the Arnagest.

As an example, my eldest daughter died in a Syklonian attack that I authorised and provided transportation for. She was helping the Aimanhyarin engage in a project that would have created extensive political turmoil and destruction over millions of inhabited worlds, and it was necessary that I prevent its completion. Causing the death of one's own child does not seem to me to be an ideal fantasy, in fact I was very hurt inside by the experience. Could I bring her back by any means, I would certainly do so, yet I have not the power to bring back the dead, neither there nor here. I can fantasise in my head about bringing her back all I want, but when I go to sleep and wake up there, she's not there - dead is dead.

For all my power and influence there, I am not God. Many things happen that I have no control over, and I am swept up in them and carried along like a twig in a river. It is interesting to note that my Arnagest alter ego greatly desires and wishes for the freedom, lack of burdening responsibility, simple life, and basic needs I enjoy here on Earth.

It is this aspect that makes the whole thing so confusing. As myself here, I'd love to have the spaceships and be able to visit other worlds, and to be with Kailin and my children there, and to behold the splendour and beauty of Aiman with my human eyes. But as Akhada Jal-Jhareth Aishelt of the Arnagest, I'd much rather be spared the pain I've endured there, and enjoy my simple uncluttered life, working at enjoyable, undemanding jobs (or looking for same), doing creative things with my computer, and hanging around with my friends. Either way, the one world seems to reflect the wishes and desires that I feel in the other! A saying about grass being greener comes to mind...

Aside from these apparent opposites, there seems to be no correlation between events in the Arnagest and events here on Earth. My daughter in the Arnagest died at a time when, here, I was working at a printing firm, and starting to set up a fridge-magnet business with my friend as a partner, and all seemed to be going well. Nothing was really happing in my life here that I can connect with such a traumatic event there. Similarly, when I met Kailin on Aiman, here I had started undergoing treatment for temporal-lobe epilepsy, and had also gained a job as a counter clerk at a local government office.

I'm just comparing events that stand out to me in my life here, that seem to be contemporaneous across the two worlds, but I can't really see any particular relationship between the two in terms of what takes place, either here or there.

[Silverleaf]

This is odd, just plain odd.

I've had dreamstates like yours, but mine are a world like The Land - but with more water, and a larger variance in temperate regions. In many instances, I feel like I've been awake for days while there, only to wake up 6 hours later here, and be totally drained.

I've been to hypnotists, through therapy, and yet even a 2 hour nap can turn into a 3 month altered world vacation - for lack of better word. Someday I'll put all I've been through on paper - though it wouldn't be good reading like SRD books, but it does have its own rewards.

So, I just wanted to comment that you've already written quite a bit about your backround there, and IMHO that is indeed the beginnings for a book - or at the very least a journal.

Perhaps doing so would help you to come to grips with it, or at least understand the value that such a place holds. The key may very well be to record your sleep periods here, and then see if you can close the gap between realities. Thank you for sharing.

Cheers,

R.S.

[Mystikan]

R.S.:

Now you're just the sort of person I'm interested in discussing this with. Someone who experiences an alternate world, as it were a actual reality - going by what you say about spending months there in a small amount of Earth-time.

Definitely put it all down on paper. I myself am currently putting together all my notes, maps and pictures into a website which I hope to have online as soon as my (slack-ass) friend gets around to registering the domain name and setting up the host server for me. One of things I'm planning for my site is a facility for people like yourself to add their own worlds and experiences to it, so we can create a kind of collective online Universe that just might help find the answers to such experiences.

Don't worry about not being able to match up to SRD in your writing. SRD is a genius, one of a kind, with a rare skill in knowing how to tell a story. You may not have his skill, nor do I, but that does not diminish the depth of our experiences, their meaning, or what they represent.

How much detail can you remember of your experiences? If you spent a subjective 3 months there in a two hour dreamstate, you would have had many opportunities to note minutiae; language, customs, culture, lifestyle, places, etc. Are the inhabitants human like us, or simply humanlike, as with the Aimanhyarin of my experience? Do they speak English or another language? What is their music like? What do they eat? What social mores and customs do they have?

While I have posted considerable detail in this thread, I've only scratched the surface of all I can tell about the Aimanhyarin and the Arnagest. I'm in two minds about a book; do I really want to publish my own personal life experience there, and if so, how to go about it without either sensationising to the point of ridiculousness, or making myself seem to be a complete nutcase. For now, I'm focusing on the website and getting all the info about the entire Arnagest Universe online. One of my major concerns with this world is its people's tendency to misjudge and condemn what they don't understand, which is why I'm choosy about what forums I decide to make all this known in. People who find spiritual fulfilment in works such as TC, such as those here on this forum, are the ones most likely to offer helpful thoughts without judgement or condemnation, so I put some of it here. After all, I don't want to end up in some institution because people think I'm suffering from schizopheric delusions (I'm cautious about telling people in Arnagest about Earth for the same reason).

Which brings me to my last point: Have you told anyone in your otherworld about Earth? If so, what are their reactions? If not, next time you're there, tell someone you know and trust about Earth and see what they say. This will tell you a great deal not only about how the people there perceive their own reality, but also reveal much to you about how you perceive your own.

Dream well,
Mystikan

[UrLord]

Wow, this is certainly an interesting thread. I've never heard of anything like what you're describing...a life long continuous dream. Of course, I have no way of telling whether you've actually experienced this or if you're just a clever storyteller...(I don't mean to question your integrity, but I don't know you personally, and the internet is full of liars) Regardless, this is really an amazing story. If you want my opinion, I'd say that you really should try to write a book about your experiences, either write something of an autobiography in which you tell about both your real life (I apologize if you find this term offensive, but being a scientist by nature, I find it difficult to accept that you mentally travel to a distant parallel universe every night) and your dream, or simply write about your alter-ego. Either way, you don't have to tell people that the books come directly from your own experiences, not unless you mind your book being placed under "Science Fiction."

I wish I could write a post that's more helpful to you, but my experience with the subject is limited to the following (rather dubious in their similarity) experiences:

1. I've had quite a few incredibly vivid dreams during my life, some of which left me yelling as I awakened, or simply incredibly nervous and shivering...At the time I could recall in incredible detail what the dream was about, but now I really have only a memory of the memory of my dream...

2. I've had lifelong "serial dreams," but they are really sporadic in nature and never happen even two nights in a row. Two parts of the same dream might have years in between, though it seems that no time has passed in my "dream world." Somewhat the opposite of your experience (and TC's) I suppose...

3. I've understood fragments of (what I believe to be entirely self-invented, of course) languages from dreams. Of course, these have also faded into nothing more than a memory of a memory...

Regarding your "therapy," I can completely understand your unwillingness to stop having these dreams. After all, if they seem to you as real as your Earth-life, ending your alternate life would be like a partial suicide, and I'm going to go ahead and assume that you're not suicidal. In this, I think you can take your cue from TC, for whom the "reality" of the Land doesn't matter. Your experience has its own value, regardless of whether I or anyone else disbelieves its "existence."

And now (yes, this post continues) I have one question for you. Since it seems that you spend more and more time in your alternate world per night of Earth-time, doesn't that mean that your alter-ego ages significantly faster than you do? Do they even age at the same rate at humans do, and if so do you fear dying of old age (or otherwise, really) in your alternate world long before you reach old age here? (Ok, that became 3 questions...bleh)

I think I'll go ahead and stop here, as I've been thinking quite a bit about this since I read this thread last night...as I've said, it's incredibly interesting, and I could spend a long time discussing this.

[Mystikan]

UrLord: First I'd like to say that your use of the term "real life" in no way offends me! Part of the way I cope with it is that I accept wherever I am at the time as the "real" world with the other being "imaginary". That way at least, I can maintain my sense of identity as well as not causing others around me to think I'm a nut. And, yes, I agree with you that the Internet is full of liars (You don't have to tell me, I know.) I can only say that what I've posted here is the impressions I've got of what seems to me to happen; but I don't pretend to have an answer for it. I don't claim that Arnagest is either real or imaginary in totality; but while I am here, this is the real world and that is the imaginary one. I swap sides on that when I'm there.

If it were real, then science would have some heavy explaining to do; but if it is purely imaginary, then I dream consecutive instalments in full-technicolour surround-sound VR with tactile and olfactory experiences on top. I've formed emotional attachments with the people I meet in Arnagest, so "real" and "other than myself" they do seem. Multiple Personality Disorder, anyone? Yet these "others" never manifest themselves in my real life, either in me, my words or actions, nor in any other people I've met on Earth. I don't hear voices, or have any awareness of them in waking life other than my memories of the Arnagest experience.

Thinking as a scientist, I could consider the experience to be purely psychological. Perhaps there is an aspect of the linguistic centre of the brain that can "dream" its own languages, for how do we actually understand what words mean? You are looking at a screen with little markings on it; you are scanning the markings with your eyes and turning them into sounds in your head; and the sounds convey thought patterns by which your mind can echo what is going through mine as I write this. The part of the brain that transforms sound into concept could well be the source of my Aimanhyarin and Khhyklonakh languages. And the part of my brain that questions and comprehends reality could equally be the source of my Arnagest experiences.

Yet even this argument has been used by others in Arnagest against the existence of Earth, other than as a purely imaginary construct of my own mind. That's the part I seek an answer to. If the existence of both worlds demand mutual exclusivity, or as SRD puts it somewhere in the TC books, "the terms of my world contradict yours... its terms are that your world is a dream" (or words to that effect), then either people here or people in Arnagest are either lying or deluded about their own reality. The others in Arnagest insist upon their reality every bit as strongly as you do yours. And I have no effective way of proving either side right or wrong, so all I can do is accept each reality on its own terms as and when I experience it.

In answer to your final question; yes, my Aimanhyarin alter ego does age faster than my human self. I've been trying to calculate the time difference recently; going back over all my notes and diaries, I managed to create a rough spreadsheet graph of how the timescale has increased over the years. From this I produced the estimate that my alter ego would, in Earth time, now be around 320 years old; and the average lifespan of Aimanhyarin on that same scale would be around 800 - 900 years, with a long-lived few cracking a millennium. If the timescale continues to increase at its current rate, (it does seem to have started leveling off slightly over the past few years) my alter-ego should hit that age around about the time I turn 70 here. (I'm currently 37).

And believe me, it feels like three centuries! But don't ask me to explain what that feels like, since I can't compare Arnagest history to Earth history. Here, in the last 300 years, we've gone from steam engines to space travel, while in Arnagest world populations have ebbed and flowed, wars have been waged, empires won and lost. The difference is that I've watched the latter happen over my life in Arnagest, while for the history of Earth I have only history books to fall back on. Perhaps imagine what it would have been like to live 300 years from, say, 300 BC to 1 BC. You would not see any precipitate changes in the world, no world-shaking inventions like the steam engine or the car or the plane. You would see the gradual decline of the Greek Empire and the rise of the Roman, but technology and social behaviour would remain much the same. There would not be significant variation between conditions at your birth and your death. Now picture the same relative stasis of condition over long periods of time, but with space travel involved, and you begin to get the idea. The rapid pace of development on Earth in the last 300 years would certainly be accounted highly unusual in the annals of the Arnagest...

I admit to harbouring the curious idea that my deaths here and in Arnagest will be concurrent and in some way connected. Damn... I get to die twice! Hmmm, that sucks I think...

Have you ever seen a movie from the late 80s or early 90s called Flatliners? Now I'm not suicidal, but I confess that if I were granted an opportunity to undergo a near-death experience like that shown in that movie, I'd probably try it, if only to see if that hypothesis were true. It'd have to be under very competent medical supervision of course; I don't actually want to die, just to see how close I could get and whether this would answer my question! If you haven't seen Flatliners, I suggest you pop down to your local video/DVD rental and get it, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about!