Friday, April 3, 2009

MEDIUM

I love the TV show Medium. It’s very entertaining and right up my alley. It’s very accurate too. Psychic-ness really does work the way they demonstrate on the show, at least for me it does.

I don’t have nearly the exciting life that Allison Dubois has, or that of her TV character. But the psychic experiences in my life that I have had do correlate strongly with the way Allison has them on the show. One recent show was the one where she had dreams of the apocalypse. With this little information to go on, she became afraid that the world really would be coming to an end soon. In reality, however, it turned out that there was a man who kept a young woman hostage in an underground shelter. He was able to keep her there because he had convinced her the end of the world had come.

The reason why Allison’s dreams start out confusing that way—seemingly giving her incorrect or very inaccurate information--is because her first glimpse of the “overall picture” of information is but a very minute, very acutely focused framework of information, with her only link to the overall picture being her psychic connection through another person’s perspective of reality. That link gives her a very narrow perspective of focus. From that very narrow perspective of focus, it’s very easy to be too close to the picture.

At such a close range, as we interpret what we perceive, we may end up with a slightly inaccurate, slightly distorted picture of what’s real. This happens with little information to go on—we make associations to the information perceived and interpreted within that small framework. Sometimes the small framework you are tapping into is the perceived and interpreted framework created by someone else. In the case of the young woman believing the apocalypse had come, that was her framework of belief which Allison tapped into.

Emotions seem to be the worst culprits for creating these narrow perspectives of reality. It’s easy to get sucked in along some emotional thread, and the closer you get the more narrow your focus of information becomes—and the less new information you are able to perceive. I remember the many times my daughter would over-react to falling and getting hurt, and I’d hear her cry and wail and act like the whole world was coming to an end. It’s easy to get sucked in by other people’s emotional drama and easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. In this case, the bigger picture is that life has little bumps and bruises along the way and it’s really not the end of the world. So you just pick her up, kiss the boo-boo, and do something to make her smile or laugh. Then it’s all over. Your kid grows up thinking what a wonderful and level-headed person you are, when she really has no idea what heart-ache and panic you actually do go through those first few moments of hearing her cry and wail in pain. Little does she know that for a few seconds you do feel like your world is coming to an end. Thoughts race through your head, as you race to your child, that your worst nightmare has just happened, only for you to find out it’s just a scraped knee. What a relief. Utter crisis was averted and rational thinking is allowed to resume. That relief is what gives us moms that all-amazing power to appear wonderful and level-headed.

Our emotional connections with people are like that. We get misguided through misinterpretations of information, especially when emotions are steering the wheel. I’m often able to pick up on the thoughts and feelings of others, especially when they are going through something very emotional. I’ll even feel exactly what they are feeling as if what they’re experiencing is happening to me. My son and I are very close that way. When I pick up on his emotions, I experience them as if they are my own and it can be very confusing because I won’t understand why I’m feeling what I’m feeling. When I finally get more information coming in, then the real picture comes and it all makes sense.

BACK TO THE CRUISE….

While on the cruise I had a great little psychic experience that demonstrates this concept, although without the emotional drama link I described above. But there was a link just the same, the interpretation of which misdirected my information of the bigger picture just a little bit. But only a bit. I’m happily impressed with what I received from my perspective.

It was the last night of the cruise, which they dub the “all-night jam”. Everyone anticipates it as being the biggest show and the best time on the ship. Any members of all the bands on board get together starting somewhere around midnight and play and sing and continue nonstop until the wee hours. I remember on the first cruise, the theme seemed to be that no one was allowed to stop playing—whether this was the “rule” or just a “contest”, I don’t know—while one song led into another without discussion or pre-arrangement. With so many band members participating, it was an amazing and entertaining show. One person would move into another song, by anyone in any genre, and the others would catch on real fast and fall in line. It was great.

On this particular cruise I expected the same amazing time, but there was only one problem. The weather all week had been uncharacteristically cold and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stay for much of the all-night jam since it was to be held outside on the pool deck of the ship. I planned ahead, though, and Thursday morning bought a pull-over with a hood—what they are calling “hoodies” these days—in anticipation of a cold night.

Some time in the afternoon I had a flash of a daydream-type thought pass through my mind. In it, I saw myself standing in front of one of the inside stages in a small venue they call Bar City. The stage was a very small one, and the audience area always became over crowded during any show that was held there, despite the winding staircase that led to an over-looking balcony from the next floor up. In my vision I was the only person in the audience. I was watching the tech crew set up equipment for that night’s all-night jam. As I watched in my mind, I had the knowing come to mind that they were setting up the equipment wrong and that this would cause a circuit to blow later on during the show. The me in my mind’s eye wanted to tell the crew! I wanted to alert them to this error immediately and save them from frustration and embarrassment and save the audience from the misfortune of an interrupted jam session. But the vision was as short-lived as the blink of an eye.

I thought nothing more of it and passed it off as a elusive daydream of no significant importance. Just my mind wandering, I thought.

It wasn’t until 8:30 that evening that I began to wonder if there might be more to my insignificant daydream than I first realized. We were informed by a passerby, as we sat resting in Bar City while awaiting another show to begin, that the all-night jam had been officially moved from outdoors to indoors and that it would be taking place right there in Bar City. I was shocked and in disbelief. Surely they would have thought better than to try to pack the large expectant crowd into the smallest venue on the ship. But as she pointed to just past my head to prove it, I turned around and saw that directly behind me was a sign taped to the wall stating it was so. The all-night jam was now going to be held in Bar City following the midnight show by Acid Wish. I was thankful, as many others were, that they had decided to move the jam in from the freezing cold, but I was bummed that it had been placed in this venue. I sat there debating…did I really want to save a good spot up front for hours and sit through Acid Wish just so that I could ensure myself having a good spot for the all-night jam? Nope. I didn’t.

We meandered the rest of the evening and eventually made our way back to Bar City some time past midnight. The floor was packed. The stairs were packed. The balcony was packed. As the all-night jam took off I was lucky if I could stand on my tippy-toes long enough to see the tops of the heads on stage. The hours passed and there was still no sign of my vision coming true. The only true part so far was that the all-night jam was indeed being held in Bar City—that alone was really neat. I find it fascinating when any amount of psychic phenomena can be validated.

It was about 3:30 am when I could hardly stand on my feet any longer, let alone my tippy-toes. I had found a spot on the stairs and had a much better view. Unfortunately Jim of Barenaked Ladies, and his brother Andy were nowhere to be found. I was hoping they wouldn’t be on stage but would instead be in the audience so that I could speak with them about my book. At some point the song “500 Miles” began. I told myself I’d stay through this one but afterwards would have to definitely call it a night. Dustin had moved up closer to the stage but was still amidst a packed crowd. The crowd had thinned out somewhat, but not much. Nearly at the end of the song I saw him turn around and wave me to come up next to him.

Despite not wanting to stand on my tippy-toes again, I did move closer, figuring I wasn’t going to stay much longer anyway. Once there in the middle of the floor, among the crowd, the power went out. The lights were still on, but there was no sound coming from the stage. At first I wondered why the playing and singing were cut so abruptly, forgetting my vision from earlier in the day. But then I remembered! Could it really be that the circuit was blown? Was my vision coming true?

I couldn’t see what was happening on stage, but after "500 Miles" I could barely see Ed conducting the audience to singing "Hey Jude" to keep the jam going without breaking the “no stopping” rule until they could fix the power. A few minutes later Ed held something up high for everyone to see. He had written on a cardboard box “Blew a circuit! Working on it", and he passed it around the crowd.


I couldn’t believe it! The information in my vision had come true. I immediately assumed the cause had been due to some equipment failure or overload, as I had experienced in my vision. The jam ended shortly afterwards as it was now nearly 4 am anyway.
I came to find out some time later, after coming back home, that the cause of the silence from stage wasn’t actually due to a blown circuit. There was word that the ship’s crew had purposely pulled the plug as a way to get us to shut down the jam! Well, that new piece of information threw me for a loop.
Why had I gotten the vision and information of a blown circuit, and consequently why had Ed passed around his sign if this had all actually been due to the power being purposely cut? I tried to verify this information with the cruise coordinators but no one had the real story.
A friend of mine, though, said she had been up front and next to the stage during the whole all-night jam and she had heard from the tech crew that it wasn’t a failure on their part, but that the plug had been pulled on them.
Ok, well since I still haven’t gotten it officially verified, I’ll have to assume that that’s truly what happened. Even so, my psychic “daydream” had indeed come true. In analyzing this, I realized that my psychic connection was through Ed’s information of his experience. He must have quickly assumed it was due to a blown circuit which is what prompted him to write the sign and pass around. And perhaps my experience of seeing the sign became my emotional thread of experience from that moment to my “past” self several hours earlier that afternoon. For the most part, what I experienced was correct. The power went out. Period. Whether it was caused by a faulty connection, overload, or the plug being pulled by a cranky ship crew at 4 am didn’t really matter. I experienced what I experienced through my own perspective of reality. I still find myself wondering why my psychic vision earlier in the day wasn’t just simply a vision of seeing Ed hold up the sign.
I see in my other psychic experiences how this process works. Sometimes the psychic picture I get is right on the money. And sometimes it’s skewed by the emotional thread connection to another person’s beliefs, thoughts, or feelings, along with my own mind making up its own interpretations of what’s true. We never really get a real picture of what’s really out there, we only always get what we perceive and interpret through our own awareness.
People often wonder why psychic information doesn’t come through as precisely as real-world information actually is. But I know from my own first-hand experience how the emotional thread connections to other people work, how their beliefs influence our own, and how our own thoughts and beliefs interpret and misinterpret the information we perceive. Our very experience of reality is more “influenced” by others (and our own awareness) than we realize.
I always say, reality is only my experience of conscious awareness.

THE CRUIZAH!

So I've been back from the Barenaked Ladies Ships and Dip V cruise for over a month now.

Came back home with a nasty cold. Silly me, I forgot to bring my PARKA to Florida! Goodness it was cold.

The week we were gone, Colorado had temperatures in the 70s and Florida in the 30s! The world must be coming to an end! Florida is the new Colorado!

Ok, I'm over it. I was just bitter that I had packed nothing but shorts and t-shirts and then found I had to stand outside in cold wind all week. One of the locals in Miami looked at us and said, "You guys aren't from around here are you? Where are your sweaters?"

We thought we'd be smart and save money by taking the cheapest transportation we could, so once we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, we waited outside the airport for the free shuttle bus. Unfortunately we had to wait 45 minutes--in the cold and wind. Once the bus came it took us to the train station. The train would only cost $4 per adult and $2 per child--but we had to wait an hour and a half for it, in the cold and wind. At this point I was ready to take out everything I'd packed in my suitcase and wear it.

This is what I look like with my eyes closed. Thanks Dustin.

Once the train got us to Miami, it was to get onto another free shuttle to take us to the airport, then we waited for the hotel shuttle to arrive to take us to our hotel.

Continuing with our save-as-much-cash-as-we-can plan, we decided to take the city bus into more sight-seeing-ness territory for dinner. (The hotel we were staying at also fell into the category of cheap and so did the neighborhood). It was another 40-minute wait outside--in the cold and wind--for the city bus to show, and $1.50 per person plus 50 cents per transfer, which got us to a bus-exchange station where we had to wait a few minutes to get onto another bus which would actually get us into the part of town that was "it". This was where it was all at, the local with the sweater told us. This was where stars like Lindsay Lohan met friends at bars!

Whatever.

I couldn't care less, and I was starved. We had to walk about 4 blocks until we found a TGIF's. Our destination was also toward the beach, which we were told was within walking distance. I was hoping a burger and fries would warm me up. So we hurried and ate, wanting to get back out toward the beach before the sun went down. We walked out, crossed the street, and there it was, Miami beach. By the way, that cold wind we've been in all day now was even colder and windier right on the beach.

After about 15 minutes on the beach I couldn't feel my hands or ears anymore and suggested we head back. Back the 4 blocks to the bus-exchange place, wait 20 minutes for the bus, then back to our hotel. I was in bed huddled under the covers by 8:30 pm!

The next afternoon it was exciting arriving at port and getting on the cruise ship.
Here I am waiting in line to board the ship—thought I’d just close my eyes right off the bat and save Abby the time and trouble of doing it on purpose, ha ha. (I swear, doesn’t anybody know how to take a decent picture of me??)

That's Dustin, my ex, in the black shirt. (I have no idea who the guy in the red looking at me is).
We got on about 1 pm and the ship didn't leave til about 4 pm, so it was fun exploring for a while and then eating lunch on board.

Unfortunately while boarding I missed the opportunity to have my photo taken with Kevin Hearn--the mastermind behind the music of Barenaked Ladies. The porters keep telling you, "Don't stop, keep going. Move along. This way, this way." So while we were rushing with our luggage to board the ship, we passed Kevin unknowingly until he said, "Hi guys!"

It was COOL! If he hadn't said anything we would have whooshed right past him.

We smiled, (elated that he recognized and acknowledged us), said hi, and then ran off again like wild monkeys. It wasn't until several days later that I found out there was a photo station set up there. Not everyone would get a chance to have a professional photo taken with one of the band members--only if they were available at the time--and here we were running away! Oh well. Kevin knows how much we love him.


MORE LATER…!