I've had some time to reflect upon this path I've been set on to find myself - and I realize I have been running aimlessly without a game plan, and that's all due to laziness.
I thought I didn't have any control in these dreams/memories I've been experiencing, but in this recent one I shared with you all I was able to yell, if only for a moment. That's gotten me thinking about the nature of these dreams, and the potential they have to uncover the parts of my life that have always felt like a mystery. Clearly there is something my subconscious has clinged onto. I can no longer sit idle and expect the answers to come to me. So, what exactly is it that I am after?
I want to get to the point where I can consciously ask questions in my dreams, and to better understand the entities that have shown up in said dreams- I think it's the only way to help me better find my identity. I however have to compile a questionnaire in order to set a baseline in my questioning, and I need to train my brain through repetition in order to ensure some consistency. I think if I ask enough fictionkin and fictives about their experiences using the same questionnaire, the likelihood of me being able to force lucid dreaming through questions will increase.
Through these questions, I will be sorting my findings into four categories;
Familiarity in topics- I will be looking for specific topics and themes that speak to my memories, especially any recurring symbolism that appears in the source material. I will also be looking for familiarity in those who reach out to me, through their memories and their overall fictionkin/fictive experiences.
Emotional Response- I cannot deny that there is an emotional aspect to this whole kinsidering journey, to completely divorce my emotional reactions from my findings would be silly, so I will be taking it into account- especially my own dread and guilt since that was a large factor of what started me on this journey in the first place.
Attraction or “Draw”- Sometimes there are aspects within a source or within the topics we discuss that draw me in. I feel a natural pull to it- be it craving or a gut feeling- it may possibly be even adjacent to kin shifts, but I’m hoping to further explore these feelings by documenting them. Sometimes intuition is your best guidance.
Roles- I have been taking into account what you have all said to me so far, and I have noticed a large majority of you have reached out to me with an identity in mind of who I may be. I will be examining these suggestions at a closer level and seeing how I fit into their roles. Could I see myself taking the actions they had in their source material- and better yet, do I show a pattern of echoing their behaviors in this present life?
That being said, I have noticed a disturbing trend in my dreams that involves people who feel preyed upon by a malevolent force, so when I am considering what questions I want to practice on you, I will also have to hold the double intention of what I may want to extract from said dream apparitions, and for this I have a completely different set of criteria;
Defense/Offense- Do those that make an appearance in my dream seek out targets to attack, or are they rather trying to protect something that they fear is vulnerable, and if so what is it? Why do they exhibit the behaviors that they have in previous dreams, and how can that be traced back to any source material that I have been kinsidering?
Craving- It's colored a large part of my experiences. It's a core theme that I've been meaning to focus on, so I want to know if those that feature in my dreams seek out their victims for fuel and survival, or if they are simply craving the entertainment of watching someone’s hope die in their eyes. This may help me better research new possible sources.
Method- Just as there are themes that I am looking for that feel familiar to me in source material, I am also looking to draw comparisons on what I see in these dreams. I've noticed the entities all have specific themes for how they appear in my dreams; An eye deep in the ocean’s floor, a deadly conglomeration predator and prey animals that stalks the woods in hunt for those who dare disrespect the fragile balance of nature, the haunting pull of an eternity in silence, with only your fears to keep you warm- these are all very distinguishable visuals, so if I can just categorize them, maybe then I can look up sources through these recurring themes.
There's only one noteworthy conclusion that I can say with certainty about these memories. The thing about these anomalies is that they pick their victims, and they seldom choose someone who has the tools to fight back. It is an exposed vulnerability that they needle, and once they realize that you aren't able to defend yourself against it? It's open season. I need to learn how to make myself dangerous to the things that have been haunting me, and remove the danger from interacting with whoever is caught in the crossfire- namely you, the reader. What better of a way to do that, than to talk my fears to death? A surefire way to defang any horror is to remove the mystery, and make it known.
Have you ever thought about the vastness of everything in the macrocosm? About looking out a spaceship window and seeing nothing but an endless sea of darkness? Ask yourself, can space really be endless? I mean, we all know the universe isn't… but what happens at the end of the universe? Like if I was to get in a spaceship could I just keep on going and going forever without ever revisiting the same places? This is terrifying to me, that there are places out there that will never be seen by human eyes. Then there's that pesky phrase, “Space is expanding”. Well how can that be true? How am I supposed to conceptualize cosmic inflation theory, if there isn't the dark matter of space in the spots it's expanded to before, then just what was there before? What do we call that? This doesn't freak anyone else out?
I want to visualize and understand all of it. The below, the above, what surrounds our being. If. I could just map it out and understand fully, then it wouldn't make my head spin as much. It feels like unfinished work that will never be completed... Which I guess in a way, it sort of is
peeks head in here
how's things going? haven't heard from you in a bit.
hope you're ok and making progress on your kin journey!
-the neon attic
Thank you for checking in on me, Neon Attic. I appreciate the message. In truth, I may have found myself a bit confused as of lately, and accidently made a kinfirmation announcement which may have turned out to be false.. Again. Now that it’s brought up however, I would like to make an invitation to any of the following fictionkin or fictives;
*Anyone from the source The Mandela Catalogue, especially the alternates
*Anyone from the Everyman HYBRID source
*Those who are from Marble Hornets
*Anyone from The Magnus Archives, but Especially any Jons or Elias’’
Some of my questions will pertain to dynamics and relationships in the sources, the more traumatic experiences within your source, and possible mental/phantom shifts you've experienced in relation to your identity. I feel I could probably gain a great deal of insight from these sources specifically at the moment, so if you are interested in reaching out, please answer this kincall. My dms are always open.
‘When I say end, I don't mean "lifeless", I mean "terminated life as we know it". This is an important distinction.’
I keep staring at my dms, vacantly, pondering just what I’ve done. When I started to reach out out into the void, I had thought this was a noble sacrifice, and that if only I reached out-
Maybe I could erase all the harm that I’ve created. I think I lost track of that, somehow along the way. I was so caught up with filling this hollow part inside of me, so caught up with keeping myself warm that I hadn’t even considered the people I was setting on fire just to do so.
…And here’s this guy, right? I’ve been talking to him for a while, and he just gets it. Everytime he talks to me, he’s given me nothing but sure guidance as if he can peer right into my mind and see just what I’m feeling- and lord, do I feel so much. It’s like I’m holding back an ocean of anxieties, and one word is the detonator. I think about what he’s told me a lot, mostly about how he died because I just couldn’t understand it. Why did someone so clever and swift have to die? How could you devote your whole life to something, only for it to turn around and stab you in the back? I think about myself, how I gave into the impulse, and I wound up in the hospital with an atrial fibrillation. I've given my whole life to something, and it's going to eat me alive.
‘Why did it have to end though? The world, I mean?’
Who am I trying to find? Would it really be helping them, if I asked them to remember me? Would sorry really be enough to rekindle their souls and make things right again?..Or am I just doing this for me? Maybe it’s better that I live my life, never knowing. The people I hurt may be living a beautiful life, far from the pain of whatever timeline that’s been shattered underneath my fingertips. I can only hope they are.
He was willing to trade humanity for enlightenment, and because of it he was killed. Well, what does that make me?
Is that who I truly am?
Am I willing to kill the things I’ve been trying to save? Fear, it’s all I’ve talked about since I created this blog. Humans have been telling tales of fear since the dawn of man, because we crave the cortisol and adrenaline like rich silk under our fingers. I don’t think I was laying to rest your fears, when I came out of the dark to carve into you with inquiry, I think I was just breathing life into old wounds, and you deserved better than that. Trading a complete life for a high that will never hit the same hardly seems fair, so let's turn around and bite the hand that feeds us out of spite. It's hurt you, and it's hurt me. If we don't we'll succumb to desensitization, or an even worse fate. We need to defang these fears before they swallow us whole.
I’ll defang myself first.
I promise.
(Consent for this documented information has been given by all parties involved.)
What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!
You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases
Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.
Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.
Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.
Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.
Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.
Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.
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I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.
i think i responded to something you posted somewhere but i figured i'd just reach out here instead!
from my own kin stuff and source and everything, i don't know if you've gone through the magnus archives before but what you're saying sounds a lot like someone deep within the beholding to me. that need to watch, to know things even if it destroys you or others, the intake of others stories. it reminds me of jon honestly with the guilt aspect of it, or maybe even jonah or elias, maybe the archivist from the magnus protocol.
either way, you're always welcome to reach out and talk about your own experience or process of figuring things out!
-marcus keay (non-cannon magnus archive)
@the-neon-attic
I've been hearing that name come up a lot actually, among a few others. The need to watch in spite of the destruction it brings is a good way to put this feeling, you certainly hit the nail on the head there.. There's something more to this though, it's parasitic in nature. I feel as though I'm filling a hollow part of me that's raw and hungry with the mismatched parts of others' memories just to feel whole, and I never have a way to compensate them for this favor. Not in a way that really matters, or makes up for the damage. If that is what the beholding feels like, then I might just have a few questions for you.