![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Sleep Journal - 190109 - Fairge Anma
When I was very young, three or four years old, I did not want to take a nap and my mother was too frayed to handle it so my dad did. I remember that he told me to lie in bed and tell myself a story and I could get up after five minutes.
Naturally, I fell asleep. I started telling myself stories at night in bed to fall asleep after that and did for ... well decades, until recently (past 5 or 10 years). It's harder now to visualize the stories and the effort is waking my brain making it harder to fall asleep.
Then I found out that if I write the stories down ... physically, pen to paper ... just before turning the lights out, I fall asleep more easily.
I don't know where this snippet will go. I don't know if it will be complete. But this is what I wrote last night (finally keyboarded into a doc file).
Index of Entries
{Re-imagining fic Fairge Anma}
I should not have signed up for that class. I knew it as soon as I got the new semester schedule. No. I knew it when I put the request into the system. So why did I?
Parapsychology. Ghostbusting 101, that's what the other students called it. A study of the lingering superstitions of modern society. Telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, synchronicity, reincarnation, "apparitional experiences", and so forth.
It had been six years. I was safe. I was keeping to safe subjects. The sciences. Math, chemistry, physics. Not so much biology; that was a little too close to what I had been. That was where he'd expect to find me, I thought. In the soft arts; healing, growing, helping. I was only a few credits away from my degree - chemistry, analytical chemistry. I had considered a physics degree; that would be even further from my early training; but I needed to think about careers and jobs.
Then my academic advisor informed me that I needed to take something in the psych department, a requirement for graduation. He suggested Child Psychology - because, he said, I would need it in another couple of years. Or maybe Human Sexuality. I didn't like the look he gave me then. The only other course on offer was Parapsych. He had some cutting observations about that subject.
The stones were cast.
If my advisor weren't such a creep, I would have gone and changed it as soon as I received the schedule in the mail. Second thoughts and all that. But I couldn't face ...
No, I decided, I would stick with my decision. What harm could it do? All the spirits I had encountered in the World had been barely worthy of being so called. Faded worn-out shades, incapable of coherent speech or thought. Almost vegetative.
There is a brownie in the library; a shy, retiring spirit that did no harm. And a boggart in the basement of hte physical sciences building, though what it is doing there I don't know and didn't ask. I pretended not to see them both and they pretended that they hadn't been seen. Every one happy.
I think that there might be some ghouls in the necropolis not too far from campus, but I stay away from places like that, especially after dark. The gate I used to escape to here had been ... not here, in another necropolis, very like to this one. I don't want to risk ....
He told me that I would shine like a beacon in the dark if ever I ran. He told me that he could find me no matter where I went. He told me I was his forever and there was nothing I could do that would make any difference.
I was a fool. And an idiot. I should have known ... But I did not go into the course blind. I thought, I could sit in the back, do the bare minimum to pass, I would be fine. And I did do due diligence, just to be sure. I looked up the curriculum vitae of the professor in charge of the class.
His name is Doctor Douglas Monaghan. According to the journal articles ascribed to him, he's a good, solid scientist ... and a skeptic, which I considered key. All the research he collected ... all the recordings he's made and the investigations he's conducted ... everything he's written ... A body of work covering a good quarter century and not a single instance where he declared that he had proof of spirits or magic or any of the arts of the mind. He was very good at explaining what had happened and why and how. A master at the art of the rational explanation.
I appreciate the value of logic and reason in this the World. Everything has a rational explanation. A cup shifting on the counter? Must have been a lorry driving by. Keys inexplicably not where you left them? Must have had a brain fart. A light flickering in the basement? A bad connection or maybe a faulty breaker. A voice whispering in the dark? Merely a dream. Or nerves. Or, oh I really like this one, tintinnitis.
It took me a long while to not react to the things I saw that others didn't. Or wouldn't. So I really relied on the rational explanation. I'm much better at it now.
Harder to get use to is the religion here. Science is their faith, they are convinced it holds all the answers and the salvation of the world. If a thing is not covered in their science, then it doesn't exist.
Which is why I was a little concerned about the field of parapsychology. If they could scientifically prove the existance of the Otherworld, that belief would fuel the return of the Others. That belief could enable him to cross over. And find me.
Dr. Monaghan is a skeptic.
All his research, his articles, every word he wrote made it clear, he didn't believe in psychic phenomena. In his works, everything had a Rational Explanation and he found and supported each and ever such explanation.
Dr. Monaghan is a liar.
That was the first mistake I made; taking him at face value.
The second mistake lay in not looking further into the structure of the class. He has an assistant professor, one Doctor Craig Stevenson, and Craig is a True Believer.
I thought he was another student in the class. I could I know? He's only a little older nor I and he was sitting in the back of class. We talked a little. He seemed ... nice. Intense. Sort of goofy and goofy-looking which ... I liked. It was pretty obvious that he was in the class because he wanted to find proof ... proof of ghosts or magic or UFOs. Some evidence that he could wave in the air and shove down the throats of the so-called experts in the field. That was enough to make me wary of him but ...
He seemed nice.
And I didn't mind looking for UFOs. Belief in outer-space aliens was no threat.
But Dr. Monaghan was a liar, and Craig was a professor and I was an idiot.
I began the semester as I intended to go on, sitting far in the back of the class, quietly taking notes, not saying much. Craig came in late, after Dr. Monaghan had begun, and sat down behind me. He leaned over and asked how far he .., Dr. Monaghan ... had gotten, took a look at my notes, then settled back, stretching his legs out into the aisle. Lounging. Later he asked me what I thought of what Dr. Monaghan had talked about, but that was just a lure so he could tell me what he thought.
The first few weeks were fairly mundane. Logical. Scientific even. An awful lot about statistical probability. I think a quarter of the class dropped during that. If anything, the focus of the lectures reassured me, persuaded me to stick with it. I like Maths. There is nothing ... supernatural about Maths.
Naturally, I fell asleep. I started telling myself stories at night in bed to fall asleep after that and did for ... well decades, until recently (past 5 or 10 years). It's harder now to visualize the stories and the effort is waking my brain making it harder to fall asleep.
Then I found out that if I write the stories down ... physically, pen to paper ... just before turning the lights out, I fall asleep more easily.
I don't know where this snippet will go. I don't know if it will be complete. But this is what I wrote last night (finally keyboarded into a doc file).
{Re-imagining fic Fairge Anma}
I should not have signed up for that class. I knew it as soon as I got the new semester schedule. No. I knew it when I put the request into the system. So why did I?
Parapsychology. Ghostbusting 101, that's what the other students called it. A study of the lingering superstitions of modern society. Telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, synchronicity, reincarnation, "apparitional experiences", and so forth.
It had been six years. I was safe. I was keeping to safe subjects. The sciences. Math, chemistry, physics. Not so much biology; that was a little too close to what I had been. That was where he'd expect to find me, I thought. In the soft arts; healing, growing, helping. I was only a few credits away from my degree - chemistry, analytical chemistry. I had considered a physics degree; that would be even further from my early training; but I needed to think about careers and jobs.
Then my academic advisor informed me that I needed to take something in the psych department, a requirement for graduation. He suggested Child Psychology - because, he said, I would need it in another couple of years. Or maybe Human Sexuality. I didn't like the look he gave me then. The only other course on offer was Parapsych. He had some cutting observations about that subject.
The stones were cast.
If my advisor weren't such a creep, I would have gone and changed it as soon as I received the schedule in the mail. Second thoughts and all that. But I couldn't face ...
No, I decided, I would stick with my decision. What harm could it do? All the spirits I had encountered in the World had been barely worthy of being so called. Faded worn-out shades, incapable of coherent speech or thought. Almost vegetative.
There is a brownie in the library; a shy, retiring spirit that did no harm. And a boggart in the basement of hte physical sciences building, though what it is doing there I don't know and didn't ask. I pretended not to see them both and they pretended that they hadn't been seen. Every one happy.
I think that there might be some ghouls in the necropolis not too far from campus, but I stay away from places like that, especially after dark. The gate I used to escape to here had been ... not here, in another necropolis, very like to this one. I don't want to risk ....
He told me that I would shine like a beacon in the dark if ever I ran. He told me that he could find me no matter where I went. He told me I was his forever and there was nothing I could do that would make any difference.
I was a fool. And an idiot. I should have known ... But I did not go into the course blind. I thought, I could sit in the back, do the bare minimum to pass, I would be fine. And I did do due diligence, just to be sure. I looked up the curriculum vitae of the professor in charge of the class.
His name is Doctor Douglas Monaghan. According to the journal articles ascribed to him, he's a good, solid scientist ... and a skeptic, which I considered key. All the research he collected ... all the recordings he's made and the investigations he's conducted ... everything he's written ... A body of work covering a good quarter century and not a single instance where he declared that he had proof of spirits or magic or any of the arts of the mind. He was very good at explaining what had happened and why and how. A master at the art of the rational explanation.
I appreciate the value of logic and reason in this the World. Everything has a rational explanation. A cup shifting on the counter? Must have been a lorry driving by. Keys inexplicably not where you left them? Must have had a brain fart. A light flickering in the basement? A bad connection or maybe a faulty breaker. A voice whispering in the dark? Merely a dream. Or nerves. Or, oh I really like this one, tintinnitis.
It took me a long while to not react to the things I saw that others didn't. Or wouldn't. So I really relied on the rational explanation. I'm much better at it now.
Harder to get use to is the religion here. Science is their faith, they are convinced it holds all the answers and the salvation of the world. If a thing is not covered in their science, then it doesn't exist.
Which is why I was a little concerned about the field of parapsychology. If they could scientifically prove the existance of the Otherworld, that belief would fuel the return of the Others. That belief could enable him to cross over. And find me.
Dr. Monaghan is a skeptic.
All his research, his articles, every word he wrote made it clear, he didn't believe in psychic phenomena. In his works, everything had a Rational Explanation and he found and supported each and ever such explanation.
Dr. Monaghan is a liar.
That was the first mistake I made; taking him at face value.
The second mistake lay in not looking further into the structure of the class. He has an assistant professor, one Doctor Craig Stevenson, and Craig is a True Believer.
I thought he was another student in the class. I could I know? He's only a little older nor I and he was sitting in the back of class. We talked a little. He seemed ... nice. Intense. Sort of goofy and goofy-looking which ... I liked. It was pretty obvious that he was in the class because he wanted to find proof ... proof of ghosts or magic or UFOs. Some evidence that he could wave in the air and shove down the throats of the so-called experts in the field. That was enough to make me wary of him but ...
He seemed nice.
And I didn't mind looking for UFOs. Belief in outer-space aliens was no threat.
But Dr. Monaghan was a liar, and Craig was a professor and I was an idiot.
I began the semester as I intended to go on, sitting far in the back of the class, quietly taking notes, not saying much. Craig came in late, after Dr. Monaghan had begun, and sat down behind me. He leaned over and asked how far he .., Dr. Monaghan ... had gotten, took a look at my notes, then settled back, stretching his legs out into the aisle. Lounging. Later he asked me what I thought of what Dr. Monaghan had talked about, but that was just a lure so he could tell me what he thought.
The first few weeks were fairly mundane. Logical. Scientific even. An awful lot about statistical probability. I think a quarter of the class dropped during that. If anything, the focus of the lectures reassured me, persuaded me to stick with it. I like Maths. There is nothing ... supernatural about Maths.