I was helping a family member with some therapy exercises. The tasks were difficult and caused a bit of frustration, laden with anxiety, when they performed them. We persisted and slowed the pace to try to alleviate the difficulties. When we completed the exercises I retreated to my room and felt frustrated and anxious also. I had a distinct tightening in my throat. The next day we began the therapeutic exercises again. As the family member began to encounter the same difficulties as before, I noticed the same symptoms welling up within me again even though there was no reason for me to feel that way. It occurred to me that I might be experiencing sympathetic resonance. If we use the example of a musical instrument such as a guitar, sympathetic resonance occurs when a string is plucked and the neighboring strings begin to vibrate with a harmonic likeness. After a little shallow research on the internet I was lead to sites and articles about Empaths. After some further reading it occurred to me that I may be a Empath or possibly an Empathic Psychic. Discovering this was a very significant emotional event. It felt as if every single memory of significant moments in my life spilled out before my mind’s eye forced into view by a wave of emotions. Clarity washed over me, but also an unsettling question emerged from my gut, “what next?”. That thought began repeating for some time and I even started to say it out loud.

As a child I had vivid conscious dreams accompanied by physical sensations from worlds I had never before seen. It was difficult experiencing and sensing a vivid dream overlayed upon this conscious reality (I still get glimpses of this phenomenon). I wrestled with emotions that I now know were not my own, and not understanding that this was not normal, I was not normal. I started from wide social acceptance during adolescence and then later to a social outcast fueled by abilities I did not know I had. I sought the comfort of self medication which later lead to better understanding of my own physiology and psychology through experimentation. And then, rebooting my conscious mind with psychedelics and seemingly awakening to a level of consciousness filled with people and beings that are bent upon suppressing my conscious expansion. My higher unconscious self has been revealed to be a patient, yet unrelenting Taskmaster, or a tenacious Zen monk constantly cracking me on my shoulder with his shinai, never allowing me to fully drift into complacency. Now it seems I may have always been an Empath, but ignoring those abilities just so I could be normal.

It explains my past and current experiences. It explains my choppy social interactions and why I seek out solitude over fellowship. It explains why I can no longer watch certain types of films, online videos or television programs without experiencing intense emotions of what I see. It answers the question of how I am able to sense coming events. It explains why I have difficulty with one-on-one conversations with strangers, most of them leaving me feeling overtly self-conscious. It explains why I sometimes get confused during conversations as if I am hearing to two radio stations at the same time. It explains why I felt every possible emotion during my psychedelic quest through the void, now understanding they weren’t my own. It explains the many times I sensed people (mainly women of middle age) observing me or attempting to gain my attention and then find them looking at me, knowingly, in a way that seems to indicate we might be the same. It explains why I am under constant surveillance, as if to keep me from being contacted by those observers or others like myself. It explains those conversations with thought forms from destinations unknown I experienced in Hawaii. Why some people I meet take a step back when I shake their hand as if they were caught off guard by an emotion from an external source (this happened, again, when I recently encountered a person with similar abilities through Craigslist, post Combo-Shift – one of ‘the others’). It explains why some people (mostly younger people under 20) stare at me as if I was some new kind of life form. I am amazed that I survived this long not understanding what was happening, what I have become, or possibly what I have always been. Still, I ask “what next?”.

Lately I have been apprehensive to go out into the world. I seem to be bouncing from one level of consciousness to the next on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. It is a lot like going outside not knowing what the weather is going to be like. But, I still venture out eager to see what level I seem to be on. Since I posted “Significance” I feel as if my third eye (cliché) has opened yet squinting to filter all that it is now able to see. As I write this post I remember asking for this. Asking to restore my abilities that I thought were taken from me. So, what next?

Those unseen entities are working overtime. That ever-present feeling of fear pecking at the confines of my inner consciousness. I smell their fear. I sense their desperation. I see weakness. Existing on the leading edge of the expansion of consciousness is such a trying, yet beautiful thing. Every moment I am on the threshold of something that has yet to be, and I can influence its manifestation. So to answer the question of “what next?”. The answer may very well be just about “anything I fucking want”, it seems. They may be able to slow me down, but I am now motivated by something deep within. It animates my physical form. It drags me out of bed before sunrise and now shows me what I need to see. My higher unconscious self is rising from within and I am no longer reluctant to let it be. Satori?

Thank you…