Memories

Forgotten memories crash into my mind for no apparent reason. Flashback to 1998?

Scanning news headlines, a minute or so ago, the word needle jumps to mind. I almost feel a needle in crock of elbow, as I also feel, fleetingly and arm across the back of my shoulders. For the briefest second, the world seems to disappear ~ not literally ~ um, like that deer caught in headlights, freezing, unable to move moment? Mind blanks out for a second? Unsettling. Back to life, no longer interested in the headlines.

In 1998 I thought I was connected to neighbor, Jason; that he was, at that very moment shooting up heroin. Why? Dunno. He did not seem the drug user type. Yet that was how my mind worked. Feeling things others were experiencing at that exact moment. Now I know that the feeling of a needle going into my arm at the inner elbow was a sensory hallucination. My "connected to" was borne of an earlier experience.

You may have heard of "sympathy pains", men experiencing labor pains as their wives are going through labor. I was having back pain. I thought I might have spinal meningitis. Not that I knew what that is, exactly. Or was it leg pain, with the same thought. Long time ago. This went on for about 3 months. Then I got a call from my oldest sister telling me my father was dying and the doctor said notify all the children to get to the hospital.

What a shock. Leaned later, that dad had been in the hospital for 3 months, but told my mother not to tell anyone. After that my back (or was it leg) pain went away. Will get back to my father in a second. It was after that experience and reading about sympathy pains, that I hit upon the theory of being connected to other people. "With you in spirit," people say to long-distance loved ones, so that our souls are connected and we can pick up on what is happening psychically. Was not that single event that convinced me of connections, just a major one.