There are mornings when I look at a tee-shirt as if I’ve never seen one before, uncertain whether to put my head or an arm through first, and I find it hard to match the buttons on my shirt to the right button holes. I don't remember which way the medicine cabinet in the bathroom opens, or which side the light switch is on, and I can’t find the question mark on the keyboard.
These may, of course, be signs of senility. I think they are symptoms of what I call The Man Who Fell to Earth syndrome. You come back to the body suddenly from the other world you were visiting in a dream, maybe because someone or something pulled you back - a car backfiring in the street, a cat jumping on your belly to demand breakfast, a drunk howling at the moon. You may land with a thud. Sometimes I feel I have fallen through the bedframe and the mattress to the floor.
When you come back to the body like that, you may find you have left part of yourself still out there, needing time to catch up - and maybe not too keen on returning to a world that is crazier than your dreams. How big a part? Many indigenous and ancient peoples, from the Iroquois to the Vikings, might say you have left behind one of your souls. I'm pretty sure the soul loss, this time, is temporary. I will let it pass, like jet lag. Already I can report that I figured out how to put on a tee-shirt and find the question mark on my keyboard. I'm working on the buttons.
"Man Who Fell to Earrh" Journal drawing (c) Robert Moss
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