Via Neptune, Branson 1992 (1999)

“The number seven vibrates to the planet Neptune. It represents spirituality, sensitivity, sympathy, and mystery. Seven is the number of illusion and delusion, sometimes deception – but also the number of healing miracles, faith, -- and dreams that come true.”

-Linda Goodman, Star Signs

“There is, in every Capricorn/Snake, the gift of the supernatural. These people could probably live a very full life just following hunches and answering premonition’s call. It’s spooky but true. There is a foresight here unequalled by any other sign. Intuition is even too mild a word. The Capricorn/Snake senses trends, dangers, political movements, events of all natures.”

-Suzanne White, The New Astrology, (Capricorn/Snake)

“You’re lying in your bed, going to sleep. Suddenly a jolt runs through your body. You just ‘caught yourself falling asleep.’ Where were you two seconds before the jolt? What were you? Astrologically, the answer lies with Neptune. This is the planet of trance, of meditation, of dreams. It represents your doorway into the ‘Not-Self.’”

-Steven Forrest, “The Sky Within” (Personal Birthchart interpretation)

I had, in the fall of 1992, a rare ability, or delusion, of being able to hear thousands of disjointed voices as I lay on my side, in my bed, almost sleeping. Only, though, as I lay on my left side, the right ear being the receptacle for this phenomenon. This experience freaked me out, and I told only a couple of people about it. At that time, I was heavily into conspiracy theories and other manic interests. I figured spreading this little nugget of weirdness around would be a little too much for some of my more conservative friends. So I didn’t talk about it very much. For a long while, I didn’t know what to make of it. The ability wasn’t something I had wished for, nor had I even thought to wish for a perception of this nature.

The sound was like an incomprehensible number of radios receiving multiple signals broadcasting them all to me simultaneously. The result was an unheard of cacophony, no one transmission clear enough to determine a meaning. I could determine the lower bass of men’s voices and the trebles of females. Their cadences of speech began to form as one, becoming unified, pausing and resuming, assuming a rhythm of sorts.

The first time this happened.

The apartment was quiet, save for the buzzing of the refrigerator. The central air blower would turn on intermittently at 70 degrees, but wasn’t on at the moment. I was alone, sleeping on the futon, preparing to sleep, really, when the sounds gradually became apparent, as opposed to rushing into consciousness all at once. I’m sure my mind was running fast, as my mind ran fast continually during that period of life, the ability to slow and calm my thoughts still unknown. Lots of insomnia then, sometimes, still now.

These sounds washed over my perception not immediately, or in waves, but with the gradual urgency or water boiling in a teapot, its whistle integrating itself into the realm of sounds, then surging to the forefront, demanding attention, action. I bolted up. Silence. My nerves tingled and my legs and torso froze in a 90-degree angle, eyes darting around the room and into the living room, processing the unfamiliar…

The light over the kitchen sink and the apartment’s loud silence assured me that there was no intruder, and my safety was still intact. I didn’t move. My heart thumped. My eyes stayed wide, panic and breathing slowly subsiding to acceptable levels.

Calm down now… I was asleep, and this was just a dream. Ok, Lance, lay back down. Nothing is wrong. “Just my imagination, running away with me…”

I could hear my heartbeat gradually slowing by the forced rhythm of my deep, in through the nose, out through the mouth breaths. I lay back down, my hyper-awareness still not picking up anything but silence from nearby apartments next to and below mine. Really, Lance, it’s cool. Get some sleep.

A few minutes later, when I was sufficiently calm, it happened again. This indeed, was a curiosity. I raised my head again, quickly. Nothing. It was gone. Piqued, I now made an effort to listen. I laid back down again, this time breathing slowly, anticipating…

The sounds were incomprehensible, everything a jumble. No secret messages, no directives, a dense mass of voices and sounds barely audible, but evident at the outskirts of some sense beyond my normal empirical resources. These disembodied voices talking to the others on the end of the line, in unfamiliar languages, no frame of reference. The cadences, as I mentioned before, were the most striking.

Voices, conversations, and vibratory waves traveling the world, a remnant from their point of origin. They continued long after their speakers stopped speaking, nowhere to go but on. Each voice like AM radio waves rolling over the hills and valleys of earth, now, all rolling together, or crashing over the other. I’m listening to the ocean of all sound.

The sounds became inaudible after awhile, my strain to hear more, ultimately, their demise. I eventually slept. Over the next week or so, this phenomenon visited me again, and again, with no more clarity that my aforementioned description of events. I tried to pay more attention, to be more alert, but without success.

Then, nothing.

Two years later, when I lived in Key West, I would get so stoned in the apartment I shared with ___, I sometimes was able to walk or pace the apartment and experience a parallel version of what I have described. Except there, the tones and cadences contained the undercurrent of wrenching sadness or pain and were easily blocked out by my turning on the stereo, watching TV, or diverting my attention elsewhere. I chalked these times up to pot or possibly, the onset of insanity. These sounds scared me, and I tried to pay them no heed.

But now, years later, with the distance of geographical and chronological objectivity, I give these experiences more weight, more credibility. I don’t care that some might view these perceptions as crazy. They happened to me, not anyone else. I am able to sense things others can’t. Are they real? You can’t tell me. You don’t know either.  (2008) I know more of what "this" was/is.  I do believe these experiences are tangible, but cannot define them.