Sneezes are Purple

Sneezes are purple! That's right when someone sneezes it is purple. How do I know, well while I was under the ketamine Dana sneezed and I saw the color purple. Weird I know, but it got me to thinking about how the brain operates. I am getting better day by day, physically, I am doing better but have resolved the fact that I will never get back to 100%. I have to listen to my body and stop when it says stop. But at least when the problem is physical you have a yardstick for progression: sore muscles, stiff joints, building muscle. With mental progression, there are no such yardsticks. Each night I am so tired, but cannot sleep, or have trouble falling asleep. Why? Well, part of the "recovery" from ketamine is having my brain sort through the hallucinations and "filing" them away as non-sense or needed. Believe it or not, this is hard to do. When we are in our "right" mind, the thoughts, images, and impressions we get usually have something to do with what is going on right now. When I am working, I am thinking about work. How do I solve this programming problem? What is the best way to design this database? Your mind is caged and focused on the task at hand, this is the beauty of the mind, being able to direct your energies to a problem to come to a solution. Under ketamine, it is like opening the gate and having the chickens get out. For those of you that have chickens, or raised chickens, you know when the gate is left open and the chickens get out, they scatter far and wide picking here and there. If one finds a choice bit of food (a worm for example) there is a stampede to steal the food, it is chaotic. Once that bit of food it gone, then they scatter again looking for food until one finds another bit of juicy food to distract them until it is gone, and on and on it goes. This is what it is like under ketamine. Your thoughts range far and wide, sneezes become purple, sounds are interpreted in unusual ways. A bit of choice food is picked up (voices, sounds, or thoughts) and your brain runs wild with it, so concentrated on this one bit, then just as it begins to understand the morsel, it is gone and your brain scatters again. This is so different from how we think (okay at least how I think) that it is truly mentally exhausting. You don't have the luxury of directing or controlling your thoughts, under ketamine your "chickens are running free" and it is confusing and bewildering. So the after affect of this metal exercise is trying to put your chickens back in the cage and make sense of everything. For me, this is when I fall asleep, my brain starts to file the images and it keeps me awake. Some of the visions that bubble up are weird and confusing, others are scary and I start awake then try to go back to sleep. Not getting into a deep sleep exhausts me, but fortunately they are starting to lessen and sleep is finally starting to come. I hope one day, to lay down, close my eyes, and fall into a deep sleep.