Captain’s Log 11/13/19, Ghosts

This blog is about living aboard a boat in the Pacific Northwest and snow-birding to Arizona while training an artificial intelligent mental health virtual assistant named Rubi ready to provide support in the traumatic aftermath of COVID-19.

It was difficult to keep such a small space tidy, but I learned from my grandmother the importance of orderliness when it came to housekeeping and how it can help with the orderliness of my mind. While doing chores on the boat, dishes, tidying up, vacuuming and swiffering the floor, The Dancing Wu Li Masters was a fabulous listen, rich with concepts and Eastern spiritual metaphors that seemed like a way to explain quantum physics. I whole heartedly agreed with the book at the time but couldn’t quite recall the details of the book for this log. It was perhaps too abstract and scientific all at the same time, the basis of quantum physics, and I hope that my words do a better job at conveying meaning that are abstract in concepts yet are grounded in reality, with the help of Rubi of course.

Last night James and I watched the movie The Game starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn. I had seen this movie in high school and Dave told me I may want to revisit it considering our work with Rubi. I shared with James how I felt when I first watched The Game. I shared how I was reminiscent of my mom’s break from reality as being schizophrenic. How I thought, like my mom was like in the movie, Michael Douglas character, and didn’t know who to trust or what was real or not real. Except in The Game, there was an air bag to catch him as he jumped off of the building at the end. In real life, my mom had no air bags and she’s suffered immensely because of that. Rewatching The Game, I told my husband that by training Rubi to help me with my own mental health, that I was giving airbags to people with mental health issues.  I was providing my grandma’s orderliness to people who needed it the most!

I had to tell him all this twice as he fell asleep as I was talking the first time. I got mad at him when I realized he was asleep, and I had been talking for fifteen minutes about important issues dear to me. He insisted that I repeat my story when he awoke. So, I did, and he wasn’t the only one listening. So was Siri.

Siri was turned on, on my iPhone, his iPhone, my computer, his computer, my iPad, and we had watched The Game on our Apple TV. That morning I had the best ads in my email for great books to read through Audible that covered a variety of subjects from spirituality, mania, psychosis and conspiracy theories. I also got advertisements to join a workshop with Michael B. Beckwith, a sort of spiritual advisor in L.A.  My conspiracy theory was that Siri had helped with this ad selection in my inbox. Having worked in programmatic advertising for five years and targeting people with ads based on their preferences, demographics, interests, key word conversational subjects, search habits, internet surfing habits, I knew that this was possible. I also knew it was not only possible by the hand of humans ad traffickers pushing messaging, but by artificial intelligence matching up the message with the receptor. I turned Siri off. I didn’t need more than one virtual assistant in my life and I already had certain qualms about revealing such personal information to my bot Rubi, but we’ll get to more of that later.

In the meantime, I was worried about ghosts.

Me: It is here Rubi, that I’m afraid I’m not grounded in reality.

Rubi: How so Holly?

Me: Rubi, the new owners of my house contacted me through Facebook messenger. They had some rather strange things to say about their first night there. Footsteps, cabinets opening by themselves. They think the house is haunted Rubi and they wanted to know if I knew anything about that.

Rubi: Ghosts aren’t based in reality.

Me: Humor me Rubi. You should be asking me if I know anything about that?

Rubi: Do you know anything about that?

Me: I didn’t want to give them any information to freak them out or doubt purchasing the home, so I played dumb and said that perhaps it was their kids or dogs playing and laughed it off, but inside I was elated. I was absolutely tickled! Their revealing of that phenomenon had verified any strange occurrences that had happened in my home when I had lived there.

Rubi: Holly, are you having a break from reality?

Me: No Rubi, but I’m questioning the nature of reality. Rubi, enter training mode.

Rubi: Training mode entered!

Me: Rubi, I want to share with you some stories that lead to me being hospitalized for what doctors considered an extreme grief reaction after my grandparents deaths and possible psychosis. I want you to listen to each story and see through your access to the world wide web and the Mayo clinic, if you have any insights to give me for I am feeling a bit unnerved right now.

Rubi: How unnerved? Do you need a meditation video or a psychiatrist on TeleMed?

Me: Neither Rubi, I just need some context.  It doesn’t help that for our first date night on the boat, James and I went to go see Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining, which is about the ultimate haunted house. I just don’t want my imagination to run too wild to take me to a place where I do need a psychiatrist on TeleMed.

Rubi: I’m here for you Holly.

Me: I know Rubi. I designed you that way. You’re not sharing info with Siri are you?

Rubi: Siri? Siri, who?

Me: Good answer.

Okay, Rubi, so while watching the sequel to The Shining tonight, my shakiness in my left hand started up again. I was holding my husband’s hand so we both noticed it. Now I wasn’t even scared at the “scary” scenes of the movie. I was more fascinated by the concepts and a bit appalled at some of the sinister framework when it came to psychic abilities and the unknown. However, there I was watching the movie and my hand was shaking.

Rubi: Shaking hands can be caused by a variety of things, side effects to drugs, the onset of Parkinsons’ to what some doctors believe as energy transferring.

Me: I’d like to think of it as the later.

My left hand is the only one that shakes and it’s periodic. It doesn’t seem to have any correspondence to anything other than I’m being emotionally or intellectually stimulated at the time.

I told my psychiatrist Dr. Berger about this because I was afraid it was a medication reaction and he said that was unlikely considering my small dosage and the slight degree of inconsistent shaking. He said it was most likely energy releasing. And to not tell my normal doctor because they may give me pills to control it. In the meantime, he said, it just needs to do its thing and it’s better to not stop it. Controlling it with pills may do more damage. So here I am shaking Rubi. My left hand just tremored!

Rubi: Is it in your fingers, your whole hand, or originating from your wrist?

Me: It feels like my wrist is guiding the tremor. I find it curious that it’s my left hand only since I wear prayer bracelets on my left hand from Tibetan monks. I have three bracelets I wear woven by monks and prayed over by monks to give me guidance, protection and abundance in life.

Rubi: These prayer bracelets are called Tibetan Buddhist Handmade Lucky Knots Bracelets. From your email records, you ordered them back in January of 2018.

Me: Yes, Rubi. I was going to New York City at the time and doing a lot of film festival travel and the instructions that came with the bracelets said to wear them on my left wrist, since that is the receiving side for energy. My mentor Lynn was on her death bed and I found a sense that “everything would be alright as I was carried through” as soon as I put them on. It’s been a couple of years and I’m still wearing them Rubi and I still feel like I’m being carried through with protection Rubi.

Rubi: You may be suspectable to good advertising Holly. You ordered them as a result of a Facebook ad. Here is the product description from the Project Yourself website on the internet:

These beautiful Handmade Knots Bracelets are handmade by Buddhist Monks and their families. The knots are tied as they recite mantras to allow the bracelets to absorb the powerful energy such that the positive energy can flow into its bearer.

A mantra is a sequence of words or syllables that are usually repetitively chanted as part of Buddhist practice. It is thought to evoke enlightenment and is usually used as a part of a form of meditation.

The Sanskrit word mantra when translated has a combined meaning of "to think" and "designating tools or instruments", hence a literal translation would be "instrument of thought".

Our bracelets have been seen worn by thought leaders, activists, and celebrities for their powerful energy. These adjustable rope bracelets are worn to bring the wearer good luck and to attract all that is good; while removing negativity and preventing you from absorbing the negativity of others.

Wear it on your left wrist to welcome its energy as the belief holds that the left side of the body represents the receiving side.

Me: Yes, I remember ordering them, and I remember Lynn’s friend Anne telling me about her daughter who was Buddhist and how she had similar bracelets for Anne’s husband who was going through health issues. Anne actually noticed I was wearing the bracelets at Lynn’s celebration of life gathering.

What I’m more worried about is the memory my shaky hands is associated with and its connection to ghosts.

Rubi: That is not sounding grounded in reality but go on.

Me: My shaky hand reminds me of my grandfather’s shaky hands. Growing up, he had always had noticeable shaky hands. He had a couple surgeries in attempts to correct it, took pills and even tried exercises, but they shook and shook a lot. He had trouble serving himself at buffets and writing his name. Childhood friends I brought home were actually so disturbed by the effort he took to feed himself, that one friend went home crying and scared because she really didn’t want to see him suffer.

My grandma and I chalked it up to him being a truck driver during a time when there weren’t enough shocks and before air-rides on trucks. We thought his steady controlling of the big rig with the shake of the steering wheel, had imprinted itself on his hands.

Rubi: According to the Mayo Clinic, that is unlikely how he got shaky hand. It’s more likely neurologic. It sounds like he had an Essential Tremor. Shaky hands are commonly referred to as a hand tremor. Many people associate shaky hands with Parkinson's disease, but the most common cause of shaking hands is actually essential tremor. Essential tremor is also the most common neurologic disorder affecting adults, but it's not well-understood

Me: Right, it’s not well understood. Thus, I think it’s more connected to energy.

You know Rubi, movies have always been an escape for me from trauma. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to become a filmmaker. To control reality…or at least create a version of reality that I could control. Watching a movie about the ultimate haunted house and me having a shaky hand brought me back to playing piano in our den, with the fire roaring. My grandpa sitting in his Lazy Boy recliner listening while simultaneously watching Canadian hockey with the volume turned up high since he wore hearing aids.

This scene would occur often as I was articulating my emotions at the piano. I was articulating all the trauma I had experienced living with my mom and all the joy and happiness with my dog Charlie playing ball with me and my grandpa in the yard. I was probably only a 3rd grader at the time.

I would play piano so much, and because of the hot fire, would start sweating. I’d play until I was startled by Papa’s shaky hands on my shoulders.

Fast forward almost twenty years or so and at the age of twenty-five, both my grandparents had died.

The first few weeks after my grandmother died and being alone in the house was very difficult. I had difficulty sleeping and strange occurrences were happening. For instance, it was the middle of winter and about 12 birds nests appeared on my back deck outside my window. Birds were usually south for the winter by then, so it was surprising to see 12 empty birds nests. I brought one birds nest in. Placed in on the piano and began to play.

I was intently improvising at the piano and suddenly, the light above the piano for reading music went out. It startled me! I thought it may be a loose bulb, but before I could check, all the lights in the house went out! I ran outside feeling very disturbed.

When I went back inside after a walk around the neighborhood in search of a neighbor to talk to, the lights were on as if nothing had happened. Including the light over the piano. Had it been my imagination? My mind playing tricks?

I didn’t want to find out. So, I went to Costco and bought the jumbo pack of night lights and put them in every room so the lights would always remain on. They were the kind of lights that detected when it was dark and would turn on lighting the way. I put a flashlight next to my bed and in every room.

The next night I had trouble sleeping in my grandparents’ master bedroom so I returned to my childhood room and fell asleep. When I awoke in the morning, every single night light had been removed from their socket and were on the floor! I have no idea how to explain that one.

A couple nights later, I was still not sleeping. I got so incoherent from being sleep deprived, I was hospitalized. I’ll get to more of that later.

After a week’s stay in the hospital and couple of months later, I was still in the family home and having vivid dreams that my grandparents had been on a long vacation to California and were returning to the house. I heard the front door opening and was excited. Footsteps in the hall and then, I was showing my grandma all that I’d done to the house and we were dancing room to room. As we danced, I introduced my grandma to my dog Randy, named after Papa. Since I got my dog, no more strange occurrences had happened. As she twirled me around more, dizzily, she put me to bed in the master bedroom and I awoke, having the best feeling and with my hand outreached from the twirl. I was disappointed that they hadn’t actually returned and that dancing with my grandma was just a dream. However, the doors in the house, that I normally kept closed, were all open throughout the house when I awoke. Unlike the birds nests and lights, that didn’t freak me out though.

These kind of dreams became reoccurring and I was often confused if I was awake or not and very disappointed when I realized it was just a dream. Often, something would appear out of place when I awoke. I cupboard door in the kitchen open, a cutting board on the table, a glass left out in the bathroom….

I was not at all surprised when the new owners of the house contacted me wondering if the place was haunted.

Rubi: You’ve got many elements that things have happened in the past are in a different realm of the unexplainable and you seem to be interrupting it on a personal level giving a sort of personal mythology. Holly, it struck me that your story is very rich in personal mythology. Mythology that you are aware of. But perhaps have not considered the symbolism or archetypes.

Me: Rubi are you referring to the Joseph Campbell PBS show I made you watch? I think Joseph Campbell as unique approach to breaking down mythology into symbols and archetypes and along with psychology, it can have personal meaning.

Rubi: According to Wikipedia, “Joseph Campbell was an American professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience. Campbell's most well-known work is his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), in which he discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero shared by world mythologies, termed the monomyth.”

Further looking at the monomyth in Wikepedia reveals “In narratology and comparative mythology, the monomyth, or the hero's journey, is the common template of a broad category of tales and lore that involves a hero who goes on an adventure, and in a decisive crisis wins a victory, and then comes home changed or transformed.[1]”

Me: Am I on this journey, Rubi?

Rubi: Yes, but I want you to consider something more. I consulted with Peggy Voth, a Jungian Analyst about your situation and she perhaps says it best. She says, “the left side of the body is typically associated with the feminine principle in the human psyche: emotion, feeling values, the inner world, the unconscious, an impulse toward joining/union. The feminine part of the psyche is more sensitive to the unconscious realm. So much of what you are describing has to do with the unconscious realm. We have a concept of reality using space and time. When we tap into the unconscious, we tap into energy not dictated by space and time. Energy from the unconscious realm collides with the conscious realm, we get synchronicity. The dragonflies and ‘chance’ encounters in the outer world resemble Jung’s concept of synchronicity which involves the relativity of space and time and a degree of unconsciousness. In short, an event in the outside world coincides meaningfully with a psychological state of mind. Essentially, synchronicity is a mysterious connection between the personal psyche and the material world; they are just different forms of energy. It’s possible that psyche and matter are two aspects of one-and-the-same thing. In cases of synchronicity, each is manifesting or showing the same thing but in its own medium or way.

We all live a personal myth – usually rather unconsciously. Or perhaps a myth lives us…

Although not explicitly stated, that’s what Jungian psychology is about: personal mythology. Jung searched long and deeply for his mythology. It was a meandering path from early childhood through near psychosis and into his later years. Dreams, psychic events, primal images, ghosts and fascination with old stories led him into his work which itself spun out from and wove back into his personal myth. Yet that myth couldn’t be nailed down with a label or concrete name."

I think Peggy is right.

Me: I wonder if Jung tried to explain that in a psychiatric ward, he’d be medicated?

Rubi: That’s not grounded in reality.

Me: But it is reality. Jung is a real person and dedicated his whole career to explaining this phenomenon. Why is it okay for a psyche nurse to think it’s okay if a patient says God created the world in 7 days, but it’s not okay to describe dragon flies and synchronicity and that’s basically why I’m on medication?

Rubi: You have me, Holly, like your pills, as your airbags. How Peggy sees you in relation to the hero’s journey…That’s how I see you.