Soothing for the Mind

[AbuHossam]

There was comfort in being in bed.

Not just the softness of the sheets

Not just the heavy yet familiar security of the blankets

Or the* firmness of the pillow cradling his head.

*Sure it was warm and appealing to a tired body.

* But it was soothing for the mind.

*The minds weariness could gather its thoughts and bring them home for a few hours.

To subconsciously shepard it's flock of thoughtforms to safety from the storms of the day.

*To count them, to check each ones wellbeing without the overbearing interference of consciousness.

*To attend to their needs without judgement.

Yet it was thirsty work and the mind would soon tire.

*The last straggling thoughts were barely domesticated.

*They danced and jeered from the fence of awareness. Taunting the fading shepard, jolting him awake.

*Others circled like wolves pulling out other thoughts as they drifted too close to the boundary.

*The now exhausted, mind herdsman drifting in and out of reality .

He expired for a nap he'd rest and then encircle them back into the pen for the night in a few hours.

The thoughtforms grew legs and horns, stood on two feet and began to dance.

*They played the same songs again and again.

A primal drum beat, tormenting the mind and trampling the body.

*The thought herding mind paralysed by the trance and the somnambulist lust, simply rolled over foaming at the mouth eyes glassed over.

*The thought form beings began to run wild, materialising the thoughts of the day, the week and the year.

They raged on encircling the safe paddock of the mind, faster.

Thoughtforms took on further forms, people places, feelings, smells and sounds.

The intoxicated shepherd slightly aware but unable to utter a whistle.

*After a while he switched off, the thoughtforms had created a world. Inside his mind, that awareness of a mind.

*The world raced around him telling multiple life's, pure fantasy.

Some fantasy so delicious he could taste its sweetness, but could never eat enough to satisfy the deep void of hunger inside him.

Oh how it teased and seduced a part of him, but as soon as it was real, and for his indulgence , it would disappear and leave him unsatisfied.

*Rapidly it could turn horrifying, thoughtforms created a world where he saw himself do things he found repulsive, heinous acts of violence.

It drew him in, he relished in the power of the anger, the satisfaction of retribution.

Until the forms exhausted their ability to fool him and again he realised he'd been cheated of reality.

The next thought scene* repealed the terror and gave him the love he was now screaming for, arms outstretched.

He basked in it, full of warmth, a contented* bliss, the safety of a mother's embrace to a toddler, the timelessness of a sunset in a lovers bosom.

The thoughtforms dragged him out of this reality, manipulating the ideas, seeding seeds of fear and jealously, as soon as he realised what he'd had, he started to squirm with horror.

The seeds sprouted the fear of losing the intoxicating love, spiralling into a paranoia, had it even existed? If he didn't have it, who had it now?

The disturbance roused the bedraggled mind shepard.

He opened his eyes, his flock of thoughtforms were still resting in the snug circular pen.

The ones who haggled him sleeping peacefully.

Gently he closed his eyes, yet they slammed shut, throwing him into a thought world again.

In this one things didn't make sense, people from his past existed in his future, strange things happened that felt normal, these thought forms overwhelmed him. He awoke in a sweat the awareness of the thoughts fading quickly but lingering enough for the mechanics of it to puzzle and disturb him.

As it continued night on and night out, the thought shepard* tasted these other existences, longed for another. Any other than his own. Sometimes his own existence inside a mind as a herdsman seemed like an unreality, a bad dream he'd wake up from. But other times e craved to return to its familiarity.

For if he didn't who would reign these thoughts in?

Who would keep things under a semblance of order?

*But anyway? Why did he bother? Was he just a piece of the system? Would he just be replaced? Or would the system crash if he stopped working?

Would he die? Was he already dead? He didnt remember being born.

Perhaps he just served the body? And the soul was his master servant.

Maybe he was just an awareness of an awareness?perhaps, he thought he was just another mindless thoughtform being shepherded** through a fleeting existence.

After a while he decided, he has this awareness, he may as well be the master of it.

*He tried so hard to create the thoughtforms, to get them to develop the fantasy worlds he wanted to live in.

For some parts it worked, but inevitably many errant thought forms got in the way.

Over many nights he tried, but hus will prevailed not, and hus work began to suffer.

The thoughtforms were even more belligerent than before, stampeding often.

He took a big step back out of the fantasy worlds, just letting them happen around his circle corral, they still happened but he didn't get pulled into them, he just watched from a distance, working only with the thought forms that remained inside his fence, he had no control over when they would wake and begin to wander, or when they'd come home to rest. All he could do was keep them safe and warm as they slept and repair the rickety fence when an agitated one crashed into it. There was no other thing to do, no control to be had over them. Although they settled substantially once he gave up controlling them.

Meanwhile the pillow had creased, the soft mattress became hard and hurt his back, the warmth of the bed was now unpleasant, he awoke with a jolt to a new day with a subtle yet profound awareness, the mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master