rejectomorph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rejectomorph) wrote2003-03-04 06:32 am
rejectomorph) wrote2003-03-04 06:32 am
Premature Spring
When the night is very clear, and the stars have that intense presence that makes it seem as though they were small lights only a short distance away, and the air is perfectly still, sounds will carry with an astonishing clarity. An owl hooting in a tree a hundreds of feet away will startle me, as though it were right overhead, and a twig cracking under my foot will sound like a breaking branch. On such a night I can imagine that I hear water rushing underground, or a faint groan that is the growth of countless trees.
I think part of this is the spring. Although it is cold again tonight, the premature spring has truly arrived. I know this, because my allergies have begun to kick in. I have been sneezing for a couple of days, now, and I have that feeling which is like a swelling in the front of my head. I think that some of the pollens or molds in the air are psychoactive. Maybe they aren't psychoactive for everyone, but they are for me. Every year, spring brings me a heightening of the senses, and it is at this time of year that I am most likely to have those strange experiences of scents and sounds and tastes which come from nowhere and have no apparent source. The scent of popcorn that wasn't there which I experienced the other night was one of these.
I have sometimes wondered if those mass sightings of UFOs we hear of are not the result of some kind of hallucinogenic pollen or mold spores floating on the breeze. I've never seen UFOs myself, but I have heard bird songs from locations where no bird sits, and I have suddenly imagined flavors I have never tasted from any food, but which are, very briefly, as intense and convincing as an orange or an apple. Also, I have occasionally felt a touch when I was not being touched. A person with less skepticism might interpret these as mystical experiences. A person more pessimistic might fear some disease-presaging malfunction of the brain. I suspect spring, when it happens most often. And I suspect that the reason I don't see UFOs is because the part of my brain which controls my visual sense is less susceptible to the effects of the airborne substances which cause these distortions of perception.
Of course, I have no proof of any of this. But I know for sure that when the allergies begin to effect me, I can expect these unexplained phenomena to appear as well. I have come to think of them as compensation for the sneezing and coughing and headaches that are, for me, the price of spring. It is still my favorite season.
I think part of this is the spring. Although it is cold again tonight, the premature spring has truly arrived. I know this, because my allergies have begun to kick in. I have been sneezing for a couple of days, now, and I have that feeling which is like a swelling in the front of my head. I think that some of the pollens or molds in the air are psychoactive. Maybe they aren't psychoactive for everyone, but they are for me. Every year, spring brings me a heightening of the senses, and it is at this time of year that I am most likely to have those strange experiences of scents and sounds and tastes which come from nowhere and have no apparent source. The scent of popcorn that wasn't there which I experienced the other night was one of these.
I have sometimes wondered if those mass sightings of UFOs we hear of are not the result of some kind of hallucinogenic pollen or mold spores floating on the breeze. I've never seen UFOs myself, but I have heard bird songs from locations where no bird sits, and I have suddenly imagined flavors I have never tasted from any food, but which are, very briefly, as intense and convincing as an orange or an apple. Also, I have occasionally felt a touch when I was not being touched. A person with less skepticism might interpret these as mystical experiences. A person more pessimistic might fear some disease-presaging malfunction of the brain. I suspect spring, when it happens most often. And I suspect that the reason I don't see UFOs is because the part of my brain which controls my visual sense is less susceptible to the effects of the airborne substances which cause these distortions of perception.
Of course, I have no proof of any of this. But I know for sure that when the allergies begin to effect me, I can expect these unexplained phenomena to appear as well. I have come to think of them as compensation for the sneezing and coughing and headaches that are, for me, the price of spring. It is still my favorite season.
research!
Re: research!
I noticed a marked increase in the occurrence of these events when I moved here from Los Angeles. That city is full of plants, of course, but few of them grow in large enough concentrations to send out very much pollen of a single type. Also, many of them are hybrid ornamentals which have been deliberately bred by the seed companies not to develop fertile seeds, which probably effects their pollen production as well. Here, we have entire fields dominated by a handful of species, all of them wild.
I've never asked anyone else around here if they experience these odd phenomena. I suspect that many people pay little attention to such things, anyway. They smell an unusual fragrance on the air and assume that someone is doing laundry with a new detergent or some such thing. I don't know anyone who sees flying saucers, or ghosts, or angels, so I can't ask them if they see them more often in spring. It would be an interesting subject for someone versed in botany or psychology (unlike myself) to research, though.