I have never tried to explain this phenomenon. In truth I have never really even given it much thought. I know that it happens. I am at the point where I have experienced it enough times that I can acknowledge when it is actually happening. But I have never considered trying to pick it apart. I'm not entirely sure that I am even comfortable with the idea of that, but we'll see.

I call it the "artistic trance" because I basically don't know what else to call it. It's something that just is. I am not sure it is definable. Probably not because I am quite positive that it must be an individual experience. I've not discussed it with anyone else before. But I'm not in doubt that other people have them.

The reason I am trying to write about this now is because I have been in one for about the past hour. It doesn't happen to me as frequently as it used it. I think that's merely a matter of life getting in the way. I could probably create them if I chose to, but I think it would ruin the...serendipity of them.

So before I lose everyone, I should attempt to describe it. It's just a mindset. It's just a period of time where I basically crawl inside my head. And there is always a trigger. For me the triggers are usually the same types of things. Hearing someone talk about art and ideas about art, spending a lot of time looking at art, live music, movies (although generally only after seeing them at the theater). Although maybe movies are a bit different. Regardless those are the main things.

Today it was art. An art lecture. I have them every Friday, so usually if they are any good at all, this is the state you will find me in on a Friday afternoon. If you could see me, I think the look on my face would tell you that mind is running at top speed. Thinking about my life, my art, the world around me. It's a very lucid state of being. Even though I don't think lucid is neccesarily the right word.

I kind of leave my body. It's like a natural narcotic. That is the best way for me to describe it. And I somehow become simultaneously oblivous to the world around me and yet with a heightened sense of everything.

And I always wondered why there are certain things I listen to when I get in these states. And for the past 5 or so years that has been Radiohead. And it just occurred to me today that the reason for that is because Radiohead's music sounds like what I feel like when I am in these moods, this altered mental state. Lots of repitition, I'll say the same thing over and over to myself in my head. Lots of strange sounds, lots of things whirling around together that don't seem to go together but somehow end up making sense.

I realize this has been a completely pointless entry, because unless you have experienced this, I just sound like a lunatic who needs to be medicated. But I wanted to attempt to explain it before I came out of it.

Soundtrack ~ "How to dissappear completely" - Radiohead