She awakes expecting a forest she knows & encounters one she knows not. The trees ripple. Colors vibrate. Someone has shattered the sky & punctured the moon. The old forest is fractured.

    Half of her knows this is false. The other half is sure that it is true.

    Half of her fears for her life. The other half struggles for love.

    She could be dreaming. She may have a mental illness. In this case the cause is a mind-altering drug.

    It happens to hospital patients every day. Drugs intended to help sometimes hurl us into wild levels of consciousness. Amid altered reality we may sense the absurdity of the one we live every day.

    Like many, I have made several visits to altered states. Unlike most, I try hard to remember & describe. Under nitrous oxide at the dentist I write thoughts. Under one of only three uses of marijuana I went through an LSD type experience & was flooded with terror.

   I work to remember my frequent dreams & make notes the next day for use in art (this picture) as well as in writings about caregiving. 

   In altered states I am usually sure that our current existence is shallow as a bird bath.

   We may briefly enter deeper waters during out lifetimes. Eternity's ocean awaits us after death.

   Meanwhile, we trust caregivers & heart friends to shepherd us & we need to do the same for them.

   In 2003, Physician Peter Walling, M.D. wrote, "Although our brains can imagine objects only in 3 spatial dimensions, some concept of higher dimensions is occasionally possible," he offered. "Recent studies of superstring theory relating to the smallest subatomic particles suggest the possibility of as many as 26 dimensions."*

    Most discard experiences of other dimensions as indescribable. But, artists (e.g. Van Gogh & Picasso) portray these lands & writers can take us there if we follow them.

    In a 1628 sermon John Donne said, "The beast does but know, but the man knows that he knows."

    Yes. We know. But, a yeoman's axe splits theories of suffering away from the experience of it. They are the difference between a course on pain & suffering rape. 

    What a challenge caregivers face when with disoriented patients. The temptation to dismiss, degrade & condescend to suffering not visible is great. Radical Loving Care engages respect, support & comfort.

   This is what we pray for when illness & terror distort our known world.

-Erie Chapman

Photo: "The Broken Forest" by Erie

*"Dimensions of consciousness" Peter T. Walling, MD, FRCA corresponding author1 and Kenneth N. Hicks, CETSR, CBET, GROL1 Baylor University Medical Center 'Proceedings' 2003