Posted by wcfrench on October 9, 2002, at 2:19:06
In reply to Re: Any artists, musicians out there on meds?, posted by wcfrench on October 9, 2002, at 1:57:30
Here's some lagniappe.
On the Geodon my motor skills were also improved. I could do anagrams like an idiot savant. I could look at a word and come up with other words that you could create from that word in an eerily fast way. I beat my sister and her boyfriend who are both MIT graduates in Scrabble, and by a lot. They are pretty smart people. I used to lose to them almost all the time, but when I was taking Geodon it was like I could just find the words so easily. I got PIMENTOS and got the 50 point bonus. I mean, come on. Pimentos. I had to face the challenge that it was spelled "Pimientoes," but luckily there were two spellings.
I also recall driving around and just having these amazing moments of calm happiness.. I had never had those before. I still, to this day, remember driving from Berkeley back to my sister's in San Francisco and feeling amazing happiness that I had never felt before. Truly remarkable.
Calculus became a joke. I was in Calc 2, and I stopped writing out the steps of the problems and just scribbled a couple of numbers down and then wrote the answer. I turned into a different math student- one of those ones that were very messy and fast but knew the right answer because they "saw" it. It just became so much easier to see things visually. My imagination was so powerful, and my visual thought was uncanny, remarkable. I felt like John Travolta in phenomenon when he reworked the parking spots in the parking lot to give it maximum occupancy. I wanted to teach Calculus because I found it so fascinating. I almost wanted to apply to graduate school for Math instead of Computer Science. In received a BS in Comp. Sci and a BM in Music, just to throw that out there. I realized why people dedicated their lives to Mathematics and how truly brilliant good mathematicians are.
I wrote a song for my girlfriend that made complete sense to me, but I think she thought I was on cloud nine. It went something like this.
I'm in a sea of shallow fishes where the water's going down...
I'm in a land of broken waters where the people all drown...
I'm in an ocean filled with promises and they all seem to say...
I'm in a promise filled with oceans and you're getting in my way...
(No one better steal this)To me, it was profound, brilliant, and it made me slip into a higher state of mind. It was like I was a Buddhist and it was my koan. It was my "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Well, needless to say, it has lost some of it's appeal, but I still am going to finish it out as a song.
I remember being in total control of my emotions. Anger and fights seemed so silly. It was like I was above it all, and no one could upset me. I was there to teach people about life. I was a Bodhisattva, an enlightened being on this earth who's job is to teach others about life. Sure, I wasn't having bouts of grandeur!
Well, mathematician or not, those were certainly some of the best and most interesting weeks of my life. I wish I didn't have to stop the medicine, but it started doing bad things to me, and since then I've stopped antipsychotics all together. I still have some left though, in hopes to one day reunite with the Buddhist gods.
I hope you enjoyed my story.
-Charlie
poster:wcfrench
thread:122468
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021006/msgs/122874.html