I just lost almost an hour there. I started going out around 10:50-something, and I was completely out at 11:18. The most of my mind, the personality part, ducks out of the way, and writerbrain with stimulus engages, only it's not about writing, it's about someone on the other end of the chat and the stimulus coming in from the cards. It's 11:59, and I'm finally fully resident again.
Evidently I sound a lot different when I'm in the zone. More confident, for one, I'm sure. In my usual talking-with self, I'm giggly and slangy and all different kinds of perky. When I do this, I go Out, and I speak very much more articulately with much more assuredness about the private, personal, and emotional lives of people I don't know well enough to ordinarily make such statements about. I think that part of my inability to remember everything I say and know in such state is part of the confidentiality agreement between That Which Is and the person for whom I'm doing the reading.
I don't often have the opportunity to do readings for people I don't know at all, but when I do, evidently I'm similarly accurate. The lady from work who used to call me Diane was impressed, and she walked into the reading skeptical and determined that it was going to be excessively silly. I spent quite some time on that one, too.
marxdarx walked in when I was in the kitchen putting the bread away, and I jumped. I'm usually not that abstracted. I go out so well that sometimes I have trouble coming back and staying back. Food and sleep help: I'm having carrots and marinated mushrooms, and I'll crash out when I'm done writing and done munching. He noticed that I was way-out. I haven't usually been that way-out; I've been staying on earth of late. For the past year, actually. I think. Mostly. It's been almost half an hour and I'm not completely back. I'm out of practice, and I lack the environmental stimuli needed to shock me back into myself. I have figured out why it is that some witches seem to lose their powers when they become pregnant, and why some seem to gain. It depends on the perspective. If you look at it from the point of view that you must be able to totally lose yourself and not be aware of even your own body, just that which you're focusing on, and that you should be able to consciously choose what you're focusing on, or have it be an academic subject or have it chosen for you -- in that way, when you're given over to a child, you've got that gone. You have part of your attention on the child at all times when you're on duty. They never leave your thoughts for long, and can gain your attention back at any time just by speaking. But, if you take into account the additional depth of perception that comes with the full caring for another, extra dimensions are added to the power. You know when they're up to something, when they're sad, happy... it takes training, but you get it, in time, when all goes right, and you've got the capability. If it's related to them, nothing is impossible. If it isn't, it depends how much time and energy you can spare...
But it's power to wilfully command, or power that's devoted. I can't monofocus two places at once, and I haven't had the meditative practice yet to remain aware and communicative while still monofocusing, to not be jolted out by the necessity of dealing with something. Not when I'm down that deep. I haven't been able to go into programmingtrance with the Little Fayoumis present; that's the same ability, put to a different use. The same level of focus.
I'm still sliding sideways. It's best for me going completely out to get me when I'm a little tired, but it does a number on how coherent I'm going to be afterwards, and my recovery time as well. Once while on the phones, I was connected to a woman who needed an ear and some insight, and so I was, and I had to use a fifteen minute break card in order to recover from that one. Shrimpy charged my coffee, and I was so drained I needed the boost. (For new readers: "Shrimpy" is a former schoolmate and co-worker, someone whose training was briefly given unto me that I school him on the responsible use of his powers and not being a twit. He and Darkside were in the same classes, and had the same given name.)
This is an almost normal tired-spaceout, now. I like to be almost coherent when I hit bed -- makes for far saner dreams.
