The Fleas made me do it, and other things that don't hold up in court.

I started writing a post a couple of days ago, but I just wasn't really getting into the spirit of the whole thing.  My brain felt dull.  And I now I know why.  There was obviously something else that I wanted to write about more.  Or as it turned out, some experience that would hit closer to home.  Here are some hints:

They're fun and funny.  They're inopportune and hysterical.  You can always put your hand right through them.  That's right everybody!  HALLUCINATIONS!!!

Lyme does funny things inside my brain.  Somedays it seems like I can feel each little lyme bug sitting on some important part of my brain, and when they dance around, crazy sh*t happens.  Sometimes it's losing control of my bladder (I do promise this story is coming), sometimes it's rage that happens like a sneeze, and sometimes it's hallucinations.

There are two different kinds of hallucinations that I get.  The first I like to call "disapparation".  Yes, just like in Harry Potter.  I'll see something, and it will look like something else for a moment, and then I'll see what it originally was, but this is always an object looking like something else.  It is based on something that is there.  So, a trash can on the side of the road could look like an old man, or a shadow could look like a cat, or a pillow could look like a Westie.  It's pretty endless.

And when I start getting the first kind, I know the second isn't far behind.

The second kind is good ol' fashioned crazy a** hallucinations.  Some of my most memorable:

The giant flea.
Spiders, spiders everywhere!
More fleas.
The floor is a maze of mice.
Why are there birds in the living room?
I don't have a black cat, please stop rubbing up against my leg.
Do you see a hair there?
Why is the giant flea back?
Giant blue swallows keep flying at my head every time I walk outside (which did prompt one of my favorite text messages from my then boyfriend: "Do not fear the reaper swallows").

Also, I have audio-hallucinations:

Why does everyone keep saying my name?
Do you hear those church bells too?
Why won't Marge stop whining?

And the best ones....smell-ucinations:

EVERYTHING SMELLS LIKE BACON!!!
Do I smell cookies?
Are those bacon cookies??

I have been graced with the ability to identify hallucinations as hallucinations either as they happen, or shortly after they start, which has been about the only grace with which I've been graced as far as hallucinations go.  That, and that they definitely aren't as scary or macabre as my nightmares (also, for another day).  But hallucinations, for the most part, play into things that I have a visceral reaction to.  For example, I hate fleas.  More than any other bug, I hate fleas with a burning, itching passion.  And so my first hallucination ever was of giant fleas on my legs.  Actually, it was pretty funny.

I was sitting in my living room reading a book.  I looked down at my leg, and there was a flea on it.  It was about half an inch long, which is pretty giant for a flea.  It wasn't moving much.  Just kind of sitting there, so I grabbed it (like you do a flea), and rubbed it between my fingers a little (like you do to kill them), and went to the sink to wash it down the drain.  And as I opened up my fingers under the stream of water, there was nothing there.  I looked everywhere for that flea.  I mean, it was pretty huge for a flea, but it wasn't to be found.  So, I sat back down, started reading my book again, and *pow*, there was another flea.  This time, I watched the flea for a while, and it didn't move.  It just sat there.  So I picked the flea up with my fingers, and then (being brilliant), I got a piece of computer paper out, and opened my fingers over the computer paper.  There was nothing there.  Which lead me to my first, unavoidable conclusion:

I have magic flea killing powers in my fingertips.  Amazing.

Concluding that conclusion one seemed highly unlikely led my to my second, less thrilling conclusion: There are no fleas here, only in my brain.

When you think about the things in your life that turn you into a six year old yelling, "Moooooooommy", you can add hallucinating giant fleas to a place pretty high up on that list.

So, the past few days, things have started to look like things they are not, and it does leave me with the feeling that I am only mostly in reality.  It's a sort of fuzzy, dull feeling in my brain, and my left eye feels funny -- like it's sticking out further than my right eye, and there's a breeze behind it.  And I know what's coming, I just don't know who it will be this time...