The contraction of Time

When you are in psychosis, the hardest thing to grasp is what happens to time.

For me, the best way to describe it is it's like the sense of day and night no longer exist and the sense of the day ending will never happen. It's on one continuous loop. It's like I will never sleep and re-set ever again.

Instead time feels like a continuous saga. One that will never end. It's like one continuous stretch. Like I am in a movie that will never finish. Time is stretching to eternity. And I am stuck in this new time dimension, forever.

And my brain believes this new time reality. My brain feels like it can never relax again. It can't because time is stretching on forever and I must stay vigilant at all times. There is no longer down time or time for rest, ever. It is like being in the ultimate flight mode where there is no rest and reset mode. Just survival mode at all times.

And when I recovered I had to grapple with this sense of time I experienced.

But what is the opposite?

And for many many years later it has taken me a long time to get back to the expansion of time. The expansion of time is the space where I feel grounded and my sense of day and night exists once more.

As time expands I start to notice the smaller things in life. Those you only notice when no longer in flight mode: the swaying of trees, the smell of rain, the feeling of sunshine once more.

My mind can also relax when it senses the expansion of time. It feels safe there.

I now have the awareness to sense when time is contracting: when anxiety, or panic or stress creep in. Psychosis is just an extreme sense of time's contraction.

And now I can bring myself back to time's expansion via awareness and techniques (that is for another blog).

I notice the sensations when time contracts or expands.

When time contracts it feels like my brain has muscles that are flexing and becoming tightened. Closed off from the world.

When time expands it's as if my brain muscles relax and lets the world back in.

Yes time's contraction closes the outside world off.

Time's expansion lets the world back in.

And this is what makes a psychosis so scary- your sense of time's contraction puts you in a different time-zone to everyone around you. And that time-zone is one where time has sped up, the opposite of slowing down.

Getting better requires getting back to the timezone we all seem to share.

And becoming extremely well is living in the space where time is expansive most of the time. I think people call this Mindfulness.

If I had to say what the opposite of mindfulness was. I would say psychosis.

Psychosis is the opposite of mindfulness.

And life is everything in-between.

And the opposite of time's contraction is time's expansion.

You want to get as close to time's expansion as possible.

Because this is where wellness resides.

In time's expansion.

And psychosis resides in time's contraction.

And like the deep breathing of your lungs that expand and contract. Or your heart that expands and contracts with a heartbeat. Time expands and contracts too.

And it's your job to reside in the place where it expands.

Good things happen in the expansion of time.

The expansion of time is where you want to be. (In another blog I will tell you how I get there).

Come join me in the expansion of time.

You can arrive at it.

It's joyous there.