Automatic Writing

I wasn't going to write this dream down at first because it kind of disturbed me. But then I remembered that this is the exact kind of dream that I'm supposed to write about. It was also kind of a difficult decision because my dreams have been a bit murky lately so they're too hard to remember. That makes it kind of hard too, but let's try with this one anyway. So here it is.

I remember sitting in a house I had just moved into. It was kind of dark and shadowy in the house so I knew this wasn't going to be a positive experience. I was reading a self improvement book, which I often do. I like looking for techniques to make myself a better me. But this particular book was getting a little strange.

The book was suggesting that I try a thing called automatic writing, which is a technique where a person uses alleged psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. You hold a pen or pencil to paper while not paying conscious attention to it. The words are claimed to arise from a subconscious, spiritual or supernatural source.

The book told me to hold a pencil to a piece of paper with my non-writing hand and let myself kind of drift into a daze or half sleep. Then it said my subconscious would write down life improving advice for me. Because of the negative mood of the dream and my real life knowledge I was more than a little skeptical.

What I was remembering was that allegedly in some stories what really happened in these situations was that a spirit, maybe good or evil, would take over your hand for the writing session. Later that same spirit could stick around and cause a few problems. I don't know what I really believe about this, but I didn't want to take any chances.

I remember looking around the room and seeing that the shadows and darkness were expanding out from every corner. That was a good indication that doing something that possibly stretched into the occult wasn't a very good idea at this time.

An even more immediate problem was that it seemed there was a voice in my head that seemed to be intensely urging me to do it. It kept telling me that I was being ridiculous by refusing. It said that trying it just once wouldn't hurt anything. The voice kept getting more and more intense. I have learned over the years that this is exactly the reason to refuse something. So I did just that every time it said to do it.

I abruptly woke from my dream while in the act of refusing this voice. I'm not sure why but I felt the urge to look around my bedroom to make sure there was nobody else there. I was glad to see that I was alone. But I had this awful lingering feeling that I had just barely avoided something very bad. I still felt disturbed by the whole experience for quite some time after I awoke. So here I am writing down everything that I can remember. That's my story.