Take what you will from this. I'm not sure this even belongs in Nosleep, but after everything that has happened, I have a lot on my mind and just need to get it out. This isn't your typical "nosleep" story. The narrative may be a little "all over the place" because well, it's a collection of memories. It begins with two memories. These "memories" were told to me by Matthew when he was drunk. That was the best time to get him to open up about things. He could be a very guarded person.
He claims he has had both of these memories "all of his life".
MEMORY 1. He says he is a Native American warrior, wearing a breechcloth, holding a spear, running through a beaten path in some wooden area. He says he is scared and running as fast as his feet can beat the ground. The next thing he knows he falls through some hole in the ground that was hidden and obscured by leaves and sticks. At the bottom of this hole are wooden spikes that pierce through his right thigh and through his left lung. He is held in place, suspended by the spikes. His first reaction is to get the fuck away as fast as he can, but he can't move. It's hard to breath. He struggles but he's stuck there on the spikes. His mind starts to race with every possible way he could get out. He needs to! He knows he's going to get out of there somehow but how? He can't breath. Blood starts filling up his lungs. It suddenly dawns on him that this time there is no escape. There is no getting way. This is it. He realizes that this is how he dies. There is absolutely nothing that he can do to prevent it. It's terrifying. He feels the blood fill his lungs as he waits out his final moments in panic, in shock, his heart beating so fast it's just about ready to explode and burst out of his chest. This is his last moment. His life, all he has ever known, all of it is over. It's gone. This is the end. And then the memory ends.
MEMORY 2 He is an old woman, walking the beach hand in hand with her husband. The sun is going down and the sky has swirls of purple, pink, orange, and every shade of blue you can imagine. White clouds are strewn throughout sporadically. The air is cool, fresh, and crisp, and full of salt. Fuck she can feel the salt on her skin. She can taste it. With her husband she feels complete. She feels happy. Not a care or worry in the world. Both of them must be in their 80's, at least. She is just so fucking fulfilled. Happy. Content. With her husband she feels at one, like they share one body, one mind, one soul. She can feel him, his energy, his being. They don't need to speak. Their love transcends what most know. He tells me that this is the happiest memory he has, and it's not even of his life. He tells me that he knows he will never feel as complete and happy as he did in that memory.
The old woman and her husband go back to a small house that they either rented or owned, he doesn't really know. Those types of details are harder to be aware of when recalling these types of memories. But they go back to this small beach cottage, and just kinda sit across from each other in the kitchen. "Kokomo" by The Beach Boys is on the radio, and he said that whenever he heard that song during his current life, it always made him feel kinda weird, like he longed for something or someplace but couldn't quite figure out what. The song always made him feel like he was dreaming. It always made him cry.
So they just sit across from each other in the kitchen, at this small perfectly square table. He remembers the refrigerator being sea foam green and having rounded corners. He calls it "60s" style but I'm still not sure what that means I guess. They don't speak to each other. Their arms are intertwined and they just sit and be with one another. Sometimes they look deeply into one another's eyes. Sometimes she cries. Sometimes they each stare off into space and get lost in their own thoughts. It doesn't matter. They are just happy to be with each other. No words are needed.
They eventually get up and go to the bedroom to retire. They lay down next to each other.
And that's it. That's the end of the memory.
Matthew's Younger Years Matthew claims to remember being in the hospital after his birth. He remembers experiencing life "pre-speech". He actually almost died at birth. He was born a month early, and actually had pneumonia at birth so he had to be separated from his mother and put into care immediately. He claims to remember this. He would later tell me that he wished he did in fact just die at birth. He claimed he wasn't supposed to be here.
Matthew says that when he was really really young, he could hear, as he would call it, "the frequency of the energy of the environment" that he was in. This means, he would hear something similar to a high pitched ringing in his ears all of the time and it would change in pitch depending on where he was and who was there. When people arrived at his house he would know before hearing or seeing them because he says the high pitched ringing would change. He says this stayed with him throughout adolescence but by middle school/high school it faded and was gone.
Matthew says when he was about 5 years old he went to a grocery store with his mother. A strange man saw Matthew and started freaking out causing a scene. The man was short, probably under 5 feet. He was thick, wide, and stocky. He says the man had a bush gray beard and also wildly long hair. Matthew says the man was very "animalistic". The man, allegedly, began hissing and screeching at Matthew until Matthew's mother ushered him away quickly. He says he thinks the man was a demon
During his younger years Matthew also claimed to go through a period where he heard his own name being called out to him. He said the first time it happened, he thought it was his older sister. Upon investigating he found that his sister was actually in the shower and nobody else was around. He says it came from behind his bed. He claims it kept happening, for about a month and it scared him. He couldn't sleep at night. He says one time when it was happening he got his sister and he claims she heard it too. I've never asked her about it so I don't really know how true that is.
He says that also when he was young, he could feel his own "soul" and knew how to hide his soul from different parts of his body, like hiding inside of himself like a turtle. To be honest, he always had strange attachments to turtles. I'm not really sure what he meant by all of this.
But like I said, by middle school and high school he says all of this stuff went away, or died down. I know he had a hard time in high school. He had some family problems at the time. He never knew his father, because his father was an alcoholic, cocaine user who frequently used to beat his mother. His mother left the father before Matthew was born and fled across the country to start a new life and get away. But she was a single mother who had a hard life herself. She had difficulty raising two children alone. They grew up poor. He was the poor kid in school. He says there was constant fighting in the household. He said he didn't realize that type of verbal fighting wasn't normal for all families until he was older. He said he blocked alot of this out for a long time as well.
College College is when things started to get really weird. He was an insanely creative person, probably the most creative person I had ever known. He was extremely funny but most people didn't get to know that side of him. He had intense social anxiety and was terrified of other people. He wanted to love others and he wanted others to love him, the biggest problem, however, was that he just hated himself. I'm not sure why, he just thought so low of himself, as long as I can remember. As long as anyone can remember. He thought the worst of himself, and everyone who knew him, I mean really knew him, loved him. He was rare, and unique, and he shined so fucking bright. He was unlike anyone I ever known. And he was insanely smart. Too smart, in fact. His mind would analyze every situation and go through every possible outcome. Sometimes it was too much. Sometimes he just shut down. He just wanted to be loved.
In college he got his first girlfriend. This.....seemed like a good thing. It was what he wanted, I guess? But apparently it just brought a lot of struggles and hardships from his troubled youth to the surface. All of the shit he blocked out during middle school and high school, all of his family troubles and the issues created in him by his stressed out, dysfunctional, single mother, came out of him during the relationship. His girlfriend was no peach either. She ended up cheating on him several times and lying to him about it. When he caught her, it was fucking awful. He fell apart and he dropped out of school.
He got a full time job and started renting a house with some friends as he came to the conclusion that he could no longer live at home with his mother. This house that he rented is where I met him. This house was like a commune, basically. He just wanted everyone to be able to feel comfortable there, like it was their house too. Anything in the fridge was available for anyone who wanted it, people were constantly over there. Fuck, I'd show up and just hang out there when nobody was home and nobody cared. It was everyone's house. It was amazing.
But yeah, I was friends with his roommate, Mike. So there would be parties and Matthew would hang out and get drunk and smoke weed and have a good time. For the most part, he'd stay quiet and kinda to himself. But when he got drunk, he was just off the wall. He wanted everyone to have a great time. He wanted everyone to just have fun and enjoy themselves. He was awesome. IT was hard to get close to him, though. Only Matthew's closest friends really knew him. And they looked out for him and they understood him and they made sure that nobody fucked with Matthew. His friends were amazing. And soon I would be included in that exclusive inner circle.
I spent a lot of time over that house. Sometimes it would just be me and Matthew in the house, so we'd get drunk and play video games. He played the guitar and the drums, and I played the guitar, so we'd go into the basement of the house and just jam out. Jamming with his was a different experience. IT helped me understand him. He could feel the music and played completely by feeling alone. I could feel him when we jammed. I can't explain it. There was something about music that he just understood. He said it was a language, and it was the language of feelings and that's how he knew how to communicate most effectively.
Now, during this time, Matthew was starting to get more and more into drugs. He was looking for something. I knew he was experimenting with meditation and I knew he smoked pot, but soon he was trying other things like acid or mushrooms. He started taking mushrooms quite regularly. He once tried to tell me that it wasn't about seeing things. He said it was about freedom. He said the mushrooms gave him great insight into himself and revelations about life and his nature. I tripped with him a few times. I just kinda saw shit and nothing else but I guess it's different for everyone.
Now one time there was a massive party going on at Matthew's place. I was so incredibly drunk I could barely stand. I remember half way through the night, somebody showed up and gave Matthew a huge bag of mushrooms. If I remember correctly, it was about a half an ounce. Matthew said it was the most he had ever taken at once. As soon as he got the bag, he scampered off to his bedroom and locked the door, disappearing for the rest of the night. I ended up crashing on the couch, which nobody cared about.
At 8am, Matthew woke me up. This is when I think we became better friends.
"WAKE UP!" He shouted at me. I thought he was pissed I slept on their couch.
"Whoa! Whoa, what's up?! What?!" I was startled.
"Listen man! I need you to come with me into the basement. I need to talk to you right now. Come on."
So I followed him into the basement. He grabbed a pack of cigarettes and pulled out two, giving me one. I felt like I didn't have a choice if I could smoke it or not, so I just did. Matthew lit his and took a huge lung filling draw off of it, almost sucking the tobacco through the filter. He held it in and closed his eyes before releasing it all in a massive cloud of smoke that seemed to offer him some form of relief. He seemed more relaxed after, like he just orgasmed or something.
"Fuck dude! I need to say this to someone because I don't know what to think. I ate half an ounce of mushrooms last night. I went into my room and I shut off all of the lights and just laid down. Listen man. I went fuckin' out of body. I left reality. I was someplace else. Beyond space and time. MY ego dissolved and I was pure awareness and I realized my ego is an illusion and I've always just been pure awareness, pure consciousness. I floated in this sea of infinite possibility. Whatever I directed attention to, came into being and I experienced it both subjectively by being it, and objectively as the external world out there became it as well, so I felt and understood whatever state of being completely."
Okay..........? I didn't know what to say.
"Then man. Then. Fuck. Then I saw the fuckin' future. My future. Consciousness precedes matter. Consciousness exists prior to the physical world. Consciousness is the key. Consciousness exists beyond space and time. I saw the state of my own consciousness throughout many different phases of the rest of my life."
What? I still didn't know what to say.
"Well man, you were on a lot of mushrooms. IT could have just been a, you know, hallucination." That's all I had.
He just kinda looked at me, he looked hurt and kinda angry. He immediately stopped talking about it, finished his cigarette and went back upstairs and went to sleep.
"Okay?" I fell back to sleep downstairs on the couch in his basement.
I remember hearing weird stories from the people he worked with. Girls would tell me that they could feel Matthew in their heads from time to time, and often could hear his thoughts. They said it creeped them out. I didn't believe the first girl who said this, but this trend continued. They could all feel him, fantasizing about these different girls. They could feel him thinking about them, trying to draw them too him.
In the following weeks, Matthew began to get really weird. He stopped all of his creative endeavors. He stopped painting. He stopped playing music. He stopped writing his little short films and he stopped making little films on his camera. He stopped doing all of these things that he loved.
His roommates would later tell me that he started ordering all sorts of strange books to his house. Books on "subjective reality". Books on "law of attraction". Books on every religion imaginable. He immersed himself in all of these really out there books that at the time I didn't really know about. He stayed in his room and would just read them. We didn't see him too much for a little while.
He became infatuated with a certain new girl who would show up at the house for parties. She would later tell people that she felt strangely drawn to him. She became obsessed with him, saying that she could feel him and that she thought about him all of the time. When I asked Matthew about her, he got really excited and admitted that he liked her a lot.
And then she became his girlfriend. And he moved out of the house. And nobody saw him for a year. he just straight up disappeared. He made his life all about her. He just wanted people to love him. Nobody saw him for a year after this.
During this time, his roommates all moved out of the house and they moved on with their lives. Nobody thought they'd ever see Matthew again. But a year later she broke up with him.
Matthew tried to kill himself. He cut his wrists open while in the shower. He was saved because he texted his girlfriend while he was in the process of doing it, telling her that he was killing himself and it was her fault. She called the police and they showed up at his house, dragged him out of the shower and took him to the hospital. He claims the police verbally abused him the whole time, treating him like a monster for killing himself and making "that girl" cry like that.
He was out in three days and went home to live with his mother again.
The end times Matthew was really depressed for a long time, but assured all of his friends that "good things were coming". He said that he "knew it" because he had seen it. I knew what he meant. They didn't.
Matthew claimed that when he was at the grocery store during this time, a strange woman came up to him and gave him all of her money to pay for his groceries. He denied it at first, but she wouldn't allow it. She even threw the money at him and then ran out of the store. He didn't know what to make of it. He said on his way out of the store, a small child he's never seen before looked up at him and said "Mommmy! It's Matthew!" and the mother suushed the kid and ushered him away quickly. He said he couldn't make sense of it.
Matthew then quit his job and nobody knew why. He spent the next three years in his mother's home. She took care of everything he needed and he just wasted time in his bedroom. He told me it was okay because good things were coming. He just knew it. But nothing ever changed. Nothing. He just stayed unemployed, living at home with his mother. Not painting. Not writing. Not making music. Just waiting. For what? I didn't know at the time, but later he would get blackout drunk and confess to me. But we'll get to that in a little bit.
Matthew tripped on shrooms again a few more times, each time with interesting and strange results. The first time was with three people: his friends Mike and John, and Mike's little cousin Caleb. Caleb had never met Matthew before, nor had he tripped on anything. The four of them tripped. Caleb began to freak out as soon as the shrooms kicked in. He couldn't stop lookiing at Matthew. When Matthew stood up, so did Caleb. Caleb did whatever Matthew did until he realized how bizarre this was, and he ran out to this car and drove home (thankfully he made it home safe and sound). Caleb would later tell Mike that he was convinced Matthew was God in human form.
The next time that Matthew tripped, it was again with Mike and John. This time no Caleb. Mike, John, and Matthew ALL claim that they shared one mind that night. They spent the entire night communicating telepathically. They said it was all "feeling" based. Mike told me it wasn't like hearing someone's thoughts in your head. It was like being able to feel them and then understand them entirely based on how they felt. They all confirmed the "conversation" the next day when they weren't tripping. They all claim to have known everything that they "discussed" telepathically all night. Matthew didn't seem phased by this at all.
Okay so yeah, one time Matthew gets black out drunk and confesses to me his plan, making me swear not to tell anyone else. He tells me that he saw the future, his future, that night that he took too many mushrooms. He saw himself winning the lottery and he learned that we all create our own realities. He said the day after he tripped he started buying book after book to help him cultivate this "power" and to harness it. He was going to win the lottery. He said his plan was to buy a parcel of land and build several houses for himself and his friends. He said there is where they would all make music and fulfill their dreams. He would make everyone happy, and everyone would love him. He said that he saw it happening and he knew it would, just not when.
And so he stayed unemployed. And he continued not to do anything. Everytime I saw him, his wallet was stuffed full of lottery tickets. I'm not sure where he got the money to buy them all since he wasn't working. I know his mother wasn't rich so she wasn't just handing it to him or anything like that. But I kept it a secret. And the days passed. And the weeks passed. And the months passed. And the years passed. And he didn't win.
And he started drinking more and more. He was still buying lottery tickets. In fact he would sneak buy them, even around me, like he was ashamed or didn't want us to know, even though I already knew. I assumed he forgot that he told me but I just watched this all go down. He stayed unemployed and just kepts his fingers crossed.
And soon he wasn't really too much fun when he was drunk and soon he was drunk all of the time. He looked really sad and miserable after a while. But he didn't stop. He claimed he knew what was going to happen. To be honest, I think everytime he lost the lottery, which was everytime, part of his heart broke even more.
After years of this, he looked defeated but didn't seem like he was going to give up. He and I went to New York City one weekend just to party. I paid since I had a pretty good job at this point and he got wasted. He sang karaoke. He met strangers, which was his favorite thing to do when drunk. Often times when he was drinking he would play "the high five game" where he would run around and try to see how many strangers he could get to high five him. He said it was just an excuse to meet people.
In his blackout state, he admitted to me that he thought that he was the only point of consciousness that actually existed. He told me that he thought he was basically Jesus Christ. He said he knew was he different and he was beginning to see that this was why. He had some divine connection. He was God incarnate.
Okay?
I didn't really know what to say to that. I wanted to assure him that I was real too but I didn't. I just drank my drink.
This type of rambling talk would continue when he would drink, but soon it got darker and darker. He would always confess to me, and I'm not sure why. He told me that he was Jesus Christ. Then he told me that this world was a "manifestation" of his state of consciousness. He said that strangers could hear his thoughts and he would test it out to prove it to himself. He told me he saw the number "11" in many different forms and that this number was a sign that the world wasn't real, and that it was just a manifestation of his consciousness. Okay? He told me to look out for "11" or "111" or "1111". He spent alot of time pointing out whenever he saw it, and he said it was special and that it meant this universe was a manifestation.
I felt like I was really beginning to lose him. I just wanted him to get a fucking job and rent a house with me so it could be like the old days. The college house was awesome. I wanted that back. I knew this fucking kid had a lot of potential. He could've been whatever the fuck he wanted. He was smart, good looking, and insanely creative. He could've done whatever but he just thought he was shit at everything. He hated himself and didn't believe he could actually achieve doing these creative things that he loved to do. He was so fucking funny. He just wanted people to love him.
And his drunken ramblings started getting dark. He would tell me about MK ULTRA, which was some brainwashing technique that the CIA used during the 50s. He said there were tons of MK ULTRA'd people out there, waiting to be activated to do some nasty deed. He began rambling about the Illuminati and he told me that everything on television, including the news, was fake. It was all planned to control our minds and to distract us from the fact that "they" owned the world. He said "they" were ushering in the end of the world. He said "they" planned every bad event like 9-11 or Kennedy's assassination or whatever.
He believed it was his job to stop "them".
But then the next time he'd get drunk and ramble to me, he would say that the Illuminati were actually just a manifestation of his own fear and limitations. Since the world was a mirror of his consciousness, even the bad stuff like his paranoa or fear was manifested, and that's what the Illuminati were. He said he needed to start meditating again to actually rid them from the world. I'm not sure if he did or not.
Then he would say, that the world is actually run by Reptilian humanoid beings. They had the ability to shape shift and all of our leaders and everyone in the entertainment industry was actually a reptilian. He said real actors and people would be killed and replaced by an alien shapeshifting look a like.
OkaY? Now he was getting really fuckiing crazy with it.
But then the next time he'd talk about all of this, he would say again the world was a manifestation of his consciousness, and the reptilians were real, but they were just a manifestation of his reptilian mind. He said he needed to overcome his "lower urges" that originate from his "repitilian mind" if he ever wanted to defeat them.
And then he would go weeks without saying any of this shit. He would still point out the 11's whenever he saw them, but mostly just got quiet about everything else. I noticed his wallet was still stuffed full of lottery tickets so I assumed that was still going on.
And this whole time, everytime he opened up to me, he begged me not to say anything to anyone. so I never did. Other people knew he was a bit crazy but they had no idea how far. I kinda wish I said something...
He told me that in September of 2015 there would be nuclear attacks on the United States. He said this back in like 2013 maybe? I can't remember exactly when. I just know he went off saying that he was the next big attack. He said "they" were going to manipulate the news to make people fear the police. He said even movies about people versus the police would be released right around this time just to further the agenda. He said it would to martial law, and it would lead to violence and it would all end with nuke attacks that would kill thousands and thousands of people. He said the world would be so much different afterwards.
And then, Matthew's mother retired. She was old. She could no longer take care of herself and him. So she retired. And she sold the house that they lived in. And she moved to Florida to be with her friends.
And Matthew hopped couches for a while but there was something different in his eyes. He looked like he was already gone.
He was staying at his friend Ben's house for a month when he called me up, crying his eyes out. He said he was walking around the streets so that Ben didn't know he was crying. I drove to him and picked him up. We went to a bar and drank scotch and he just told me over and over again "I was wrong. I was wrong about everything. I've wasted my fucking life. I wanted so much for us all. I thought I could bring it to everyone. I thought I knew." He never went into specifics, but I understood what he meant. My heart broke for him. He realized that he wasn't mentally stable. He realized that he had just wasted the past 10 years of his life. He looked like he was dead. He told me that he planned on staying at his friend John's house after that, but for some reason I didn't believe him.
I drove him back to Ben's house and I cried my eyes out on the way home. My friend was gone. I mean this was a great first step back to a healthy life. Most people would be happen that he finally saw through it all, like maybe he could get better. But I don't know...there was something in his eyes. It was like the light had gone out.
And I didn't see him for a little while. Ben said Matthew just stayed in his room, by himself. He would hear him crying from time to time. He didn't answer his phone. He didn't talk to anyone.
A few weeks went by. And then I was supposed to meet him at Ben's house to take him over to John's house. Ben was at work. It was cloudy out. Real cloudy. Dark clouds just waiting to pour on us all.
When I showed up to Ben's house, there was a note on the door. I'm never going to forget this motherfucking note. Ever. As soon as I saw the paper on the door I fucking knew. I didn't have to read it. MY heart sank and my eyes welled up.
The note just said. "Do not come in. Call 9-11."
I went in.
And there he was. Hanging from a rafter in Ben's house with a rope around his neck. His eyes were bloody and red. His face was blue and yellow. All of the veins in his neck and arms were fat and purple and sticking out.
So many people showed up at the wake there was a line out the fucking door. There was not a dry eye. Everyone fucking loved this kid. Everyone. And it was hard. For everyone. I almost didn't go. I couldn't fucking compose myself for days. I loved that kid. Everyone did. He died at 27 years old. He just wanted people to love him. And everyone, EVERYONE fucking did. So much. He just couldn't see it.
His ex girlfriends all blamed themselves. His other friends all blamed themselves. His mother....oh my god his poor mother. She couldn't walk at the wake. She was hysterical. People had to hold her out. I think she blamed herself most of all.
And I blamed myself. Because I saw this all happening. I saw his descent. I'm not sure why he chose me to open up to but he did. I could have helped him. I could have turned this all around.
And now he's gone. And the world doesn't know what it lost.
Submitted August 21, 2015 at 11:03AM by PringlesAndDrugs http://ift.tt/1hPomd6 nosleep
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