This is a question I am holding as I've basically been talking down  my machine's terrors. "Try not to take things personally," I say,  as my machine steps into a suicidal electrical field--getting caught the way any person or animal could get caught in a briar patch.  "On the other hand," I say to myself, "you may as well take  everything totally personally--including all the problems in  Washington, atrocities in Kosovo, and neutron stars bombarding our  atmosphere with an overwhelm of energy..." "Heck," I say, "if there's anything good happening out there at all, you may as well take credit for that, too."

All this in response to my machine having entered or re-entered an  incredibly intense and terrifying depressive electrical field. It's having hallucinations--the whole works...It tells me it's evil, should be wiped out, is possessed by the black gang (not black people, but the guys who sweat mercury and manipulate world events). In the mean time, my pollyanna pride still anwers the phone at the office and tries to do tasks with a modicum of friendly sanity. And at night, I lay down in bed and send out a distress signal, that I think no one hears but the bad guys...or maybe a couple of buddhists.

I did have an a dream where I wandered into a buddhist temple and  this guy dressed in bright blue robes (all the others were in either street dress or orangish red robes) with a shaman mask and skulls yanked me aside and did some sort of exorcism ritual and pulled something out of my chest and then fed me waffles. It was an interesting dream because before wandering into the temple I had been at my apartment, but was baffled becuase it had been filled with rocks. Not just rocks. My entire apartment was full of at least three feet of road gravel--it was everywhere! When I woke up, I wondered if the landlord in the dream was trying to keep the ghosts down where they belong--or if this was some new cure for the ancient form of hysteria--which I read somewhere had to do with women whose wombs wander out of place--a bizarre idea, I thought, when I read it, but when I thought of all those rocks, I figured maybe they were trying to weigh it down (in the sense that an apartment would be a womb).

However, I don't think the dream exorcism did much good. I'm still   wandering around in an electrical field of fear, anger, and  tearfulness. I continue to worry over everyone, afraid the bad  vibes are spreading through our slime mold, even though I know it  doesn't help. I wonder about being a black gang pawn--and then I cry and cry and cry over my cat being missing and athletes dying off, and wicked witches who have no real power that I can discern--or good ones, either...and I get angry because people get sick whom I care about, etc. Regular depressive stuff

What the heck is going on? And where are the doctors who have half  a brain?

In the mean time, I'm trying St. John's Wort--to keep the serotonin  in the synapses a little longer before the MAO eats it up, plus I'm  starting to investigate something which is the precursor of serotonin called 5-hydroxytryptophan, which is available at the health food store--which they say works like Prozac, without the side effects, by beefing up the amount of serotonin the body produces in the first place--but I'm not that hopeful about any of it. All these chemicals and herbs do however keep me distracted and hopeful--but I don't think a chemical cure is going to do that much. 

I think I'm just plain scared. This particular electrical field feel like a Ubik world without ubik. I'm sorry to bother you with this, however. Actually, I've had a distress call out for quite some time--and not just for me. It occurs to me that actually I'm fine, but something is happening that my machine just doesn't understand. So it writes all that dead dorothy stuff as a way to try to figure it out. I don't like to talk straight like this. It feels too much like whining. I'm doing it, now, however, because I know I'm not the only person in the universe that this happens to. And I refuse to feed my stuff to the black gang guys (whom I think might like to take it, and everyone else's as well) if there was a chance of an upward spiral...for all being everywhere--including the President...

Following is a response from another dead friend who for the moment shall remain un-named.

Hi,

It is my experience that within the slime mold electrical fields are and are not discrete. The entire slime mold may not be experiencing the same at the same time as it seems that some electrical fields pass in a wave rather than permeate the entire organism at once which also happens. This is not to say that only one element of a slime mold will experience the field at a time. Rather a group or colony within the slime mold will often experience similar electrical fields in much the same way. Also, don't forget that some parts of the slime mold will respond differently to the same electrical field but there will always be a reaction. We also don't want to forget that some of the components of the slime mold seem to notice the effects if electrical fields more than others. Of course, you realize that I am speaking allegorically not scientifically. And I don't really know that the allegory would hold but I hope you understand what I am getting at.

I have also found that anyone who looks themselves squarely in the  eye on a regular and continuing basis can find themselves in the  midst of terrifying spaces (for lack of a better word). It,  unfortunately, doesn't seem to get any easier. Well, that isn't  exactly true. I have learned that truly "This too shall pass." That rebalancing my chemistry almost always helps. Something as simple as the change of the season, not eating properly, not getting enough rest, allergy can have a strong effect. Being able to admit to myself and sometimes to others that I'm downright terrified, lost and having all the wicked and evil thoughts imaginable seems to take some of the power away.  But, frankly, in the final analysis the best thing I've ever found to do is do my work. As you put it your machine "still anwers the phone at the office and tries to do tasks with a modicum of friendly sanity." When all hell is breaking loose inside I consider it a victory if I can continue to perform my tasks and interact with others reasonably well. I sometimes make a game of it when things are really bad. I call it "It Ain't Nobody Business But My Own". I set myself the goal of not letting anyone know what's happening inside by my manifestations. This doesn't mean that I don't tell anyone that I'm feeling really awful it just means I do my damndest to do exactly what you describe. And then I hang on, wait and pray because that's all I really know how to do.