Vispo Visions of an EEG Scan

On Tuesday I went to the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow for an EEG scan, which my doctor set up after I happened to mention the strange, hot energy in my head and the vibrating sensation at the centre of my skull. He wanted to rule out epilepsy and tumours and all sorts of other unpleasant diagnosis as any good doctor might, but I’m pretty sure the symptoms are a result of kundalini energy reaching my brain after years rampaging around my body.

I was led by a pretty nurse into a quiet room with an easy chair where a hairnet of sensors and wires was attached to my scalp with a sticky wet gel. We chatted a bit and I asked her if she regarded consciousness as a by product of the brain’s evolution or a field of energy which the brain filters into mind. She paused and said, “Yea.” I apologised for being so philosophical. She was nice and I felt extremely calm and relaxed as the scan began, slipping into a quiet and fairly deep meditative state as she asked me to open and close my eyes, while recording my brain’s responses on a computer. The room was poised at the verge of exploration and discovery. I felt peaceful, blissful, wondering if the scan might record the brain’s reaction to the lovely liquid energy flowing up my body into my head. The room began to doze.

Next the nurse set up a lamp before my eyes and told me to look into it while she set off a flashing strobe at ever increasing speeds. This is where it got really interesting. Psychedelic patterns began to emerge from the source of light, followed by a swarm of spidery, spindly letterforms, a hive of asemia, which danced across my vision from a central point of white light. Now I’m an eye guy. I love the perfection of the word and the wondrous effects of just being able to see. But I’m no optometrist, so I can’t tell you what these visions were in scientific terms - a cornucopia of corneal activity, an illumination of the nerves in my retina? I don’t know. They were, however, beautiful, mystical, full of strange meaning and alien insight. They reminded me of Mayan geometry or Aztec script, vispo prayers to eyeball deities scratched in milk white parchment.

All in all it was a beautiful experience, shared with a lovely, quiet professional, in a tranquil corner of a busy city hospital. The results may take up to 6 weeks, but that doesn’t matter. I have my results, my effects, my vispo visions of an EEG scan.

These are two of the poems I made mimicking the experience. I hope you like them. They’ll save you an EEG scan of your own.

A Little Chalk Dusting

Way back in 1995, I had what I came to realise was a kundalini awakening. For ever after it seems this strange, esoteric process, which is coming to a head, quite literally in this year of  2012 (my pineal gland is POPPING!), has been filtering into my writing and music in ways which are never quite satisfactory. Sometimes references are explicit, sometimes only implied; I've told stories about characters who resemble fake kundalini super-heroes, and written poems where the process is treated more autobiographically.

By far the most interesting way of depicting the awakening is through handwritten visual pieces, which are usually spontaneous and rough and probably quite shambolic, but that's why this mode interests me - it's direct, automatic, oftimes a great release of pent up psychic energy, because the process itself is frequently trying, traumatic even, but is, finally, one of new birth and creativity.

I solarised the above little sketch because it's really about being in the grip of something, being a subset of something, and so it kind of reminded me of schooling and that old chalkboard which has now disappeared from our classrooms. It's also about the shadow side of our existence, or what is hidden behind our eyes, behind the material world, behind the blackboard where the teacher keeps the chalk.

Another Kundalini Poem

The "u" and the "n" become the serpent coiled around the central pole, also the hills and valleys of the Kundalini experience itself. The pole is also the horizon or the path one takes. The "K" is the starting point, the body stepping out, also the crown of the crown chakra. The word Kundalini contains the letters "DNA", which seems appropriate as the energy becomes the building block of a new life. And then the two "i"s are the individual, the self at the beginning and end of the journey. As for the "L", it's the stopping point, mid-word, mid-journey, where one reflects on the experience thus far and firmly resolves to move forward, like the extended limb of the "L" shape. The yellow star is the sun, or the light above the crown chakra, or the Divine presence watching over the individual.

Simple, colourful, child-like. Kundalini.i.i.

Two Poems

Handwritten Concretes

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