Untitled - Awaken Video

Chapter 8. The Making of a Seiðman 206
the hammer shot pain through my head as if I were being beaten with a baseball
bat. Eventually, my skeleton was beat back together. The giant of a man informed
me that he was placing one extra small bone in my neck. He beat skin together and
draped it over my frame. I could see myself from above and I looked like something
from a horror film like Night of the Living Dead. The dreamtime lasted for three
days but I’m not sure how long the dream actually lasted and physical time. No
matter, the pain was intense, I was horrified, and seemed to last forever.
The hallucinations/ dreams lightened up somewhat after that experience, but
they continued on for the next several years. They should mention that the dreams
did not only take place during sleep but during the day as well. I would see ghosts in
the forests high in the mountains, walking down the street, at work, and particularly
at graveyards and funerals. It was if a clear plastic sheet were always hanging down
in front of me and on that sheet I could see the reflections of people standing behind
me. I could see these people, they could see me (usually), I could speak with them
and interact with them, but they were thin and translucent. This is really the best
way that I can explain it. It was as if the Otherworld were somehow overlapping on
to Midgard.
In September of 1992 I went to a fiddle contest in Santa Fe, NM. I was scheduled
to play on a Sunday afternoon with a band that we had thrown together. Everything
was prepared and we had practiced our numbers several times. I was sitting in the
bleachers watching the bands who preceded us. About three bands before we were
scheduled to play, I became extremely nauseous. My stomach started rolling, I was
sweating profusely, I was becoming faint and I felt as though I were going to fall
from the bleachers. I had a suspicion that I was going to fall into hallucination right
there on the spot (remember, I still believed these to the hallucinations) and I told
my music partner that I needed to be driven home. At first, he thought I was joking
but after he looked at me he realized that I was sick and probably needed to be
driven to the hospital. He helped me down from the bleachers and over to the car
and we left.
About 30 miles down the road it lifted. Pneumonia, the ghost, detached itself
from me and I felt fine. In fact, I felt better than I could ever remember in my
thirty-six years on this planet. I felt light, healthy, well rested. Pneumonia’s parting
words were “It is done. We are finished.” It was at that point that for the first time
I realized this wasn’t a dream or hallucination but some kind of warp in the fabric
of reality.
Being a skeptic, a voice felt somewhat queasy about talking in terms of ghosts.
On the other hand, my experience with pneumonia over the past ten months left
me feeling as if a good friend had just left for an extended vacation. And although
I had come to accept pneumonia is not only having a life of his own separate from